Blackguard Telecaster Build - Parts List

[Motor]

carbonti - Thank you. You were correct in "Trust but verify". I keep forgetting to buy a pair of calipers. I will next time. I believe I have enough clearance. I will know when I go to string it up. The bottom of the E and B string slots is about 3/32 above the bushing. I'm thinking it may look a little odd wrapped on those posts, but it should work ok.

dilbone - I guess those old guitars look have a relic job for a good reason. Let me know how your live show goes.

ajgus and mechaman327 - You are guys are too kind. Thank you both. The encouragement really means a lot. My better half thinks I'm insane spending so much time and money on this. I must admit I have been obsessing over all of the little parts. I can't wait to build another one!

[Motor]

OK, I studied the information on Guitar Nuts Web site and the photos that John Kingma provided. Here is a picture of one of my solder joints:



A little lumpy, but what the heck. Basically, you need flux, a soldering iron, some silver solder, and some wire. You solder the corners where your tape seams meet. I used two pieces of copper tape in each of the five cavities (neck, channel, bridge, control, and jack). Then I used three pieces of wire (neck to channel, channel to control, bridge to control) and soldered those up. You tin the ends of each wire before you solder them to the copper. Pretty simple. Instructions on youtube.

Taping = 1 hour
Soldering = 1 hour

I imagine this would take much less time if you know what you are doing.

Question: Do I have to clean out the small amount of residual flux? What do I use to remove it?

[Motor]

I'm leaving some, but probably not all, of the copper tape overlapping outside the cavities. It needs to make contact with the heavy duty aluminum foil that will be glued to the back of the pickguard with spray adhesive.

It looks sloppy, but that's the reason why I'm leaving it.

[Buckocaster51]

I'm not a big proponent of shielding, but it looks like you have done yours right.

You're making a Faraday cage, and you don't want ANY spaces for little disturbances in the ether to work their way in.

Thanks for sharing.

[dilbone]

Originally Posted by Motor

dilbone - I guess those old guitars look have a relic job for a good reason. Let me know how your live show goes.

Motor, it was loud...it sounded like a light saber...Not sure exactly what to make of it. I don't have any noise like that in my barn where we practice and the entire barn is lit with flourecent lights...and the wiring is sub par...

I had to hold my guitar at just the right angle to get the hum to at least be managable...I don't move a lot when I play anyway, but that was rediculous last night.

I'm not sure if there is just dirty power there, because I typically have more noise there than any other place I've ever played with any guitar I play. I'm going to have to do some experimenting and possibly some shielding. I have some aluminum tape I might try but I probably won't be doing as thorough a job as you have.

[dilbone]

Originally Posted by Buckocaster51

I'm not a big proponent of shielding, but it looks like you have done yours right.

You're making a Faraday cage, and you don't want ANY spaces for little disturbances in the ether to work their way in.

Steve, as a fellow physics major I'm with you on the principles of shielding, but you're saying you don't have noise issues in your guitars without shielding? I'm at a loss then as to what is causing my problem. Any advice would be helpful...you all can comment on my build thread so I don't totally hijack motor's thread here. But I guess we are having a good discussion about shielding of which motor is doing a fantastic job.

[Motor]

dilbone - Sorry to hear that! Let me know what you decide to do. The shielding is easily reversible, you just pull the tape off and the solder comes with it. You could put a small dab of glue in the corners of the aluminum foil so it would be easily removed from the pickguard if you don't like it.

The experiment would cost you very little.

Here are the instructions:
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/tele.php

Here is the 2 inch Stew Mac Tape:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...pper_Tape.html

I recommend the 2 inch. You will waste a little more, but with a pair of scissors, you can get pieces that are large enough to cover each cavity using only two pieces.

[Motor]

Steve - For my education, what don't you like about the shielding? Do you play unshielded guitars in ratty old bars with bad wiring? I live in Portland, and some of these dives are 50+ years old.

[Motor]

If the problem is that the copper shielding removes some of the highs, I think I have the solution in the amp.

I keep the tone knobs on my Gries 35 in the middle. I have the ability to dial in more treble/mid/bass if necessary.

If the problem is that the copper shielding turns the tone to mud or sucks the life out of the pickup, then I'm in trouble.

