Mahogany Tele

Last week I got my templates from Ron Kirn. I made working templates and prepared to get started on my Mahogany tele, but I was a bit sidetracked...

This Monday, when my back was no longer screaming in agony from getting rear-ended by a drunk idiot, I did the initial shaping on my body.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/tele-001a.JPG

The templates are great, I can't say enough good things about them. I might have a few choice words for my new router, tho - but that's why you make WORKING templates first, right? I only ruined MDF, not mahogany. And a little High Performance Wood Putty fixed the MDF right up in a jiffy.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/tele-004a.JPG


As for parts, it's getting a WD neck - maple with ebony fingerboard. The bridge is the Wilkinson you get from WD. The control plate and the pickguard (black pearl) are from AllParts.

The string-thru ferrules (not pictured) are from Nobody cuz they're sold out all over the place. Must be guitar building season 'round the world.

And the only problem I've run into (aside from DiMarzio not shipping the Area T pickups for another few weeks) is that I got the conversion bushings from WD and a set of a Gotoh Klusons from AllParts.

Those things don't like each other. The bushings fit right into the headstock. But the tuner post does not fit into the bushing. At all. Actually, a few of them fit up to the notch (like an eighth of an inch) but I see no way shy of destroying all the "shiny" on them to get them to fit together.

I noticed in hindsight that WD doesn't sell Gotoh Klusons, so I'm hoping the return-to-vintage bushings I specified on AllParts order #2 will work.

Now, back to hoping my total-loss payout covers what I owe plus enough for a new downpayment...

ryan

Last week I got my templates from Ron Kirn. I made working templates and prepared to get started on my Mahogany tele, but I was a bit sidetracked...

This Monday, when my back was no longer screaming in agony from getting rear-ended by a drunk idiot, I did the initial shaping on my body.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/tele-001a.JPG

The templates are great, I can't say enough good things about them. I might have a few choice words for my new router, tho - but that's why you make WORKING templates first, right? I only ruined MDF, not mahogany. And a little High Performance Wood Putty fixed the MDF right up in a jiffy.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/tele-004a.JPG


As for parts, it's getting a WD neck - maple with ebony fingerboard. The bridge is the Wilkinson you get from WD. The control plate and the pickguard (black pearl) are from AllParts.

The string-thru ferrules (not pictured) are from Nobody cuz they're sold out all over the place. Must be guitar building season 'round the world.

And the only problem I've run into (aside from DiMarzio not shipping the Area T pickups for another few weeks) is that I got the conversion bushings from WD and a set of a Gotoh Klusons from AllParts.

Those things don't like each other. The bushings fit right into the headstock. But the tuner post does not fit into the bushing. At all. Actually, a few of them fit up to the notch (like an eighth of an inch) but I see no way shy of destroying all the "shiny" on them to get them to fit together.

I noticed in hindsight that WD doesn't sell Gotoh Klusons, so I'm hoping the return-to-vintage bushings I specified on AllParts order #2 will work.

Now, back to hoping my total-loss payout covers what I owe plus enough for a new downpayment...

ryan


That one is gonna be a beauty-keep the pictures coming along the way, please.

Looks great.... don't skimp on the pix...... we love 'em all.

Ron Kirn

Looking really nice there fella... Yep... keep those pics coming!

BBB.

That looks like it's gonna' be a real beauty... What's your finish plan?
Love the black pearl guard btw... should compliment the fingerboard very nicely!

I'm working on a pair which I plan to finish clear. I'll grain-fill and then spray some Nitro out of the rattle can(s.)

Since I'm planning to finish these at the same time, I'll add some pics of the strat I'm working on to this thread.

Since most of this pertains to building a Tele as well, I'll try to document a little of this build process. I apologize for not having pictures of all the steps, but I couldn't foresee that I'd find this place when I was initially building the neck.


I will preface anything I say here with a few words of caution:

1. Power tools are dangerous. You can lose a finger. Or worse. You can't play guitar very well without fingers. Be careful and read (and UNDERSTAND!) EVERY INSTRUCTION pertaining to your tools.

