Winter Build Off 2018 - 30" telecaster

[postalflunkie]

First things first, the wood pile.

We have some nice 2" thick black walnut and shagbark hickory here.
The plan is for a neck-thru body (possibly chambered), telecaster style (like the six string, not a Tele bass)
Going for a short scale 30". 2+2 headstock. '51 single coil P pickup in the neck, split P in the bridge. Volume, blend and tone controls with push-pulls for series/parallel on the split P and half-out-of-phase on the single coil.

Here's another shot of the wood pile

 

[Jisch]

I've got a bunch of hickory drying in my attic right now, curious to hear your thoughts on working it, I heard it was very hard (and hard on tools).

 

[postalflunkie]

I've got a bunch of hickory drying in my attic right now, curious to hear your thoughts on working it, I heard it was very hard (and hard on tools).

I made a telecaster for my son last year with this same recipe, it didn't give me too many fits (a small tear-out that I fixed fairly easily)

 

[Jisch]

That's awesome. I can't wait for this stuff to dry!

 

[postalflunkie]

I spent the last couple weeks trying out some different pickup configurations. Originally I was going to go with two single coil P pickups. After trying that out on my little test-bed I made I wasn't impressed with the single coil in the bridge position. The split P sounded much better and opened up a few other tonal options.
This is my test-bed I threw together. I can mount the pickups to this and clamp it to the front of another bass and change the wiring around with the breadboard (no soldering needed)

The numbers on the pots match the numbers on the breadboard

 

[ctmullins]

Neck-thru Teles are cool!

 

[postalflunkie]

Starting with the small stuff as that's about all I had time to do tonight. Got the control plate made, knobs turned and first coat of tung oil on it all. I still had some scraps from my son's guitar to work with. And I even tried to keep the knobs at the 65% walnut ratio.

 

[postalflunkie]

Got to spend a few hours out in the garage this morning. Ran wood thru the planer, 1.1" for the two pieces of walnut .3" for the hickory.

And got it all glued up.

I'll give it a few days to dry then run it thru the planer again to clean it up.

 

[Beej]

Nice, glad to see some progress...

 

[postalflunkie]

Got the Neck blank all cleaned up and made the first cut for the headstock angle.

Also got the hickory planed down to a quarter inch, decided on how to lay out the body wings in the grain and got the bottom wing glued up

 

[postalflunkie]

More work done today (day off from the post office). Got the body wings out of clamps and planed to thickness.

Cut everything out on the band saw

And cleaned up the edges with a sanding drum in the drill press. Hopefully my next big tool purchase will be an oscilating spindle sander, but for now the drill press works fine.

 

[postalflunkie]

Mocked it up with an old fretboard off a Tiesco bass that had a broken headstock. I kind of like it with the binding but don't think it's the board I'll use.

 

[ctmullins]

I love that swoopy side grain on your body wings!

 

[postalflunkie]

Only had a little time this weekend but managed to get the truss rod channel cut

and a little cutting on the neck.

 

[Scoops]

Nice progress!

 

[postalflunkie]

Nice progress!

Seems kinda slow going compared to the other builds. I'll have more time to work on it after this week, got a long needed vacation coming up.

 

[postalflunkie]

Got the hickory face glued on the headstock last night. Tonight's activity was gluing up the fretboard (and lots of checking alignment after each clamp)

 

[Beej]

Well, you're rocking along compared to me.

What is your fretboard made from?

 

[postalflunkie]

Well, you're rocking along compared to me.

What is your fretboard made from?

At this point in putting together my workshop I don't have the tools do build a fretboard from scratch. I've found it easy enough to lift a fretboard off a cheep bass (and usually get a decent truss rod in the process). It actually is more cost efficient than buying both. It looks to be some variety of rosewood???

 

[Beej]

Good call...