[Motor]

It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to remove all of the shielding if it is not working out.

[Motor]

Bought some 3M 90 high strength adhesive and some heavy duty aluminum foil today. Will slap it onto the pickguard when it arrives.

Chomping at the bit for Callaham "Your order has shipped" email. I only place my order at noon Friday, but it seems like I placed the order weeks ago. I had to wait till payday to place the order. Guesstimating that it will ship sometime next week. Only custom item was 1958 on the high gloss neck plate to commemorate the unfortunate damming of Celilo Falls.

[Motor]

My Callaham order shipped today! That was a fast turnaround. Unfortunately it won't arrive for a week, twiddling my thumbs until then.

I might start work on my myrtlewood pickguard for my next build, which I hope to turn into a rocker rather than a twanger.

Kind of liking the cream tele bodies here, but I especially dig the way the wood looks on a black body, or perhaps even a deep maroon red:
http://artisanguitarrepair.com/woodp...om/gallery.htm

[Motor]

Callaham shipment arrived today. Got right to work.

Here is the electrosocket jack cup and switchcraft jack and cloth wire, flathead screw kit, strap buttons, and vintage ferrules:



Here is the custom stamped 1958 neck plate, for the date that Celilo Falls was dammed (ghosting and blurriness in these photos are due to some lame setting that my digital camera is stuck in at the moment, and I was in too much of a hurry to figure it out, sorry about that gentlemen):



Here is a dry assembly with the black bakelite pickguard and 3 way modern switchplate with early dome broadcaster knobs. Check out the tight fit with the pickguard, more on that later:

[Motor]

First, I replaced the Kluson tuner screws with the slotted screws that came from Callaham. Lined them up, looked nice, then onto the next thing.

This is the neck plate going on with soaped up flathead screws:

[Motor]

Here is the first ferrule waiting to go in while the soldering iron heats up:



Took about 30-60 seconds to heat up each ferrule, then I pushed it in with a screwdriver. Slid right in on the D G B strings. The E A E strings took some extra fenagling for whatever reason. Hope these look ok. Please let me know if they need to be pressed in further, as I don't have another telecaster to compare it to.



As Mr Kingma recommended, I added a little tape to the bridge wire that goes through to the control plate cavity. I also replaced the saddle and bridge pickup mounting screws with the slotted screws that came from Callaham. These worked just great, no problems and no compatibility issues with the Glendale saddles and bridge plate:

[Motor]

Example of the flathead conversion screws. The top ones are for the bridge pickup, Callaham slotted on the left, Glendale phillips on the right. The next down is the slotted Callaham saddle screw on the left, the Glendale phillips on the right. These worked just fine:



I got the bridge screwed down with slotted screws, and tried Jack's trick just to see if I was in the ballgame. Let me know if this looks OK:

[Motor]

Pickguard was too tight in two places:



Taped her up to prevent scratching the shiny bakelite and started filing and sanding:



Ended up with this after about 1/2 hour:

[Motor]

Here is the 3M spray adhesive and heavy duty aluminum foil, as described on the Guitar Nuts Web site:



Here is the pickguard waiting to dry:


Here it is waiting 10 minutes to dry and to be trimmed out:

[Motor]

Here is the pickguard roughly trimmed out. I need to do the detail work later, but I am getting tired:



Here is the pickguard lightly screwed on (glue still drying on aluminum foil shielding):

[Motor]

Comments: Callaham stuff is first rate. Love it! Gorgeous workmanship. The domed early 50's broadcaster knobs feel sexy to the touch. They are kind of sharp on the rough points. They are extremely high quality. Heavy. Good.

I love the little touches like the coffee can imprint on the back of the bakelite guard.

Something magical happened at the moment I screwed the neck on. At that moment, it felt like a real guitar instead of just a bunch of conceptual parts. It's an incredible feeling, this being my first one.

PS - Everything tonight went extremely quickly due to the generosity of you guys with posting your information here. I can't say enough how thankful I am to have found this board and I hope my small contribution of posting a few photos and describing my build helps other newbies to get started. There is nothing like assembling your own guitar to get you closer to your art of making music.

A friend was talking about replacing pickups the other day, and instead of glazing over, I could visualize every aspect of what that must have looked liked over and under the pickguard. Pretty neat. Thanks guys.