2. I'm making most of this up as I go along. If I didn't make it up I probably copied it from someone else who made it up first. All of what I have made up has been refined by a lot of trial and error. You don't want to see the first neck I made. A truss rod bursting out the back of a neck is not a pretty sight. It also makes for terrible action.


For this particular guitar, I started with a MIM Strat neck. I had no qualms about marking it up, so I carefully measured both ends and laid out a center line on both the heel and the headstock.

I also scribed a centerline on a sheet of 1/4" plexiglass. I used a sharp metal point for this so the line is permanently imbedded in the plexiglass. When you place the line DOWN you can perfectly align the template to a pencil line drawn on a piece of wood. If the scribed line is up, there is potential for error since you're looking through a 1/4" of space.

I carefully aligned the neck with the centerline on the plexiglass and double-stick taped it in place.

At this time I drew an outline around the neck and marked the locations of the neck mounting holes and a few of the tuner screw holes.

I removed the neck from the plexiglass and drilled my holes -- these will make it easy to align the holes in the actual neck when I'm finished and will give me a way to securely attach the plexiglass to the neck for routing the template.

At this stage of the game, plexiglass is handy because you can see through it to mark your holes and you can't melt it when you're tracing the shape of the neck since the bearing will be riding on wood.

I installed a 1-3/4" long flush-trim router bit in my router table.

I placed the neck on the router table with the plexiglass flat on the table.

I adjusted the height of the bearing to ride along the edge of the fingerboard.

This is where you have to be very careful - because the headstock is substantially lower than the fingerboard.

I cut the plexiglass to the shape of the neck by feeding the plexiglass into the router bit left to right and always keeping the work on MY side of the table (never on the fence side of the table). I started on the "High-E" side of the nut, rounded around the heel and finished on the "Low-E" side of the nut.

I then adjusted the height of the bearing to ride along the headstock. I followed the same procedure to cut the headstock, being careful not to go into the area where the nut flows down into the headstock.

Since the transition area is a simple curve, I finished those spots on a sanding drum.

Next in line came a nice flat piece of hard maple. My maple is S4S meaning all four sides are planed/jointed flat. Therefore, I don't have to pay attention to what side I use - but you may have to if you have rough lumber.

I mark a center line on my neck blank. I use a carpenter's square to wrap the line down each end of the blank and then continue it on the other side. If all of your lines don't meet up, sand 'em off and start over. It's all gotta be perfectly straight and centered.

Lay your plexiglass template on your neck blank. Pick the spot where you like the way the wood is laying (put the nicer grain patterns on your headstock...) and align the centerline of your template with the centerline you drew on the blank.

Make a small mark where the centerline of the template meets the centerline of the blank - this is the bottom of your neck.

Use your carpenter's square to extend your mark across the width blank. Run this line down both sides and onto the back face as well.

Now place the template back on the blank and align the bottom of it with your line. Trace the outline onto the blank.

Remove the template and flip the blank over. Also flip your template over. Align it with the centerline and the end line and trace the shape of the neck onto the back of the blank. Make sure you flipped the template - you don't want to have the headstock pointing one way on the front and the other way on the back.

This is also a good time to make a line for your nut -- place the neck face down on your blank and align the center and end lines. Make a mark on the front edge of the nutslot and use your square to run this all the way around the blank.

Now it's time for the truss rod. Generally, you'll need to go by whatever instructions pertain to your particular rod. In this instance I used the Stew-Mac Hot-Rod and put the adjustment at the heel. When I do tilt-back necks I put the adjustment at the headstock -- the choice is yours, tho on the strat if you do a headstock adjust that's a lot of exposed area which adds enormously to the "screw-up" potential.

So figure out where your rod is going to go. Mark the beginning and the end of the rod on the blank. It's likely your rod will have square ends. Your options here are to rout right to your line and chisel the ends square or rout a little past the line to get the square peg into the round hole. The chisel is the better option. That said, I usually just go past the line a hair at a time until the rod fits snugly.

