[ack1961]

First post - be gentle.
Hey all, my son and I are thinking about building a guitar in our newly built workshop. We've sort of settled on building a short-scale bass (30-31" scale) based on the Telecaster guitar body (our all-time favorite), to which we hope to attach a pre-made shortscale maple telecaster-esque neck.

We're thinking about buying a nice Alder or Walnut blank (they're inexpensive, and it is our first build - hate to ruin a nice Koa slab), and shape to tele specs...We both like the idea of using humbucker bass pickups or a single darkstar.

I've read through several forums here, and was floored by the work that some folks have done in making Telecasters. The thread by Buckocaster that chronicled his build-out was phenominal and inspring, but I don't see many mentions of telecaster bass builds with twin humbuckers or darkstars. I've seen fantastic work done by Rhomco and bkim. Congrats.

I'm fairly confident that it's a feasible project, but I'm looking for any suggestions that might help. I've seen several references as to where I can buy a telecaster body template, but I'm going to need the templates for the buckers or Darkstar, if one exists.

I know there's lots of details yet to incorporate into the build, but we have a chance to sift through some wood billets on Thursday and pick out a few that we like. We're looking for something with an amazing grain as we won't paint this one. Also need to get an oscillating drum sander - that looks like the ticket to quicker raw sanding.

I'm starting to build my parts list from some of these other threads and what little knowledge I have for building from scratch, so any suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Steve