English Sycamore Tele Build

[68thinline]

Hello everyone. I am an amateur woodworker and tele-lover trying to build by first tele from scratch with very limited tools. It all started with a nice piece of 8/4 English Sycamore that I salvaged from work (cost me about a twelve-pack) from which I sawed these two boards:


The pieces were edge joined and glued, then I took the slab to work where we have a 16" joiner to flatten both faces. Then I traced the outline from my 68 tele, cut with a jigsaw, cleaned with a router and sanded to the line (mostly).


Then it's on to routing the neck cavity with my homemade template:


Done. Now for lots of hand sanding in those tight curves...


The sycamore is hard, likes to tear out on the router, but sands beautifully. So far so good. This weekend I'll start on the neck. I've found a nice hard maple board that should do at least 4 of them.

[Scott Auld]

Very nice. Keep posting pictures :)

[Faraldi]

Man that's gonna be sick!

Ok, I have a band saw and for the life of me, I can't cut a body to save my life.

You did this with a jigsaw? Amazing.

I can build speaker cabs because I cover them in Tolex (or leather or...) Makes my sins hide.

Bare wood... I'm a butcher.

Can't wait to see the whole thing in steps.

Good luck.
Joe

[boris bubbanov]

How does English Sycamore make it to Gainesville? :^)

Looks great.

For those of ya'll that are wondering if you can cut up that sycamore in your backyard:

English Sycamore is an Acer species, like our maple.

American Sycamore is a Platanus species, like the English Plane tree. So, the Sycamore in the USA backyard (with all that cool exfoliating bark and the giant, late emerging leaves) is actually good for making shipping pallets. This stuff is more like Rock Maple.

Now, back to our scheduled programme.

[Ironwolf]

My wood supplier here has tons of English sycamore. I've been considering some to make necks, if I can find some that I like the looks of. A nice grain or firing or birds eye, otherwise it just looks like everyday maple.

[strive2walk]

I have an early 1990 Gibby J200 made of English sycamore and it sounds fantastic! E. Sycamore has interesting grain that should make it look great.

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by Faraldi

Man that's gonna be sick!

Ok, I have a band saw and for the life of me, I can't cut a body to save my life.

You did this with a jigsaw? Amazing.

I can build speaker cabs because I cover them in Tolex (or leather or...) Makes my sins hide.

Bare wood... I'm a butcher.

Can't wait to see the whole thing in steps.

Good luck.
Joe

Pretty low tech. You can't get too close to the line as the blade can angle in at the bottom. I used the router to square the edge, and spent a long time sanding to get rid of the tooling marks and tearout. The tight curves up by the neck rout were the hardest.

I've never used a bandsaw.

I am sure there are better methods, if I invested in the right tools. I do have a drill press so I'll probably go for the robosander next time.

[BoogerRooger]

Looks like a fine piece of timber! let us know how it sounds when it's finished.

If the template was a '68, how did it come to be come notchless?

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by boris bubbanov

How does English Sycamore make it to Gainesville? :^)

I'm lucky - I have a day job working for an Architectural Millwork firm that does large commercial jobs. We often buy thousands of board feet at a time. Mostly maple, poplar, and African mahog. There's always leftovers and sometimes we get some interesting species in smaller quantities.

This board just kinda jumped out at me.

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by BoogerRooger

Looks like a fine piece of timber! let us know how it sounds when it's finished.

If the template was a '68, how did it come to be come notchless?

Are you referring to that little hump I see on some of the pre-CBS guitars? This is the guitar I used to trace the outline:

[68thinline]

Lots to update today...

I wanted to start on the neck this weekend, but almost all of the maple we use at work is soft maple. That might be good for practice, but I didn't feel it was suitable for the finished product.

But then, good fortune fell on me as I was leaving the office on Friday. I stopped at Chip's office and showed him the rather lackluster piece of scrap wood I though might be hard maple. Long story short: when I told Chip what I was using it for, he offered me this wonerful figured maple that he'd been keeping in the corner of his office for several years (we are all little pack rats as you might imagine).

This is what he gave me:




Which, in turn, produced the following:

[68thinline]

Here's a closeup of the figure:



It's a valuable board and I realize it's an honor I've been given. So I know, I can't screw this up!

I don't have a neck template so my first step now is to make one. I'll use my 68 thinline as a reference:




Once I've transfered all the measurements to the template board it gets cut on the jigsaw.

[68thinline]

It looks good but it's off by almost 1/8" along the top. The remedy is to glue on several thin strips of mahogany veneer, then sand it all down flush.



There's another problem too. On my reference tele, the width of the neck at the body is 2-3/16". The width of my template is 2-1/4", but the width of the pocket is only 2-1/8"!



So the template has to be sanded to the correct width, and the body cavity has to be re-routed!

I'm afraid of tearing out a chunk with the router so I know I have to take it slow and easy. I'll need the right soundtrack:



The neck pocket is re-routed to the correct width:

[68thinline]

It's not a bad fit, but I soon discover there's another problem: This guitar is almost 3/16" longer that my old tele! The problem (again!) is with the rout in the body (it should be at 12-7/8").