The Hot-Rod says to measure down from the top of the neck yay far and drill a hole into the heel for your adjustment nut.

I can't drill this hole straight to save my life, but I do try. What usually happens is that I reduce the depth of cut then carefully enlarge the adjustment nut end of the slot with the router until it fits. In doing this, I'm always sure to leave a bit of a "neck" in the slot so that the rod can't slide out the bottom of the neck.

Here's a picture of the end of my neck, showing the remains of the drilled hole next to the enlarged slot.

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/heel-rod.jpg

Stew-Mac suggests a few slugs of silicon or other such adhesive to hold the rod in place and also reduce the chance of the rod vibrating - do the same as pertains to your rod.

Next comes the fingerboard.

This guitar gets a Cocobolo Rosewood board from LMII. I order mine unslotted. You can pay 'em $7 to slot it for you if that floats your boat. They'll also radius it for you, too. But that turns a $5 fretboard into a $20 fretboard. Doesn't sound like a good deal to me. Unless you're Mr. Lmii.

So I take my unslotted board and I mark a centerline on it. This takes some extra effort cuz the board comes tapered. Take a few measurements along the face of the board and take your time. Get a nice straight centerline which also runs nicely with the grain. If your line is perfectly measured but sweeps across the grain at an angle you might want to make some adjustments and start over.

As with the neck blank, I run the centerline ALL THE WAY AROUND the board. Front and back, and both ends.

Next I align the centerline of the blank with the centerline of the 25.5" fret slotting template. I then mount up the rickety sled (with an index pin which mates with the indexes on the slotting template) on my sub-standard tablesaw and start ripping fret slots.

To get this right, you need to cut the slots deeper than you think you need them. Remember, when you radius the board the depth on either end of the slot is gonna get shallow - really shallow if you're doing a vintage radius. Try it in some scrap wood first to get a feel for how deep they need to be. Maybe there's a book that tells you how deep to make the slots, but like I said before, I'm making this up as I go.

The templates I have index a slot for the nut - it's the same kerf as a fretslot so this will be the eventul front edge of my nutslot.

Cut your slots carefully, slowly and deliberately. Also - and please read this part twice - NEVER PULL THE FRETBOARD BACK TOWARD YOU THROUGH THE BLADE.

Lift it off the table. You only PUSH the fretboard through the saw. Never pull. If you pull you'll get a double-wide slot or a cross-slot or some other nightmare. Or maybe not. But there are 22 (or 23) chances for a disaster, so why risk it?

Once the board is slotted and your truss rod is in the neck, it's time for some glue.

First things first, clean the surfaces with some Naptha or other drug of choice. Next, rough up the back of your fingerboard blank. Cocobolo is oily and isn't very good friends with standard carpenter's glues.

That doesn't mean you can't use them. You just have to take some extra steps.

But before we glue, let's do some dry fitting.

Align your nut slot with the nut line on your blank. Align the centerlines. Put clamps on it all the way around. Make sure the centerlines and nutlines all stay where they're supposed to be. Even if you use every clamp you have you'll probably wish you had more. Putting the clamps on now will get them all to the right size so you can quickly put them back on when the glue is out.

BUT - before you take the clamps off, we need some extra protection.

Cuz right now as you dry-fit this stuff, the board is likely just sitting there not giving you any trouble as you keep it on the centerline. Once there is glue under it, it's gonna be a different story.

So -- since the board is wider than the neck will be, drill a couple of small holes through the board on the outer edges and into the neck blank. I usually put one on either side of the nut and another pair on the heel end. Just make sure you're drilling outside of your neck outline.

Use a couple of pickguard screws or whatever else is handy to screw the board to the neck blank. Then, once they're in, take 'em out.


And while I'm here, let me add -- USE TITEBOND. The original. If you ever need to disassemble the neck you'll be glad you did. TITEBOND II is waterproof and cannot be steamed apart.