Best regards,
Motor

[Motor]

I had about a dozen pinholes in the finish that looked white from wet sanding dust. I touched those up today with a golden oak minwax pen (the one with the rattle ball inside of it). Worked just fine.

[Motor]

Quote from Twelfth Fret luthiers here in Portland Oregon:
Approximately $200 for the following professional setup:

- Bone nut (cut, filed for 10's, installed)
- Fret dress (they recommended it with the USA Custom guitars neck, although they would skip it if it didn't need it)
- Strobe tune
- Intonation
- Setup

I can save 50 bucks going elsewhere, but they are extremely talented professionals, and this guitar deserves the extra TLC that I am not currently qualified to provide.

Professional luthiers need to be paid for their work and expertise. Twelfth Fret said they were hurting for work due to the recent economic downturn. Looking forward to doing business with them again. It's been awhile.

[dilbone]

Motor, looks terrific so far...the grain looks great, hardware is topnotch...great build

[carbonti]

Fantastic build so far, congrats. The color of the butterscotch & blackguard contrasting with the maple neck is very sweet. I'd be interested to hear how the fret dressing turns out, if they do it - how much tuning is needed on a USACG neck to make it fret perfectly.

You're in sight of the finish line.

[Motor]

dilbone - Thank you!

carbonti - I will let you know about how much fret dressing is required.

Also, it tentatively looks like I'll be OK on the E and B string tuners. They sit pretty low, but in my test (see photo above), I was able to string up the E string and tighten it without and problems.

[Motor]

Got the remainder of what I intended to do finished tonight:
- Pickguard cleaned up and screwed down tight
- Neck pickup installed
- Jack cup installed
- Strap buttons installed

I think I will leave the soldering to the good folks down at Twelfth Fret. I don't want to press my luck. I should have trimmed some of the rubber tubing on the neck pickup screws. It's sitting in there kind of tilted slightly back toward the bridge.

Anyway, I don't have enough experience to proceed any further without risk of messing some things up, and I trust these guys to do a great job and I won't have to take it back in for several years, so I might as well drop it off tomorrow at the shop.

Kind of anticlimactic, but there you go. I'll post pics and hopefully some video when I get it back from the shop.

Cheers,
Motor

[Motor]

In a holding pattern at the moment. There was a little issue with the neck pickup, and since I don't know much about electronics, I had to send it back. One of the solder joints hadn't been heated up enough to melt the enamel on the copper wire. It was fixed immediately and shipped back to me on Saturday. It should arrive back to me in a couple of days.

Regarding fret dressing:
> I'd be interested to hear how the fret dressing turns out,
> if they do it - how much tuning is needed on a USACG
> neck to make it fret perfectly.

The luthier checked out the frets and said that they definitely needed to be dressed if I wanted any kind of low / medium action. I told him to go ahead and do it -- don't want any fret buzzing.

If I have to go to the back of the line at the luthier's, I may not be able to play it till middle of December. It could be sooner if I get lucky.

Cheers,
Motor

[mowcheeba]

All new necks benefit from a fret dress but on the USACG necks
I feel it is not neccessary unless you need really low action.
Since most Tele players are not shredders most USACG necks
are left alone...

[Motor]

Thanks for the comments mowcheeba.

I'm not a shredder, and I'm a big fan of the quality of work and service from Tommy and his crew.

A good fret dress feels great, and that will be one less problem I have to worry about going forward. I feel it is worth 40 dollars to have it done, especially since I trust this luthier. They dressed the frets on my 1971 Gibson ES 335 a few years ago, and the improvement was significant.

He was very clear about the frets on this particular neck not being level and that they would require a dress to get a lower action. I can't speak for other USA Custom Guitar necks, as this is my first one.

Best regards,
Motor

[Motor]

Got my guitar back from the luthier and took it to practice last night. I'll post sound clips soon.


General impression: Resonant, light, fun to play. I like the 25 1/2 inch scale, as I tend to fret heavily with my left hand and it stays in tune better for me than the flappy 24 3/4 scale on my Gibson. Feels solid and pro.

Neck position - Sounds pretty good, but I did not use it alone very much.

