emoney's 2012 Challenge Build Thread -- COMPLETED

[emoney]

I have no idea why I'm doing this, other than the fact that I had planned to
start a Tele build anyway, so maybe the Challenge will keep me "on task", as
my elementary-teacher wife is so quick to point out that I'm "off".

[jkingma]

No better time than now. Good luck.

[emoney]

Thanks, I'm going to need all I can get....plus a little of yours.

I should go on record now saying that I have no illusion of winning or even being
in the top 2/3s of this thing, as I have just enough experience at this stuff to
disqualify me from the beginner category. Now, had this come about a few
months ago, well that's a whole notha' story

[RogerC]

Good luck, money! Glad you you here and participating!

[tvvoodoo]

I be watching, and cheering you on E

[tomringg]

Good luck emoney!

[emoney]

Thanks all, and glad to be here. Let's hope I make it all the way to end with a playable
guitar!

[emoney]

Ok, here's my pic;

Ambrosia for the top, African Mahogany for the neck, Cocobolo for the fretboard and
I have no idea what I'm using for the body blank yet......gulp.

[paulmarr]

Looking forward to watching another clever build!

[FrankenFretter]

Right on, good luck to you sir! Looking forward to seeing the progress.

[Bowensby23]

Good luck e! Nice to see you on tdpri. (i'm ocw over on the mlp forums)

[emoney]

Hey, (ocw) good to see you here as well. Thanks everyone for the well wishes. I'll try
to keep this thread updated as often as possible and if nothing else, we'll have some fun
along the way.

[pulaifaz]

hi emoney - good to see you here also, I am also following your ES build

[emoney]

Originally Posted by pulaifaz

hi emoney - good to see you here also, I am also following your ES build

Thank you. I'm trying to get that one in the "ready for finish" stage so I can
concentrate on this one. I am, however, going today to see if I can find some
"mahogany-like" interesting body wood, with "light" being the most important
adjective. This Ambrosia doesn't seem to me to be that light as it is, so there
very well may some "ES" attributes thrown in this sucker....

I'm too old for "heavy"...or I should've actually said, "too out of shape".

[dilbone]

nice choices of woods there...gonna be purty I'm sure...

[emoney]

I'm assuming it would be best to take another picture with my entry sheet once I pick up
my body wood? If nothing else, I guess it can't hurt.

Thanks, dilbone.

[emoney]

Well then, we might as well get at it, right? Before we do anything, and since I added
a body wood, let's share that pic, just in case, okey dokey?;

What's extra in this pic, as opposed to the one above is I've added a piece of African Mahogany
that's actually got a little ribbon to it. It's too bad it won't be show very much.

Before we get too deep into this thing, and don't worry, I'm a long way away from "deep"
at this stage, but some of you may need just a touch of background on your "thread host"
so that some of the decisions you see take place make a little more sense. Let's establish
this, first and foremost: I'm NOT the guy you want to model your future building efforts on.
I'm pretty much a "newbie" still, as I've just hit 1 year in this hobby, and I can say I wish
I'd started much sooner because I'm having a blast. Another thing is that I'm a little on
the "cheap" side. Well, maybe that's not a fair word, because mainly I just don't like to
order things because I'm OCD (obsesive compulsive disorder)...functional, of course, and
a touch (my wife would said "lot" but that's a potato/potatoe thing) ADD (attention deficit disorder)
so I have the patience of a gnat. I like to be able to run out and pick up whatever I need
at the moment, so there will be decisions based on that. Ok, enough of the "foo-foo"
conversation, let's make some sawdust.

In staring at that pile of wood, and rolling around ideas in my head all day at work, I think
I've finally come up with a game plan for this build. I'm not good enough at this to have
secrets, so there's no need to be elusive with the information. I plan to build a traditional
shaped Tele, but with designs elements from a Gibson Les Paul Custom. The body will
be in 3 pieces, with Mahogany in the middle, a carved Ambrosia top and a flat & thin
Ambrosia back for resonance. There'll be chambering, so if you're a purist, you might want
to keep your eyes closed until the body is glued up. I'm going set neck, Mahogany, and
I'll make my own truss rod.

So, that brings you "up-to-speed" on both me and my "hopes" for this particular build.
I'm gonna need all the luck I can get. More to follow......

[emoney]

Alrighty then....on with the show.
1st things 1st in any build, is to have a plan and a template if you want your curves to
be the right type of curvey and your straight lines to be somewhat straight. I printed off
a Tele drawing in 4 sheets of regular printer paper, taped them together and laid them
out on a piece of Luan (very thin plywood for those scoring at home) like this;

That right there is your Standard Issue Spray Adhesive The Plan to the Template shot.
Once that's done, it's simply head over to the bandsaw, and ....ummm...bandsaw away;

I like to get as close to the line as possible by an untalented hack, and then proceed to
the belt sander to finish it up. When I get luck on my side, I end up with this;

The next thing, for me anyway, was to cut up my body woods into their "pre-glue-up" versions,
and I like to trace the newly minted template on top them, just to make sure I like where
the body will eventually end up....a little like this;

Here's the top, as I've decided to lay it out;

And the mahogany in the same stage;

The back, you can see here in it's "pre-resawn" shape, underneath the neck blank;

My bandsaw isn't big enough to resaw this piece, so that will be done by handsaw and
with a lot of consternation and good-old-fashioned cursing as well. I'll make sure that
I DON'T provide audio of that, so that this thread can remain at the very least, PG-13.

Speaking of the neck blank (we were speaking of that, weren't we?), my OCD-edness
(that's a medical term so don't let it get to you), caused me to pause here, and wax
poetic (I don't even know what that means). I had a dilemma, basically, that needed
solved immediately (that's the "obsessive" part); I need a headstock design that isn't
somebody else's.

Let's open another reply window, and talk more about that, shall we?

[emoney]

This is almost like time travelling, isn't it? I mean, don't you feel like you were right there
with me when I did all this? I could've sworn I saw you, but then again....

Sorry, I digress. The headstock.....that's the problem at the moment. I'm a little too lazy
to sit down with pencil and blank paper and start drawing out alternatives. I did something
similar to that about 2-3 months ago when I came up with my 3+3 headstock and I didn't
enjoy it, if I'm honest. It looks like this;

I even made myself a template of it, so I got that out, and laid it on a piece of scrap poplar
that I have no idea why I even had (I've done zero woodworking prior to this recent guitar
building fetish I've picked up), but nevertheless, it was there, so I laid the template on it;

To make this very long and boring story a little shorter, what I decided to do was use
half of this design, and just put a little triangle on the top half, much like Fender's.
I ended up with this;

I hope you can see that ok, and if not, it's in the picture above as I cut this out so I'd
have a template for it as well. If you have thoughts on this "design" please share them.
I'm sure somehow I've come pretty close to someone else's, but it's really hard to "make
something new under the sun", since the old expression....oh, nevermind.

Anyway, that's about all I've got done so far. Tomorrow, I'll get back on the cursing and
handsawing the back plate, then I'll move into joining all three layers and hopefully will
have them in the glue up stage by the time Friday night ends (I don't have much of a
social life, as you can tell). I'd like to cut out the 3 layers of the body by Saturday or
Sunday afternoon at the latest.

So that's it for now. I appreciate any and all comments and thank you in advance for
visiting my little slice of Tele Build Challenge Heaven. Please do come back......pretty please?

[crazydave911]

Sorry so late in the day, welcome and good luck!


Dave