Now take a piece of masking tape and run it down the center of the neck blank to cover up the truss rod.

Spread glue all over the blank. Go a little past your end line and a quarter-inch past your nut line. Use your little finger to spread the glue. Too much is bad and too little is bad. Get a nice film on there that you can't really see through.

Once the glue is spread, peel off the tape. There will be some wood with no glue, but that's fine. When you clamp it will spread - and if you got the right amount it will spread right up to the truss rod slot and stop.

Now put your fretboard back on there. Put your screws back in which will guarantee it's aligned. Now clamp it. Get some squeeze out all the way around, but don't clamp too hard or you'll squeeze it all out. Check to be sure it's still aligned (it should be if you did the job right with the screws...) Wipe off the squeeze out and then wait. I usually let it sit overnight.


Once it's dry and you take off all the clamps you have a big funky looking rectangle of wood which sort of (like in an alien kinda way) resembles a guitar neck.

Put your template on it again - this time on the back side of the neck.

Drill a few pilot holes in the back of the neck -- use two of the neck mounting holes and two or three of the tuner mounting holes.

Use pickguard screws to attach the heel of the template to the neck and use tuner screws to attach the headstock of the template to the neck.

If you have a router table, you don't need to countersink the screws. If you're going freehand you'll need to countersink them.

Also - something to consider - it's a really good idea to transfer your plexiglass template to something sturdier at this time. The guide bearings on your router bit WILL melt plexiglass. It's not a matter of MIGHT MELT. It WILL MELT. It's only a question of when...

I personally stack three bearings on top of my template cutting bits, which is usually safe on the half-inch cutters. The 3/8" or 1/4" bits are much more prone to heating up and you can't get enough of them on the shaft to counteract the heat build-up.

I rough cut the shape of the neck on the bandsaw and leave about an eighth of an inch for the router to handle. Then I slap it on the router table and go 'round and 'round. The bearings follow the template. The cutter eats the wood.

On this particular neck I was going for a 22-fret fingerboard (but my original was only 21...) so I cut the extra slot and left the end hanging out into space. When I routed the shape of the heel, I carefully adjusted my depth to cut the maple but leave the cocobolo hanging. I squared up the overhang with a sanding belt.

Here are some shots of the neck at this point in the story:

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/roughneck-side.jpg

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/roughneck.jpg

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/rough-headstock.jpg

And here's a shot of the body which will get its own story in a little bit:

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/rough-body.jpg

I take it, that's not a "one Piece" body...

Ron Kirn

Nosir. That's walnut and ash. And lots of glue.

For the body, I guess I cheated in the beginning. The blank was given to me already glued up and planed to an inch and 3/4.

I chose an intersection of Ash and Walnut as my center line and then turned once again to a sheet of plexiglass.

I scribed a centerline on the plexiglass, then (with some tape in place to protect the finish) measured and marked center on a Robert Cray hardtail strat body.

I mated the plexiglass to the body with some double-stick tape, made sure the center lines were lined up and went to town.

First I drilled some 5/8" holes in the plexiglass to let the flush-trim router bit get inside the cavities. Then I simply used the router to trace the pickups, jack & control cavities as well as the neck pocket.

While the template was affixed to the front of the guitar, I also marked the locations of the bridge mounting holes and a couple of pickguard screws. These will let me use some screws to better secure the template to the blank.

Then I transferred my template over to my blank, aligned all the centers, stuck it down with some double-stick tape, changed to a template bit and recreated all the cavities in my blank. Standard disclaimers regarding bearings and clear plastic are still in force at this point. But I didn't melt anything. This time.

Next, I removed the template and cleaned up the tape residue.

Using a lot of judicious eyeballing and some mysterious measuring techniques, I laid the strat body on top of my blank and used a pencil to trace the outline onto the blank.

I didn't use a half-a-pencil because I didn't want a perfect outline - Since I don't have a body shape template to rout I know I'm going to be doing some shaping with the sanding belt and that sucker hogs off A LOT of wood. I wanted some insurance cuz you can always take wood away but it's a little harder to put it back, especially when you intend to do a clear finish.

