Hmmm , A Build for me ?

[adirondak5]

Lets see , this will be my 6th build and I only have my Seafoam first build for myself , all the others are gone or going to new homes.



so I have been collecting some wood and parts for a kind of Cabronita/Thinline for myself , and today looks like a good day to get started , here's what I have so far .

7" x 2" x 59" African mahogany for the body , it's pretty heavy so I am going to thin it down , hog it out , and put a maple cap on.



I have a few pieces of maple for the cap , not sure which I'll use yet , I resawed these on my band saw and ran them through my 16-32 Jet , the nice thing with being able to resaw is that the one piece of maple cost me $15.00 , the other piece was free , both are 3/8" thick .

cap #1


cap#2


Here's the neck , remember that flame maple and bacote finger board neck I made a few months ago ?



Here's the hardware , TVJones Classic + bridge pup , Rutters Chopped bridge saddle spacing for TVJones , Rutters thick neck plate , RuttersCup jack cup , Rutters strap buttons , Allparts heavy knurled knobs , CTS 500k pots , Hip Shot Classic tuners





Not sure if I am going to do an f-hole or not , or a pickguard of some type , probably not , I really don't have to much of a plan for this one , just going to wing it as I go . So its to the shop , maybe I can get the mahogany planned down and both the maple cap and mahogany body halves glued today.

Almost forgot to mention the inspiration for this one came from forum member Motor , here's the link for his build a while back , beautiful guitar , thanks Motor !

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...ple-build.html

[crazydave911]

Well it's about time! . Wondered where that bocote neck had crawled away too
All seriousness aside , your a kind and gracious man and deserve a treat for yourself . Can't wait to see this Herbster

[davmac]

This has got all the hallmarks of a real gem. I'm looking forward to seeing it take shape. Oh, and if anyone else's opinions matter I'd vote for no F-hole and no pickguard. I want to see as much of that maple top as possible.

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by crazydave911

Well it's about time! . Wondered where that bocote neck had crawled away too
All seriousness aside , your a kind and gracious man and deserve a treat for yourself . Can't wait to see this Herbster

Thanks very much Dave , I was taking it easy for the last week or so , and it was driving me crazy , I really do love this stuff , my son in law was eying that bacote neck, told him that's mine , now if I can keep the hounds at bay .

Originally Posted by davmac

This has got all the hallmarks of a real gem. I'm looking forward to seeing it take shape. Oh, and if anyone else's opinions matter I'd vote for no F-hole and no pickguard. I want to see as much of that maple top as possible.

Hi davmac , thanks much , I am thinking I agree with you on the no f-hole/no pickguard , I do likes me that maple!

[CapnCrunch]

Originally Posted by davmac

This has got all the hallmarks of a real gem. I'm looking forward to seeing it take shape. Oh, and if anyone else's opinions matter I'd vote for no F-hole and no pickguard. I want to see as much of that maple top as possible.

+1. A very simple cabronita style pick guard would be alright but definitely no F-hole. I'd also vote for the flame top over the curly top. Oh wait, this one is for you, not me, damn. Haha.........she's definitely gonna be a looker.

[adirondak5]

Got the mahogany thinned down , ran it through the planer a few times , then ran it through the jointer , got it glued up and in clamps , took it down to a touch over 1 3/8" my cap is 3/8" so after final sanding I should be at about 1 3/4"



add some Titebond original



And a few clamps

[mgdesigns]

OOOH - Another great build thread from the Herbster! I am subscribed. Great looking woods to choose from. Should be another fine guitar (and homemade pickups, no doubt).

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by CapnCrunch

+1. A very simple cabronita style pick guard would be alright but definitely no F-hole. I'd also vote for the flame top over the curly top. Oh wait, this one is for you, not me, damn. Haha.........she's definitely gonna be a looker.

Thanks CapnCrunch , I just ran this through the jointer , wiped with a bit of naptha , this is the piece I am going to use , I cracked up when I finished reading your post

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by mgdesigns

OOOH - Another great build thread from the Herbster! I am subscribed. Great looking woods to choose from. Should be another fine guitar (and homemade pickups, no doubt).

Thanks Mark , well , this one is getting a TVJones , but as far as my home grown pups , I am still working on getting a decent video up , gotta get my son in law's camera , alls I'll say is this , after playing around with the homewinds in the paisley a bit more I sold the Nocasters I had in the draw , I won't be buying anymore single coils !

[mgdesigns]

Maybe tear apart a TV Jones & make a clone of it?

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by mgdesigns

Maybe tear apart a TV Jones & make a clone of it?

I'll have to see if I can find a breakdown of them on google

[adirondak5]

Top is glued up and in clamps , tomorrow I'll try to get the body sawed , routed and hogged out.

[CapnCrunch]

Originally Posted by mgdesigns

Maybe tear apart a TV Jones & make a clone of it?

