1950 Double Esquire Build

[preeb]

The first "Spanish Guitar" to hit the market was the Esquire and the first few Esquires were a little different then what we normally call Black Guards... maybe it's because it didn't have a black guard... but there are a few other things about it that make it unique.
The body, like all early prototypes, was made of a few pieces of Pine and was thinner at about 1 1/2"- 1 9/16". The neck was a one piece maple without a truss rod and string tree. Body was painted with black lacquer and the guard was white. there are many other small details that differ this creation from the later Teles which I'll try to show you during this build thread.

I'm not going to run my usual wood selection process as I would like this build to be as simple and pure as possible. I don't care about weight, wood figurings, frequencies...etc... I'll just do it and hope for the best.

For the body I'll use a few pieces of pine I had for a while. It's the stuff I use for jigs... but it's dry enough to be used for a guitar body. It's my first pine build. It's full of knots but I love it this way...



Since this is not a standard build I had to make a spec sheet and I'll follow it to avoid mistakes.



2 Body outlines are traced.

[preeb]

Early morning birds will keep me company in the shop...



Body is cut at the line on the band saw



Note the other set of wood on the back...



Template attached to the back

[preeb]

Robosanded



flush trimmed



Neck mounting and string ferrule holes are drilled through the back

[preeb]

I used a 51 Broadcaster template so the router hump has to go as the original early ones didn't have it



Like that



Front template attached and the string posts are drilled half way to meet the holes from the back (They didn't do it like that originally... but I hate the "exit wounds" on the back of the old originals... but I did took a couple of them off axis to break the straight line...LOL)



They connect 100% with the back drills...

[preeb]

No truss rod means no truss rod channel between the neck pocket and the pu cavity..
I set this little attachment on the template.



I use this little gadget to quickly adjust routing depths



Prototypes were routed shallow @ 1/2" - 9/16" deep. I'll do the same



Nice smell of fresh pine in the shop... all routs done real quick. Note the period correct tooling marks in the cavities.

[preeb]

Another shot



Here's the tricky part... the pu leads channel is drilled from the neck pocket through the neck pu cavity into th bridge pu cavity.



In order to keep enough room for the bridge pu in the very shallow cavity, the channel center needs to meet with the cavity bottom allowing the neck pu leads to run under the bridge pu height adjustment screw. The drill is done with a long HSS 1/4" bit at an angle which leaves a very shallow mark in the neck pu cavity as well.



Like that

[preeb]

Another channel is drilled to the control cavity. I have to be careful with my angles as this body is only 1 1/2" thick...



Stepped string ferrules drills on the back



Note the 1st and 3rd from the left... I took them a little off axis to look correct... I guess...



Knots are filled and big wood dowels are used to plug the template tooling holes. The early ones used much bigger plugs (3/16") so I do the same.

[preeb]

As the plugs dry I'll drill the input jack real quick

Template is used to locate the drill location and angle



A lead drill of 1/8" is drilled for the 7/8" bit that follows (see the mandatory result in the cavity wall...)



Whoops... I forgot to take shots of the roundover... nevermind...
Body is roughly sanded on both sides. Done!

[preeb]

Here's another view of the pu leads channel from the neck cavity

[MikeMurray]

Reposting, didn't realise more pics were due.

[preeb]

For the neck I grabbed a stiff maple blank. I never use quarter sawned maple for necks because it's a tone killer so I'll have to use a super hard blank for this trussrodless neck (-;

Outlined



Sawed



Robosanded



Flush trimmed

[preeb]

Tuner and neck mounting holes are drilled



Almost looks like a neck...



Super fat V neck profile is what came on the early black Esquires... I'll do th same (can't complain about that one... (-;)

[preeb]

I set the radiusing swinging jig to 9 1/2" which is the correct radius for this baby



Done



Marking dots drilled



Black resined fiber (AKA Bakelite) is used for the dots. They are punched in and sanded flat

[preeb]

Headstock is thinned to 0.575" (+ a little for sanding...)



and transitioned



Like that




I'm going to keep the neck 100% straight before the fret installation. This way the fret tangs pressure will back bow it a little which is needed when no truss rod is present...
Making sure it's straight with a straight edge... it is.

[joelstrummer]

These build-threads are awesome- very interesting to follow..

[preeb]

No ski jump allowed in this project..

[IMG][/IMG]

Neck-Body joint test... perfect!!!

[preeb]

A few more shots...

[preeb]

That's it for now... I'll cut the steel saddles tomorrow.
BTW, I have a little question...
Does pine need pore filling? I never used pine before and I'm not sure about this...

[MikeMurray]

<3 I feel giddy!!! Probably going to be my favorite build of yours so far!!!

Oh forgot to mention, looks AWESOME man. I am just sad that in SA, wood grows really fast so the only pine we can get is very very wide grained - nothing like that. We use it for construction and every other thing where cheap wood is needed :P

Why do you say quarter-sawn maple is a tone killer?

Mike

[junk mutt]

Hi preeb, Great thread as always. I was wondering about the neck having no truss rod does this affect the tone in a positive way or is there no difference?
I've made a couple of pinecasters and never felt the need to grainfill. Just a couple of coats of sanding sealer does fine.
Keep up the great work.