Next was to the bandsaw to cut out the rough shape, which is what's shown in the picture in the last post.

Then it was off to the sander to make the round parts round.

I don't think I have any pictures of that intermediate step.

After getting the general body outline, I needed to create the waist and forearm contours.

My favorite tool for this task is a 4" Makita Angle Grinder. I've got a Black & Decker 60 Grit flap wheel on it - and it can reduce a chunk of wood to microscopic dust in a heartbeat.

If you are gonna use this method, take some extra steps to ensure a happy tomorrow. First, clean up your area. Any tools or screws or parts or ANYTHING are gonna be buried under fine dust. Second, make sure you wear a respirator. The shop-vac isn't going to cut it for this one. Neither is an ambient air cleaner. The grinder makes REALLY, REALLY fine dust. You don't want to get it in you. It won't ever come out.

I sketch some transition lines on the top and edges of the body -- these sort of denote what the contoured parts should look like at the edge of the body and at the start of the slope. The rest is up to the hands and eyes. The only thing I can say about how to do it has been said a million times -- Take away everything that isn't a Strat.

I go pretty hard at first and concentrate in the center of the contours -- these are going to be your deepest spots so you can get used to the way the tool acts in this particular chunk of wood.

Once you get half-way to your pencil line, start sweeping it up toward the edges and work the whole thing all the while trying to keep the grinder moving and sweeping in graceful arcs (as it tries to tear itself outta yer hands) and always keeping the angle of the disc in line with the angle of the contour. If you try to cut UP the slope you'll dig in and make tool marks which won't sand out (at least not before your arm gives out.)

Once it's mostly where I think it should be I go back and forth between the grinder, 80-grit paper on a MegaMouse and a scraper blade trying to get out all the tool marks and get it smooth. You'll inevetably have a few ridges you can feel with your fingers, but I say that's the hallmark of a handcrafted guitar. It shouldn't ever look like it came off of a CNC machine.

I find these contours to be my favorite part of building guitars. When I get it shaped and start to sand out the swirl marks from the grinder I'm always struck by how dramatic the change is. Before it was a block of wood. Now it's a piece of art - something I created and which can not be duplicated. Each one is different, and each one is always better than the last one.

Here are some shots of the contours:


http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/forearm-sm.JPG

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/waistsm.JPG

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/shaped-sanded-sm.JPG



As for the neck, the only other stuff I've done so far is to clean up the rough shape and thin the headstock and make the transition from the nut to the face of the headstock.

This was done first by hogging some of the wood off the face of the headstock on the router table then sanding to final thickness and getting the slope on the sanding belt -- the curve was formed by using the pulley on the sander.

Here's a shot of that:

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/data/500/medium/headstock-sm.JPG


More to come...

ryan

It's been awhile - I guess I've been too busy playing my tele to type on the Internet about it.

I did make a few changes - I decided to go with a simpler look and I ditched the WD neck in favor of one with no inlay (but it does have side dots.)

The headstock graphic was done with model decal sheets on an inkjet printer. I think next time I'll spray a few coats of the provided sealer stuff - I had a few spots break away as I lacquered.

I decided to go with Seymour Duncan pickups. Since I typically play high-gain rock and metal, I put a Hot Rails Tele in the bridge position. It makes me wish I had more Duncan pickups for my other guitars.

The neck pickup is the Seymour Duncan Vintage Stack, and it's not really paired very well with that bridge pickup. It certainly sounds like a tele neck pickup and is much, much quieter than the Hot Rails. As such, I don't use it too much and I'm trying to figure out what I should replace it with.

Pots are CTS, switch is CRL. Knobs are Fender.

This guitar has become my absolute favorite -- and I have quite a few to pick from.

The finish is tung oil right on the mahogany. No filler, stain, or dye.


Anyhow, here are some pictures:

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-1.jpg

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-2.JPG

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-3.JPG

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-5.JPG

the baby looks great.... I love Mahogany....