I aint passin judgement so don't take this the wrong way. I've been a hardcore DIYer for a long time, and have always thought that if you could figure out how to build it, or copy it, or clone it, it was fair game.

So anyway, I've been thinking about buiding some pickups and I love the sound and look of filtertrons. Then, a few months ago, a guy moves into the house across the street from me, and he looks vaguely familiar. One day we run into each other leaving for work in the morning, and I'll be damned if it's not T.V. Jones. No kidding. So I get to talking to him, and he's a super down to earth honest to goodness nice guy. He found out I was trying to get set up to build guitars, and offered to let me use his fretting templates, and even help me out if I needed it.

I've been through his "factory" down the road about a mile from my house, and he showed me how they do what they do. He employs 6 or 8 local folks, and manufactures most of his own parts. I will gladly support his business and the folks that he employs. I'd encourage anyone who is looking at filtertron type pickups to support a small hometown American company like his. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't have any heart burn buying T.V.Jones pickups, because I think its a good company to support. If you want to build you own filtertrons though, more power to you.

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by CapnCrunch

I aint passin judgement so don't take this the wrong way. I've been a hardcore DIYer for a long time, and have always thought that if you could figure out how to build it, or copy it, or clone it, it was fair game.

So anyway, I've been thinking about buiding some pickups and I love the sound and look of filtertrons. Then, a few months ago, a guy moves into the house across the street from me, and he looks vaguely familiar. One day we run into each other leaving for work in the morning, and I'll be damned if it's not T.V. Jones. No kidding. So I get to talking to him, and he's a super down to earth honest to goodness nice guy. He found out I was trying to get set up to build guitars, and offered to let me use his fretting templates, and even help me out if I needed it.

I've been through his "factory" down the road about a mile from my house, and he showed me how they do what they do. He employs 6 or 8 local folks, and manufactures most of his own parts. I will gladly support his business and the folks that he employs. I'd encourage anyone who is looking at filtertron type pickups to support a small hometown American company like his. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't have any heart burn buying T.V.Jones pickups, because I think its a good company to support. If you want to build you own filtertrons though, more power to you.

That is cool , nice to hear he is a good guy , I did buy a brand new TV Classic Bridge + from them , and after hearing this I am even more glad that I did. I have just started getting into winding my own , a few single coil tele pups and am pretty happy with the outcome , who knows what'll come down the road , right now I am happy doing the single coils myself if I want a TVJones type filtertron for now I'll buy them.

[adirondak5]

Took the clamps off the mahogany , not a bad glue joint , almost can't see it at all .



This will be the back side



Tomorrow I'll get to cutting and routing

[Stratoplus]

I enjoyed your previous builds very much, I'll be following this one too! Good luck.

[adirondak5]

Originally Posted by Stratoplus

I enjoyed your previous builds very much, I'll be following this one too! Good luck.

Hi Nick , thanks very much , glad you like.

[adirondak5]

I checked my mounting screw holes on my template with the bridge I am going to use , just wanted to make sure the screw hole is going to be covered , it's good , the upper screw hole is in the neck pocket so I don't have to worry about that one



Drilled for the screw holes to mount the template and installed screws , then traced the outline and headed to the band saw





Its gonna have some pretty nice grain on the back



Next I wiped down the maple cap with some naptha and used my acrylic template to see what way looked best to cut this , forgot to take a pic of the acrylic template on here but here's the cap showing a bit more of the flame in it , left side of cap is going to be lower part of body , a little side note on the maple , I bought a beautiful flame maple cap for my thinline build last year from curlymaplewood.com , when it arrived in the mail there was this piece of maple in the box also with a note from Kevin the owner , he wrote , "I included this other piece of maple also , no charge , maybe you can use it " , I resawed it and ran it through the thickness sander and now am using it for this build , not bad looking IMO



I also cut the maple on the band saw , I'll trim it to shape with the router after glue up to the body

[adirondak5]

A little more progress , I ran the cap and the body through the 16-32 just to get them perfectly flat and level





Next I had to re attach my template and re draw my pencil line since the thickness sander took it off , then I got out the ROSS and sanded the body to the line





See in the pic below , to the line , I try not to leave any wood outside the pencil line , that way when I route I am usually taking off less than 1/16"



Next its to the router table , Its a Bosch 1617 EVS 2 1/4 hp router and a Whiteside 1/2" diameter x2" cutter length spiral upcut flush trim bit



Pic below shows how much wood is left to take off after the sanding , that's less than 1/16"



I am not scared of routing but I have an enormous respect for it , a 1/2" bit spinning at 25,000 rpm needs to be respected , I always show my face shield and I always wear it when I route , gotta keep the peepers protected



Looks like grated cheese



Outline is routed , gotta say again , the spiral bit does a great job , no tear out , no chatter , nice smooth cut







So far so good ,now I can start hogging out some wood from the chambers .

[Mojotron]

Looks great! Ya - I'm a big fan of using a face shield - they are awesome and easy to work with - adding a lot of safety.