My first build thread - walnut tele

[gsoutherland]

I'm finally starting my first build thread. I've posted a few pics of materials here and there, but I'm officially starting the build thread here. I built my templates from the well known tdowns drawing (Thanks man!)

This started out as going to be a pine body after I bought some 100 year old pine that was a barn joist, but while prepping that to become a body I was finding that there were just too many cracks that ran too deep to get a good body blank out of it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find another use for it somewhere.

I had this book-matched claro walnut I was planning on using for a top somewhere, so I went ahead and bought a piece of black walnut to use it with and that is how I'm moving forward at this point. It will have a birdseye maple neck and fretboard, although it will be two piece this time. Here are some pics:

mock up of what I think she'll look like:


materials laid out and ready to go.


thickness planing the neck blank:

this is part of the jig I made to do the truss rod route. I made a lexan base for my router and it worked perfectly for thickness planing the neck blank. I love it when a plan comes together.

That's it for now. hopefully tomorrow I'll be getting the body blank ready for gluing up. More to come...

[gsoutherland]

Just when I thought things were going so well...

My book-matched walnut had a little bow to it so I was having trouble getting a good edge on it to join it. I decided it would be good to glue each piece to it's respective piece of walnut that the main body would be made of since I had that all planed nice and level. Then I could run each half through the router table used as a jointer and get a good clean edge.

I did the jointing tonight and it did not go well. The new router with the 2" straight cutting bit put a very nice clean edge on it, but apparently the walnut I was using for the bulk of the body was not a consistent width, so the edges don't meet perfectly in the middle. The worst part is I can't take any more off because it would be too narrow for a tele body. As it is now I only have about 1/16" on each side when I lay my template over it.

I guess I could use someone's table saw to straighten the pieces out, but then I'd either have to save this for a future non-tele project that has a narrower body, or make a 3/4 scale guitar from it.

Another option I thought of was to get a piece of 8/4 birdseye maple and have a strip running through the middle of the body since the neck and fretboard will be birdseye maple.

I'm all ears for any other ideas.

Here's a pic of what it looks like in the middle:

[Citizen_Insane]

Why don't you just joint it by hand? Is the gap more than 1/8"? It wouldn't be noticeable if the body is a few 16ths too short.

[gsoutherland]

I guess I could give that a try. never done it, but never built a guitar before either. thanks for the suggestion.

[hackworth1]

That gap at the north end causes no ill effect. You will rout that part away with your neck pocket. Flat sand both pieces a teeny tiny. Then glue them with wood glue and tape them crosswise with many pieces of green painters tape.

Pretty wood by the way.

[gsoutherland]

it is hard to tell in the pic, but that is a full thickness body blank with the book-matched pieces glued to each half. so the gap goes all the way through and there would be a gap in the neck pocket.

[originalmatthew]

I think it's a matter of personal preference. No, you wont miss a couple of 16ths off the body width, but a contrast stripe in the middle might look cool. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[jkingma]

Another option I thought of was to get a piece of 8/4 birdseye maple and have a strip running through the middle of the body since the neck and fretboard will be birdseye maple.

If you can't make it work otherwise, then this idea is what I would go with. It would look pretty nice too.

[gsoutherland]

I took a sanding block with 60 grit paper and started going over the edges where the body will be joined. It is getting much better but still not quite there. I'm trying to go slow so I don't go too far

[PlutoLex]

A long hand plane, like a Stanley No 7 or 8 would be the ideal tool to use. This isn't the piece to learn on though - you don't have enough extra width for mistakes. If you know any local woodworkers that use hand tools this would be a good time to pay them a visit.

EDIT: I would suggest that you match-plane the joint. To do this you would fold the two blanks so that the top is inside and the edge you want to joint is down. Place this on a flat surface and clamp as near the edge as you can. Now flip your pieces over and put in a vice or otherwise mount so that you can work on the edges. Normally you'd then plane the edge until it's straight and flat. But, I think this would work if you have a good sanding block. You would need a large flat block that is at least as wide as the 2 blanks together and at least 5 -6 " longer than your blanks with sandpaper glued to it (spray glue is perfect for this). Use a pencil to scribble on the edges so that you can see where you are removing wood. Then, sand the edges flat, being careful that the sanding block is always overhanging both edges and ends. When your pencil marks are gone, you are done. The biggest problem you'll have is finding a stiff flat piece of material to use as a sanding block.

[gsoutherland]

Thanks PlutoLex. I have a 2x4 that already has a piece of sandpaper from a belt sander glued to it. I'll give that a shot

[PlutoLex]

Originally Posted by gsoutherland

Thanks PlutoLex. I have a 2x4 that already has a piece of sandpaper from a belt sander glued to it. I'll give that a shot

Make sure that the 2x4 is flat and doesn't have a twist. Ideally I'd use a piece of plate glass or a machined aluminum plate if you could find one in the right size. A sanding belt is probably OK, but they are thick and so have some give to them. Just be careful not to press down while sanding as it will tend to round over the edges.

Looking at your picture again it looks like you have a hump in the middle. If this is correct then make sure you use a straight edge to locate the hump and carefully sand that area flat first. It is very easy to sand and sand without removing a hump, a dip will remove itself if the sanding block is flat. Good luck, you'll have a beautiful guitar when you are finished.

[gsoutherland]

Well, I don't have any plate glass or aluminum to use, but I have a piece of MDF that is nice and flat. I bought a wider sanding belt since my first one wasn't quite wide enough. After trying it though, the MDF doesn't seem to be working that well. Maybe not heavy enough? I gave the router table another shot and no luck. I was getting frustrated and decided to set the walnut aside for awhile.