So much for my homemade routing template. The good news is I can fix it all with another pass of the router. But for now, I'm going to wait.
Instead I'll go online to order the pickguard, control plate, and bridge saddle. I want these in my hands before I do any more cutting on the body.
____________

So now it's back to work on the neck(s). There's just barely enough width to squeeze two necks out of each board, if I'm extremely careful.
But I'm thinking ahead: what's the best way to rout for the truss rod?

I've seen some of the other posts where folks build an elaborate jig to hold the neck comfortably centered while the router slides over the top. I think I could try that, but right now I feel more comfortable having a straight edge on the neck until after the slot is cut.

I'm going to rip the boards to 3-1/4" in width, so the template is laid out on a centerline 2-5/8" in from the jointed edge and the boards are ripped on the table saw.



And there's just enough leftover to make a fingerboard!

[68thinline]

I love that this guitar is being assembled from scraps and leftovers. At work, sometimes, thousands of board feet are needed just to make baseboard, door casings, and crown molding for the inside of a 5-star hotel!

One of the first projects I was involved in was a Westin hotel in Charlotte, NC. Maybe you've been there. The entire public area of that hotel is done in a wood called Makore (Ma-ko-ray). It's an African wood and I've read that the trees grow close to 300 feet tall and 30+ feet in diameter.

I can't imagine how many years it must have taken a tree to grow that tall! In Africa they're cutting them down by the hundreds. The nicest logs (mottles) are shaved into sheets of veneer less than 1/32" in thickness but most of the tress are ripped up as lumber.

Makore is pretty consistent both in color and grain which makes it extremely useful for architectural purposes, but it has a terribly high silica content that makes it hard on tools and those who use them. Personally, I've found that it planes beautifully, but if you're sanding or sawing, the dust can be so toxic it makes your nose bleed.

Here is a scrap piece I made to be a fingerboard (shown on top of maple)



It's a little red and kind of plain next to the maple. And it's not as hard as I'd like it to be.

[68thinline]

Anyway, I guess now I'm making two necks instead of one. If all goes well, I have another guitar in the making (I'm already thinking about P90's in an alder body).

And as for fingerboards, how about maple and walnut?



Time to order the truss rods...

[BoogerRooger]

Great thread! I love to see a guitar taking shape from some chunks of wood!

Something I dream about trying myself, if I ever have the time and the tools.

[boris bubbanov]

Great posts!

Lovin' it.

[iansmitchell]

Another gainesvillian! I love what you're doing on this build, I'm gonna be looking closely.
Heck, I wanna see it in person.

[irishtele]

Looks great! Sycamore is a really good tone wood! I used a bit of Irish sycamore for a tele I made and it sounds sweet! Sycamore is used alot in harps too! A local harp builder actually gave me a bit for my build! His work is amazing!

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by irishtele

Looks great! Sycamore is a really good tone wood! I used a bit of Irish sycamore for a tele I made and it sounds sweet! Sycamore is used alot in harps too! A local harp builder actually gave me a bit for my build! His work is amazing!

I've read that English Sycamore is also traditionally used for violins in Europe. It is reported to be slightly less bright that American maple.

As for the necks, I'm going to get a few scraps of poplar to to practise on before I go much further with the maple, just in case I need to rethink my approach or fine tune the template.

[nutty]

great thread.

I'm slowly building up the courage to attempt a neck so I'm watching closely.

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by nutty

great thread.

I'm slowly building up the courage to attempt a neck so I'm watching closely.

Thanks. I'm enjoying your thread as well.

[Strat God]

I also love to wathc this stuff. Great job.

[68thinline]

UPS arrived yesterday. These are the parts I need to complete all the drilling/routing in the body:



Yes, that's a humbucker going in the bridge position. I'm going for versatility here - I intent to add a toggle switch between the vol and tone controls for series/parallel/split coil for the HB. It's an SD pearly gates, about 8.3k

For the neck position I'm looking at Lindy Fralin's tele replacement pups, either slightly overwound standard or maybe the blues special, in the 7k range. I want to have my cake and eat it too!

The HB pickup ring is slightly wider than the cut-out in the pickguard so a little plastic cutting is in order.

2 gigs this weekend so I don't know how much time I'll get to spend on this. I'd like to at least rout the body; we'll see.

Any ideas about pickups/wiring are most welcome. (I am leaning towards 500K pots because of the humbucker.)

[68thinline]

Aligning the pickguard with the new line for the neck pocket, I was able to layout the control plate, pickup locations and bridge plate location. With the neck template in place, I verified the scale length, marked all the holes and started drilling.

The forstner bit makes the job easy, and I cleaned up the holes with a pass of the router and a bit of chiseling.





A long 3/8" drill bit cuts the wiring chase. I haven't got my neck pup yet so I left that bit of routing for later. But I can see it's really coming together. Next weekend I'll start on the necks (can't wait!)

[iansmitchell]

Oh man, I wanna see this in person.

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by iansmitchell

Oh man, I wanna see this in person.

I am hoping to complete this by the end of the year so I can start playing it out. Then you can hear it in person too. Stay tuned.

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by BoogerRooger

Looks like a fine piece of timber! let us know how it sounds when it's finished.