Middle position - Heavenly for rhythm guitar. Shimmery and delicious. I kept it here most of the night. Way to go Mr. Don Mare. High presence and definition through a 70's Super Reverb I was plugged into last night. I would agree with tristankavian that this setup sounds like an acoustic guitar, especially when compared to hot humbuckers.

Bridge position - Country country country. No ice pick. Heartaches, cheatin wives, drunken barroom brawls. You know what I'm talking about. 7.0k custom bridge in they style of the hayride set does me just right.

That's a pretty wide open sounding amp. My buddy plugged my tele into his 30 watt National (Valco) and hit it with the Maxon Overdrive, and it compressed down and raunched up into some Keith Richards territory.

I was worried about having the pickups slightly waxed, but there is no problem at all with squealing feedback (we were playing loud last night). Dead quiet with all of the shielding in there, I recommend that.

Getting a slight sitar sound on the open skinny E string. Going to tinker with that more tonight. Also, the jack cup is really tight.

Neck shape is a little different than I expected it to be, but not unpleasant. Need more time with it to tell. My Gibson has 1 1/2 inch nut. The 1.65 feels a little weird to me right now, but it's ok --- just odd to have the tall frets and wide nut. The ash body looks sharp, I wouldn't change anything about that.

I love the separation between each note (maple/ash) and the fast attack. Sounds extremely country. Definitely not a hard rocker guitar. It's Country, Americana, some classic rock, and surf. The maple laminate/mahogany(rosewood cap) of my 335 sounds more brooding and back in the mix. This is right in your face.

Gotoh Kluson staggered tuners are great. Loose E and B posts that sit low in the bushing might be culprit for the sitar sound. Checking on that, will report back.

Glendale plate with aluminum/brass/brass: I haven't heard the others, but I like this one just fine. Aluminum sounds neat. Honestly, I think any combination of brass, hardened steel, and/or aluminum would be fine (just your personal preference). Perfect intonation. Looks sharp.

Callaham control plate - I like the early 50's knobs, they have sharp grippy edges that feel high quality. Nice smooth, quiet transition. I have two volume knobs on my Gibson, so I had to use a volume pedal or boost pedal for solos. On the tele, it works wonderfully to crank the amp and roll back the volume, and bump it up a bit when I need it. Since I haven't used it much, it will take me some time to figure out exactly how much to turn up and down the volume knob. I was a little too loud and too quiet at various times through the first practice.

If you are a total beginner guitar builder and have questions at all about a good pro setup, custom bone nut, and a fret level -- I would recommend just spending the money to get it done by the best person in your area. You end up with a pro feeling guitar right out of the box. No worries. I want to get all the fret and nut slotting files and all that later, but for now, I was just anxious to have something that plays correctly.

Cheers,
Motor

[Motor]

My tests yesterday were guitar --> Lava ELC cable --> amp.

Tried it for an hour tonight with guitar --> Lava ELC cable--> Keeley Compressor (9 o'clock squeeze, 1 o'clock level) --> Lava ELC cable --> Gries 35 amp.

That's what I'm talking about. The compressor kinda reins in the beast. I like the Gries 35 a lot. Breaks up nicely at medium volume, very clean if you bring down the guitar volume. Excellent blackface Fender Vibrolux clone. The Super Reverb has a fuller sound, but as many others on this board have noted, it's just too loud for most small practice spaces and small clubs.

Sound clips soon. First I have to learn how to play though. Haha.

[dilbone]

great to hear motor,

I'll look forward to sound/video clips...and it looks great too.

There's just something about playing one you built...

[Motor]

Sound clips are now available.

Cheers,
Motor

[Motor]

Someone asked me for details on the finishing steps for the neck. I did not post them in detail before, so I am posting them here.

I did the following on the neck:

- Do not sand anywhere near the place where the neck attaches to the body. I carefully covered this with blue 3M painters tape.

- Wiped it with a water dampened cloth, let it dry, which raises the whiskers. Then I removed the whiskers with 0000 steel wool. Be really careful around the frets and edge of the fret board. Blow off with a can of compressed air for your computer keyboard. Rub with cloth dampened with mineral spirits. Let dry. Repeat this whole process start to finish three times.