Ron Kirn

Cool.

The choppingboardacaster looks sweet!

Thanks for the kind words.

Maybe one of these days I'll get back to working on that Butcher Block strat. For now I'm happier playing this Tele than I ever imagined I would be.

ryan

The side grain on that Mahogany looks great! Do you know what type it is? I recently built a Hog Tele (Broadcaster thickness) similar to yours, but the wood looks a bit different?

I Tortoise bound mine & installed the Area T's. I put a Musikraft Mahogany neck w/ some tuners w/ white buttons you don't often see on a Tele. Got a good deal on some Ti Ferrules, since I'm a lightweight fanatic (6 3/4 lbs). Not sure if there's any big difference in sound w/ them though :?:, but they sure were light & shiney...lol.

So far, it's working out just fine...Nothing wrong w/ Mahogany or the Area T's!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/Rnbguitars/Telehog2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/Rnbguitars/Telehogfront.jpg

Rich

The side grain on that Mahogany looks great! Do you know what type it is? I recently built a Hog Tele (Broadcaster thickness) similar to yours, but the wood looks a bit different?

As far as I know, and as far as I can tell, it's Honduran Mahogany. The guy who usually supplies my lumber has a hard time with anything that doesn't grow in the Mid-Atlantic region, but he managed a swap with a cabinet shop for some "sample" mahogany. They said if we want more it's a 500 board-foot minimum order. Seeing as my cost worked out to $50 a blank on those, that's a lot of dough.

I think he managed to get me four or five blanks out of the "sample" lot - two were two-piece bodies, and three were wide enough to do as one-piece blanks.

The piece you see there for that guitar is one I held onto for a long time before deciding what to do with it. It had to come out of a crotch in the tree somewhere because it has very distinctive patterns in it - very unlike the typical straight-grain you see in mahogany. You can see a round set of rings on the bottom corner where your right forearm rests, then it gradually works its way back to a straighter grain pattern.

I was also a bit leery of it because it had some big splits in it - in fact, you can see what's left of one just above the neck pickup on the shot of it laying on it's side. That spot is almost like a turtle shell or a fish scale - it looks like if you dug under the seam it would want to peel away in a nice smooth layer.

Ryan

great looking , nice job so far.

Last week I got my templates from Ron Kirn.
where can you order the templates

Umm... give me a shout....

Ron Kirn

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-2.JPG[/IMG]

http://www.ryanadam.com/guitars/images/Tele-5.JPG


Hourglass, this is some exceptionally fine central american Mahogany; I can't remember the last time I saw some this delectable. Great presentation.


Bubbanov

Hourglass, this is some exceptionally fine central american Mahogany; I can't remember the last time I saw some this delectable. Great presentation.


Bubbanov

Thanks for the kind words. And thanks to everyone else who also posts their homebrewed creations - every time I come here I think I learn something new or even better - something old with a better way to do it.

Ryan

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/Rnbguitars/Telehogfront.jpg

Rich

Man oh day - that picture is even better than the ones you had earlier.

How many elbows did you blow out polishing the finish on that thing?

Ryan

Man oh day - that picture is even better than the ones you had earlier.

How many elbows did you blow out polishing the finish on that thing?

Ryan

No foolin', no polishing machines here...lol!

Actually, it really wasn't all that difficult, just time consuming like most tasks you take on for self-fulfillment. I was going to send it out to be painted, but I wanted to match the neck I finished going on it. Since I'm a painter by trade, I elected to do it myself. Mahogany's such a great looking wood, I'm really getting hooked on it.

The bad news: The following day after finishing, while setting it up, a screwdrivrer flew out of my hand & and landed you know where...:sad:. I tried to repair it, but it shows! Might do it over.

Your Hog body almost looks like Cuban Mahogany (http://www.goodmanguitars.com/wood/cmahogany_billet.html) which is getting difficult to find now. It has very visual graining features...like yours!


Rich