If the template was a '68, how did it come to be come notchless?

I didn't understand your question at first; I didn't realize that 70s tele bodies had changed. Here is a photo of the notch:



It's pretty slight, but I understand that the notch was in transition on some instruments prior to 1970.

[danerada]

This is just about the coolest thread ever! It's like watching a really great mini-series...Lonesome Dove...

[68thinline]

Originally Posted by danerada

This is just about the coolest thread ever! It's like watching a really great mini-series...Lonesome Dove...

Thanks danerada. I'm honored to be your first post.

I plan to get alot done over the weekend, which includes completing all the body drilling so that I can sand and seal the wood before I make the neck.

It's slow going as I'm trying to get it right and also acquire a few tools along the way. Thanks to all who are enjoying this thread.

[68thinline]

I'm not taking any chances with the figured maple, so my next step is to make another neck blank from a piece of plain maple. The board is ripped to a width of 3 5/16" on the table saw using my highly accurate adjustable saw fence.



All the neck blanks are laid out with a centerline and the template (far left) is used to tranfer the neck outline to each board.



The slot for the truss rod is cut with the router. A 7/32" router bit will cut the slot to exact width along the centerline.



The neck blank is secured in the vise on my drill press and a stop line is laid out at 18" from the end of the neck.

[68thinline]

The initial pass is made with a 1/8" depth...



...and the rod is used to check the width.



The slot is routed to a depth of 7/16" and verified:



A cut-off from the maple blank is planed to thickness and used to fill the last 3/4".

[68thinline]

While the glue is setting up, I use the time to make a jig for drilling the 3/8" hole for the adjusting nut.



The completed jig will index off the top of the neck blank.



When the glue is dry, a flush-cut saw trims the filler piece.



The jig is clamped in place and the hole is drilled with a 3/8" bit.

[68thinline]

I haven't realized it yet, but there's a fundamental flaw in my thinking. The plan was to drop the rod with the 3/8" nut into the slot and out the hole. I don't why, but it never occurred to me that the nut was wider than the slot!

But that's not all - the jig is flawed as well, so the 3/8" hole ends up off center!



This is precisely why I've chosen to do a mock-up. So I chisel out a wider path for the nut.



The rod now drops into he slot, but I discover that the hole is also not quite low enough, causing the rod to bottom out before its fully seated.



And I'm not convinced that the chiseled out slot will allow the rod to function as it's designed. There's nothing to keep the square nut from twisting. I could fill the sides with shims, but I'm guessing this is not the usual method of installation.

[68thinline]

I've run into a road block, and I can't quite figure it out.



The instructions are no help at all...





I forgot to mention that I wasn't going to have a skunk stripe on the back of the neck. My 68 doesn't have one. This might be part of the problem.

I'm thinking that the solution might be to install the rod upside down. I'm going to try another mock-up.

In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions...

[68thinline]

With the truss rod troubles in the back of my mind, I went to work on completing the body. I routed and chiseled a pocket for the neck pickup and extended the neck rout to its proper location (see earlier post), and also routed the wiring chase to the back of the neck pup rout.



String thru-holes are drilled and misaligned (just because it's hand-made).



The output jack is drilled (very carefully) with a handheld drill and 7/8" forsner bit because my drill press isn't tall enough to hold the body upright at the proper angle.

So far, so good.



All of the remaining components are mounted (pickguard, strap buttons) and screw holes are pre-drilled.

[68thinline]

Everything is sanded to 220 and wiped down with a liberal dose of mineral spirits. 100% wax-free shellac is used to seal the body.



It really makes the grain pop!



Three coats of shellac are applied and the body is level sanded between coats. After the third coat the entire surface is "sanded" with 000 steel wool.

It feels wonderful. I can't believe I've gotten this far and yet I know the biggest challenges still lie ahead...

[68thinline]

The electric guitar body is all about tone, from the wood selection to the pickups, various wiring options, body weight etc... This is the left brain - the emotional side of the instrument.

The neck affects the tone as well, but it also represents something else: the scale. This is the right brain - the analytical, mathematic side of the instrument - scales, chords, patterns.

It's my belief that what has set Gibson and Fender apart from all other (electric) guitar makers over the years is the quality of their necks. When I started this project I thought long and hard about buying a pre-made neck. After all, this isn't an end-table or a picture frame I was building - the thing has to play and play well if I'm ever going to love it.

And let's face it, making a neck requires more specialized tools and a lot more precision than making the body.

I think what settled it for me, I think, was that having someone else's neck on my own guitar would be like wearing someone else's underwear. I couldn't bring myself to put a Fender-made neck on a non-Fender body, and I didn't see the point in paying almost $200 for a neck made by anyone else.

I had to do it myself, or it would never be good enough.

[68thinline]

Here's a mock-up using the upside-down truss rod:



It means clamping the fingerboard in place before drilling the 3/8" hole for the adjusting nut. It has to be accurate so that the fingerboard can be glued in place (later) without impacting the rod's operation.

It's upside-down, but you get the picture.



I like it because it places the nut higher at the front of the neck, where it can be adjusted without removing the neck or the neck pickup.