I went back through all the pine pieces from the barn joist and came across two that looked like they might be alright. I planed them down with my router and stuck a template on top and it looks like it should be a good one. I tried that out on the router table to joint it and while better than the walnut, it is still not good enough.

I'm just going to try and find someone with proper jointing tools and ask for help. My Dad has a jointer that fits on his shopsmith, but we have never used it and I don't know how sharp the blades are. Maybe I'll test it out on some of the pine that is not suitable for a guitar body and see how it goes. If I get this to work I think this will be a really nice looking pine body. I'll post a pic soon.

[gsoutherland]

OK, so my jointing woes are over. I ended up getting a small table saw due to getting mostly home depot gift cards for my birthday. I got an 80 tooth blade for it which gave really nice edges. I spent some time going through the wood I have, and now have 3 body blanks gluing up. One is the bookmatched walnut with a strip of maple down the middle, one is all pine, and the other is pine with a walnut strip going down the middle. The pine is the 100 year old barn joist I've mentioned in other posts. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

[gsoutherland]

Here's a pic of the 3 body blanks fresh out of the clamps. Hopefully I'll find time this week to hit them with the orbital sander and start getting ready to rough cut the bodies.

[gsoutherland]

I started getting ready to cut the bodies out the other day. I'm not sure I'm diggin' the walnut with the maple stripe so I'm going to let that sit for awhile and see if I get any other ideas for it. Maybe I'll cut the maple stripe out and make the walnut into a tele-mandolin or something.

I decided to start with the pine with walnut stripe body blank since it was my least favorite of the two pine blanks. I'm sure glad I did that. I quickly realized that cutting the body shape with only a jigsaw was going to be very difficult. I decided to drill holes along the outline of the body to help. I was using a paddle bit and when I drilled through it took a huge chunk out of the other side that went well into the body area. Better to have learned that lesson on my least favorite body blank.

I took the all pine body blank and drilled the holes with my drill press and a forstner bit. That went much better and also made cutting with the jigsaw a breeze. I slapped the template on and I am hoping I'll get to do the routing tomorrow. Here are some pics of the progress:

[gsoutherland]

The pine body pictured above was only 1 9/16" thick. Not a huge deal, but it did bother me a little that it wasn't 1 3/4". I wound up taking a piece of walnut I had and re-sawed it on my table saw to get a bookmatched top. Here is the thread about it: table saw resawing

I have the body nearly complete and here is what I have:


I was planning on just a clear lacquer finish but I wound up with some tear-out, so I'm going to have to rethink that.


If it was just the walnut I could just put binding around it, but since so much of the pine was torn out I think I'll need to do an opaque finish around the sides. I'm thinking black edges with a burst on the front but I'm all ears on other ideas.

[gsoutherland]

Here is a mock up I did with the burst around the edges:

[Citizen_Insane]

From the picture the tear out doesn't look too bad. Why not just sand it down enough that you can't see it any more? Losing a couple 16th's here and there isn't going to make the body noticeably different.

[garymaddox]

Originally Posted by Citizen_Insane

From the picture the tear out doesn't look too bad. Why not just sand it down enough that you can't see it any more? Losing a couple 16th's here and there isn't going to make the body noticeably different.

+1

I think I'd try 2 different color fillers and some sanding and filling again. The burst doesn't look bad, so you have a fall back.

It's going to be really sweet!

[gsoutherland]

Originally Posted by Citizen_Insane

From the picture the tear out doesn't look too bad. Why not just sand it down enough that you can't see it any more? Losing a couple 16th's here and there isn't going to make the body noticeably different.

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll give that a shot.

Provided that the sanding works, what are your opinions on the transition from pine to walnut? Leave it like it is? Or, maybe some black binding? My initial thought was to leave it as-is and just do an edge radius but I've been going back and forth on the binding idea.

[Citizen_Insane]

It sort of depends on how you like your teles. If you don't mind the hard edge, I think it'd look great with cream binding, but I know that I prefer the rounded edges for comfort so I'd probably got that direction if it were my build.

[gsoutherland]

I was able to sand past the tear outs, so no burst will be necessary. I also decided to just round the edges and save binding for a future build. Since my last post I started on a neck. So far I have the truss rod installed and the fretboard glued on. Next I need to work on the tuner holes, cutting the headstock down, and putting the radius on the fretboard.

I also made a brass tone bar since I made a mistake on the ferrule holes.

Here are some pics





I originally was going to go with no pick guard and use pickup ring around the neck pickup, but I put the pieces together and I think I'm liking the pick guard better. I don't know about white though.





Who knows though, once I have some finish on the body and see how the grain pops I might change my mind again.

[gsoutherland]

got some work done on the neck. finished shaping the headstock to fretboard transition, did most of the shaping on the back and got the position markers installed on the fretboard.







drilling the plugs from the leftover walnut. I drilled the markers with a 1/4" forstner bit, but when I cut 1/4" plugs they were too small. I wound up cutting 5/16" plugs, putting them in the chuck in my drill press and holding a piece of sandpaper to them as they turned, checking the fit often. It took awhile to do all 10 that way, but they turned out really well.

[gsoutherland]

here it is after wiping it down with mineral spirits to show the grain



I was going for a thicker profile on the back than is on my strat, but I think it is still too thick, so I have a little more work to do there. Then I have to radius the fretboard, finish the tuner holes and install some frets.

[jay1970]

Fantastic work.

[garymaddox]

It's looking great!

[psychotiger]

That neck is something!

[68thinline]

Coming along nicely!