10 Attachment(s)
First electric guitar build - QLD Maple Tele
Hi all,
As promised in my "G'day" post (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f175/beginner-melbourne-178825), I've been working towards my first guitar / telecaster build and have come far enough to make a post about it.
I started off by buying a long piece of QLD maple last year from Thumbsucker via the Market Place on these forums. After some sanding it revealed a nice reddish colour with good tight and straight grain at one end and a bit of a crazy but cracked grain at the other where a there was a crotch on the timber.
Attachment 306211
Then through a thicknesser. There was a slight twist in the length and buy the time I got it out with some hand sanding, etc, and back through the thicknesser I had lost quite a bit of thickness and was down to 40mm rather than the 45mm I was hoping. Ohwell, live and learn, and I decided to just push on.
After assessing the cleanest body halves I proceeded to cut and join.
Attachment 306212
Time for stencil building. After waiting too long for my A1 drawings to arrive from Officeworks I went ahead with multiple A4 + sticky tape. Not ideal :)
Cut with a bandsaw and sanded to final shape with a drum on the drill press and a belt sander clamped sideways on the bench.
Attachment 306213
Then traced on to the maple and back to the bandsaw.
Attachment 306218
Stencil fastened to body through the pickup locations, and off to the router. I didn't have a router table at the time (have since fixed that!) so went hand held with the router using an inverted flush trim bit for the first pass then flipped it over and finished with a regular flush trim bit. My first try using a router - I was a little shaky at first but took my time and got used to it eventually. I found the tight curves either side of the neck the hardest, with the router wanting to tip. A couple of blemishes there but nothing a couldn't sand out.
Attachment 306221
Then a tight radius bit around the edges, both sides. Old bit, a bit of burn...
Back to stenciling for the neck pocket and other cavities. Particular care with the neck pocket to fit tightly on the neck (I bought the neck). Neck pocket cut. Neck trial fit. Nice and reasonably tight. String through holes drilled on the drill press. Quick assembly for the end of the day. Tunes and seems playable - relieved.
Attachment 306223Attachment 306225
Next build day. Cut pickup and control cavities from MDF stencils. Pickups and pots arrived. Pickups are Dragonfire Tex Blues. Hardware fitted and wired temporarily. Re-string, tuned, plugged it in - all working. Some setup to do, but it plays and sounds surprisingly well.
Attachment 306224Attachment 306226Attachment 306227
TODO: Next up is stain + poly clear coat. I've got some reading to do here before proceeding.
Soon after, I'm hoping to have a go at making a neck from some QLD maple.
It's not a very interesting build log, but I can say that I've thought of nothing but woodworking since that first day in the workshop... and not just guitars. I've since been on a mission to setup my own workshop and the wife hasn't seen much of me...
a little telecaster history
leo fenders first electric production "spanish" guitar [1949] as opposed to the lap steels they made were built from two slabs of machined one inch pine glued together
the finished thickness was around 38 - 40mm these had the ashtray bridge, single pickup and headstock still seen today on the modern vintage repro teles
this model was painted black and known as the "esquire"
the original proto telecaster came fairly soon after when the sales guys at fender suggested that leo put a second pickup on the design
this model was called the broadcaster, then the nocaster and finally in late 51 the telecaster -
the colour of this model was known as blonde and faded to a yellow mustard colour - think of keith richards micawber or springsteens tele
the olympic white tele was released in the 60's when fender began using auto paint to produce the "custom color" models
the broadcaster / nocaster story is an interesting one if you care to go gargling