- Sprayed 4 coats Zinnser rattle can shellac dewaxed sanding sealer. Let dry between each coat. After last coat, lightly sanded with 0000 steel wool. Hit with compressed air. Rub with damp mineral spirits cloth. Wipe with tack rag.

- Two light coats of rattle can nitro. Warm the nitro first for a few minutes in a pot of warm water. Careful to avoid runs. Dry thoroughly. 0000 steel wool. Damp mineral spirits cloth. Tack rag.

- The Behlen Maple jet spray is a pain in the rear. If you go too dark, you are in trouble and have to start over. It looks fake orange. Don't do this, it set me back several days and you won't get all of it off. Warm it up in a pot of warm water. Practice on some scrap wood. Get the spray going in the air before you run it over the wood, this avoids splotches. Go extremely fast and light. Do not be suckered in by what looks like uneven coating, there can be some subtle birds eye effect in the maple, and it is an optical illusion. Anyway, blast it with a very very light coat or possibly two, then stop and let it dry for a day. Come back and look under natural light. If it's still not dark enough, try again. Don't sand after this step.

- Then lots of light nitro coats. 0000 steel wool. Mineral spirit cloth. Tack rag. Repeat for maybe 8 coats total. Let it hang in a cool dry place for 30 days before you do anything more with it or the finish will be too soft and you will get marks in it when you lean the guitar against something.

- You are done. Screw on the tuners, bolt it onto the body and have fun.

[Motor]

Latest thoughts on this guitar:

It's working out perfect for me. It's my number one guitar now, and I don't even touch the Gibson. Playing a tele has changed my whole approach to playing guitar. I keep it simple and tasteful, and am extremely mindful of what my right hand is doing all the time. I've never played a guitar as expressive as a tele before, and I'm enjoying the challenge. I fall asleep with it at least once a week, because I like to practice so much. I especially like to play it with no other lights in the room except the single blue power light from my amp. I wanna hear the music and focus on getting a good sound out of the instrument.

Cheers,
Motor

[ajgus]

Originally Posted by Motor

Playing a tele has changed my whole approach to playing guitar. I keep it simple and tasteful, and am extremely mindful of what my right hand is doing all the time. ment.

I must say that I feel the same way. I've been playing Teles for a little over a year now & they have completely changed the way I play. They make it very hard to "cheat". They are so expressive that its almost like they only do exactly what you tell them to do. I have found that Les Pauls & Strats are much more forgiving.
Once again, great work on that guitar. The finish is absolutely beautiful!

[Motor]

That's cool ajgus. I totally agree with you. And I now understand why telecaster players are such a dedicated bunch. That microphonic bridge plate coupled with the heart breaking whine of the bent strings is addicting.

One more little item:
> Getting a slight sitar sound on the open skinny E string.

I got this tip from the Danny Gatton instructional video on youtube. The problem there was that I wasn't careful enough about evenly winding the strings down all the way to the point where they are extremely close to the wood. This makes a sharper break angle on the bone nut, and seems to get rid of any weird sitar sounds. When I wasn't careful about this, other strings started sounding weird. The little things make a big difference in a guitar like this.

[carbonti]

Nice job on the completed tele! I also listened to your posted youtubes and the Mare pups sound pretty crisp, good luck with the tele as you sound delighted with it.

Re: details of how the neck was finished - any thoughts on the use of shellac for this? As maple doesn't require sealer, was this done for the effect on the colortone? I'm looking to try something different on my next maple neck.

FWIW, until now I've used Stew-Mac vintage amber heavily diluted with water to directly stain the raw wood after whiskering the neck. Cleared with nitro and done. Directly staining the wood enhances the grain and refractive qualities in the maple that toner shading doesn't do. Looks snazzy but is not vintage correct like shooting toner color coats.

Anyway, just talking shop here. I gotta go back and reread how you did the body for pointers as I just bought a USACG swamp ash tele body. This will swap with the body of my 52AVRI with its ridiculously heavy poly coat.

Teles are amazing guitars - the only electric instrument that can be used to play pretty much any genre in guitardom.

[dilbone]

great to hear this one turned out to be a prized axe...congratulations...

If you're anything like me, that build taught the instrument in a way that couldn't have happened any other way.

Nice Job

[jkingma]

Looks like it turned out pretty good. Nice job.