[preeb]

Originally Posted by MikeMurray

... Why do you say quarter-sawn maple is a tone killer?
Mike

From my experience, QS is not as rich sounding as FS.
I try to use Half QS on the treble side and flat on the bass side on all my builds. This gives me the best results and neck stability. This is my own opinion and I know many love QS... I just don't...

[preeb]

Originally Posted by junk mutt

Hi preeb, Great thread as always. I was wondering about the neck having no truss rod does this affect the tone in a positive way or is there no difference?
I've made a couple of pinecasters and never felt the need to grainfill. Just a couple of coats of sanding sealer does fine.
Keep up the great work.

Thanks junk mutt.
I obviously expect it to sound different without the rod in there...
This guitar is exactly the way Leo planned it and I trust his designs blindly.

[fraarfa]

"and was thinner at about 1 1/2"- 1 9/16"......"
that rehab the today affinity and bullet Squires

[preeb]

1 17/32" (-;

[olaftheholy]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!


Gil Yaron, back to the primitive!!!!


Finally!


You are going to so love this guitar!
Just mark my words.




Succes met de bouw van deze gitaar!


Groetjes,

[funff]

Yay! Another Gil Yaron build thread to drool over!

Is this the Esquire you've been promising yourself to make for months now, for your own use? Looking forward to the rest of it. Thanks!

[three barrel]

The only thing missing in this build so far is the obligatory sandwich. Another mesmerizing build thread though. Thanks!

[Scooter91]

It's fascinating to watch one of your beauties take shape, Gil. Great stuff!

[Shepherd]

The neck looks like it's sitting really high in the pocket, is that normal? Are you going to have any issues with the bridge with saddle adjustment?

[Buckocaster51]

that is one fine looking chunk of stuff.

Great job and once again, thanks for sharing!

[preeb]

Originally Posted by olaftheholy

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

...
You are going to so love this guitar!
Just mark my words.
...

Thanks Olaf.
Did you have one of those built already?

[preeb]

Originally Posted by funff

Yay! Another Gil Yaron build thread to drool over!
Is this the Esquire you've been promising yourself to make for months now, for your own use? Looking forward to the rest of it. Thanks!

Yes it is funff... but unfortunately I'm not going to keep it... I simply have way too many instruments and I'm going to let most of them go... I only need my 56 P-Bass (posted here too) in order to focus on playing rather than guitar collecting + I have to make room for "real life" domestic things other than guitars if you know what I mean (-;

And NO... it's not my wife asking me to do it... it's my own decision. She actually loves guitars and knows more about vintage stuff than the average player... + she's going to start helping me with the pu's soon.

[preeb]

Originally Posted by three barrel

The only thing missing in this build so far is the obligatory sandwich. Another mesmerizing build thread though. Thanks!

No... the sandwich is already there... in a different way though...

[preeb]

Originally Posted by Scooter91

It's fascinating to watch one of your beauties take shape, Gil. Great stuff!

Thanks Scooter91

[preeb]

Originally Posted by Shepherd

The neck looks like it's sitting really high in the pocket, is that normal? Are you going to have any issues with the bridge with saddle adjustment?

Yes. Normal. some early ones had a 1/2" deep pocket... I did 9/16".
Actually... the height adjustment issues started when they changed to 5/8"...
This is too low for the 5/16" saddles and that's why they had to shave the E and e undersides and eventually went to 1/4" saddles in 1954.

[preeb]

Originally Posted by Buckocaster51

that is one fine looking chunk of stuff.

Great job and once again, thanks for sharing!

Thanks Buckocaster51, and you're very welcome. my pleasure!

[olaftheholy]

i have flatsawn necks,a quartersawn,and a flatsawn capped.
But i hear no difference in these necks.
The quartersawn is the biggest one of all of em.
They feel different and q is waaaaay stiffer then all the others.

[olaftheholy]

Originally Posted by preeb

That's it for now... I'll cut the steel saddles tomorrow.
BTW, I have a little question...
Does pine need pore filling? I never used pine before and I'm not sure about this...

Yellow pine does... a little.
Do it for good measure anyway's, couple coats of shellac usually does the job

your's is yellopine no?



Others species like sugar and oregon mostly do not.

[preeb]

Originally Posted by olaftheholy

i have flatsawn necks,a quartersawn,and a flatsawn capped.
But i hear no difference in these necks.
The quartersawn is the biggest one of all of em.
They feel different and q is waaaaay stiffer then all the others.

Comparing 2 necks is not enough to establish a statement.
I had quite a few built and almost all of them sounded too muffled.
I also hear the same muffled tone in other instruments (I don't wish to name the brand... but a rather big one it is...). Fender never used QS in the days.

[preeb]

Originally Posted by olaftheholy

Yellow pine does... a little.
Do it for good measure anyway's, couple coats of shellac usually does the job
your's is yellopine no?

Others species like sugar and oregon mostly do not.

OK, Thanks. Yes, it's our local yellow pine (everywhere you spit in Israel you hit a pine tree)... but I can't see any open grain in it, it looks 100% smooth.
I'm not sure, but I think it's the better sounding one too... isn't it? it supposed to be fuller sounding with better highs as a result of its density. I'm just speculating but I'll definitely try other types as well. I just ordered 5 blanks of feather weight clean white pine and I'll give it a try when it arrives.