New Build - Walnut Tele

[Guitarnut]

Yet another build going on. I have alwats wanted to build a walnut guitar. Since my current passion is Teles, I'm going for a walnut Telecaster.

Specs:
3-piece walnut body
Walnut neck with rosewood fretboard
White pearl pickguard
White pearl binding and dot markers
Back loaded controls

I started with a 2" thick walnut board.



It's wide enough for a 2 piece blank but I didn't want the lighter sap wood.



So I ripped it down to romove the sap wood and that gave me just enough for three 16.5" planks with a total width of 15".



All glued up! A nice 3 piece walnut blank. It's still 2" thick so I'll trim it down to 13" and run it thru the planer after it sets up.



I also have a nice piece of quarter sawn walnut for the neck and some rosewood for the fretboard.



Peace,
Mark

[mgdesigns]

Another great build thread - yippee!! Keep on posting, Mark. I admire your skills.

[Guitarnut]

Originally Posted by mgdesigns

Another great build thread - yippee!! Keep on posting, Mark. I admire your skills.

Thanks! I'll have plenty more to come on this one and the 2 others I have going.

Peace,
Mark

[emcrae]

Just joined here but I thought since you were building with walnut I'd share a couple of pics. The body is a black walnut that I'm just finishing up in the shop now. Buffing is all that's left for it. The complete build is a black walnut body with a figured hickory top finished in "myownrecipe"- burst with vintage faux binding. I love black walnut. I'm even using it now for fretboards on my lapsteels and I'm thinking I'll start using for some of my guitar fretboards as well. Good luck with your build.

[Jack Wells]

I recently refinished the walnut stock on a Marlin 39M using Watco and applying it the old recommended way with 600 wet or dry sandpaper. If you haven't decided how to finish this guitar, try the Watco on some of your walnut scraps. Walnut and Watco are made for each other.

[thecreamery]

Building another Walnut guitar myself at the moment (have made a walnut jazzmaster as well). Its a great wood though it can chip easily on the curves if you rush it with the router.

On a different note, its a great smelling wood when worked on. I say this as there are some woods which just stink when routing, pine being the worst in my opinion.

Maybe there's a discussion topic in there somewhere?!

[tweeet]

I'll be posting soon as well with two new walnut tele builds.Lovely colour Emcrae the top left one.

[jkingma]

Walnut makes a great body (and neck as well).

I've got a walnut body roughed out but it will be a while before I get around to doing any more work on it.

[SixShooter]

Originally Posted by emcrae

Just joined here but I thought since you were building with walnut I'd share a couple of pics. The body is a black walnut that I'm just finishing up in the shop now. Buffing is all that's left for it. The complete build is a black walnut body with a figured hickory top finished in "myownrecipe"- burst with vintage faux binding. I love black walnut. I'm even using it now for fretboards on my lapsteels and I'm thinking I'll start using for some of my guitar fretboards as well. Good luck with your build.

Wow, that hickory has fantastic character to it! Probably has some brightness to it like maple. Nice axe.

Walnut reminds a bit of mahogany. Any tonal similarities?

[diego_nu]

Great post, i have made one of this, so i recommend walnut for a telecaster.
Sorry if my english is not good enough.

[gsoutherland]

jwells393, which Watco product? lacquer? wipe-on poly? danish oil?

[joe desperado]

I just recieved an order for a Tele neck out of walnut as well. It will be about two weeks before I get to the build. I have 6- or 7 that I need to finish first. I'll post some pics if you guys want.

Walnut is one of my favorite woods. Ive made several walnut S necks that turned out awesome! Walnut will work for the fingerboard.... and seems to work best under lacquer. You can oil it down instead of lacquering the board, but it wears a bit faster with oil.

Hope this does not hiJack your thread. Here is Walnut and Watco Lacquer



and

[Sarrkazztic]

Mark

Where are you sourcing this wood from? I am very excited to watch you do yet another build here in Evanspatch Indianola.

[Guitarnut]

I stated on the neck today. There was a steark of lighter sap wood on the edge that I wanted to avoid, so I laid out and transfered several lines from front to back to make sure I was outside of the area. You can see the lighter wood along the fence I have clamped to the bench.

My simple jig lets the router base run along the fence and there are stops at either end to hault the router at my layout lines.



A couple of shallow passes and th channel is done.



I ran center lines out from either end of the channel to use as a reference for my template.



All layed out with a perfectly centered channel...and I missed the sap wood by just a touch.



After rough cutting on the band saw and some time on the spindle sander, I have my neck ready for the fretboard. Just a note of sanding, I always leave my blanks a bit oversize at this point. I'll take it to final dimensions after the fretboard is glued on.

[Guitarnut]

Time to move on to the body blank. I started by placing the template to find the best way to lay it out. If ever there was a piece of wood that was "just" big enough for a Tele, this is it. Maybe a 1/16th to spare on either end. Maybe.



It needed a light pass thru the planer to level out the glue joints.



Then I rough cut it on the band saw. I cut it very close to the line so the router has next to nothing to cut. As several have mentioned, in this thread and others, walnut is prone to tearout if you expect the router to cut more than a whisper.



I profiled the edge, trued it up on the spindle sander and then cut my binding channel. More tomorrow...



Peace,
Mark

[Guitarnut]

I started on the fretboard tonight. Rosewood. Some nice grain.

Here's the blank before trimming to fit the miter box.



I use the StewMac miter box and saw. All laid out and ready to go. A little double stick tape holds the blank in place. I have a line on the scale rule...can't see it in the photo...that I align the end of the blank with so I have minimal cutoff. And I know I'm not going to run out of fretboard before I get the last slot cut.



I like to use a clamp to hol;d the blank while I'm cutting to keep it from slopping around. Hey, there's the alignment mark at the end of the blank...you can see it in this shot.



The rosewood was gabbing the saw blade pretty good toward the end, so I added a second clamp.



All cut and ready to glue up....



Peace,
Mark

[Guitarnut]

Back on this build I continued work on the neck. I stated by gluing up the fretboard and then laying out the postion markers.



After gluing them in and letting them set for a few hours, I radiused the fretboard and leveled the markers.



Various stages of the carving. I really like carving walnut. Not only does it smell nice, it is a pure joy to work compared to maple.

[Guitarnut]

With neck close to being done, I decided to locate the bridge. I used my string jig that lets me lay the bridge under the strings while they are at proper spacing and aligned with the edges of the fretboard.






With the bridge located, I routed the pickup cavity.



It's starting to look like a guitar. I'm very excited to play this one. The walnut should be warm with a defined top end. I'm waiting on binding, so that's it for now.

[Guitarnut]

I have a black pickguard and I thought about maybe going with it and black binding instead of white pearloid. It would be classic Tele.




But the option of white pearloid still deserves a look. I don't have a Tele PG in white pearloid but I have one for a Strat. This look is much better with the walnut. The black would be classic, but this will be beautiful! I better get that white pearloid Tele PG ordered.



Peace,
Mark

[Mark-00255]

Originally Posted by Guitarnut

...
But the option of white pearloid still deserves a look. I don't have a Tele PG in white pearloid but I have one for a Strat. This look is much better with the walnut. The black would be classic, but this will be beautiful! I better get that white pearloid Tele PG ordered.


Peace,
Mark

FWIW, I agree - the white pearloid looks good. Nice clean work, Mark!