Tele-Paul-Les-Caster builds

[PHawley]

I cant take all the credit for that idea, I got it from this thread (page 2, post 55): http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...r-project.html

I highly recommend reading it, there's a lot of good information in it.

[Muzikp]

Originally Posted by PHawley

I cant take all the credit for that idea, I got it from this thread (page 2, post 55): http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...r-project.html

I highly recommend reading it, there's a lot of good information in it.

Wow that is impressive build quality. That thread definitely has some techniques that you don't see on here, I like it. Thanks.

[Muzikp]

Got all 3 tops joined today.



And marked where I want the bodies to sit when I glue them.



I spread glue on the body and on the top and laid the body down onto the the top. I found it easier to line everything up doing it face down. Got it all clamped, used every clamp I own and it still would have been nice to have a few more.





So far I have one top glued and one in the process and one to go.

Here's the one I got glued and did some rough sanding on.



I got the end grain looking ok considering these aren't book matched on the bottom.



Some curl that I think will really jump out when the clear goes on.





So far I like it, time to think about colors. This will be top bound only. My wife says orange on the tops and a bit darker brown on the backs. Any suggestions?

[Muzikp]

Looks like I may need to re-think the one for my Dad. My sister just told me she has a very large speaker box that my grandfather made out of Mahogany. Apparently my grandfather put his signature in white inside of the speaker box (my sister said it was fairly large signature).

My grandfather is the person responsible for our family being guitar players in the first place. Back in his day he even did some live radio in Nashville, back when live was the only way you could do music on the radio.

So now I'm thinking I can try and work that signature into the top that goes on my Dad's guitar. That would be a pretty cool tribute to the one who started our family's guitar passion. I've asked my sister to send me a pic of the signature, I may need some advice on how to preserve that into this build.

[JeffPBlues]

Originally Posted by Muzikp

Some curl that I think will really jump out when the clear goes on.

Yowza. That is going to look fantastic.

[PHawley]

It might be possible to do the signature as an F-hole or a Gretsch-style branding decal. Also you could do the logo as that, but if it has to be the top (and really, I think it would be best) I can't think of anything else unless you're REALLY good at carving.

[Muzikp]

Originally Posted by PHawley

It might be possible to do the signature as an F-hole or a Gretsch-style branding decal. Also you could do the logo as that, but if it has to be the top (and really, I think it would be best) I can't think of anything else unless you're REALLY good at carving.

Hmmm... I hadn't thought about replicating the signature, I was thinking I would just use the actual piece of mahogany with his signature on it. I'm guessing getting a nice finish on a piece of mahogany that I can't sand will be difficult. I don't want to sand off the signature. I guess this will be a more productive conversation when my sister sends a picture of the wood and signature.

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by Muzikp

Thanks. I'm looking forward to it also but there will be a 2 month interlude on these soon.

I'm looking forward to seeing that "plank" too . Such sweet builds , man do I want that shop

[Muzikp]

Originally Posted by crazydave911

I'm looking forward to seeing that "plank" too . Such sweet builds , man do I want that shop

Yep, the plank I think will be cool, I'll be sure to get some nice pics of the alder neck for you.

The shop... I'm starting to see that your state of mind has a lot to do with the quality of the build. So I keep trying to make the shop more useable to improve my state of mind while in the shop. Unfortunately it's always a mess, I haven't had time to get my dust collection system hooked up, and it's disorganized. I could be so much more efficient if I just got the shop laid out better. Maybe I'll focus on that after the challenge, and the 3 tele-paul's and the Jaguar Bass and...nevermind it probably won't happen.

I'm fortunate that my wife doesn't mind me using one of our spare bedrooms for my indoor shop (see the 12-string pics) where all the assembly and non sanding, spraying type repairs happen. This environment is much more suited to good build quality. Unfortunately it's always a mess. I haven't had...nevermind see above for that sad story .

[crazydave911]

My hero . At least your doing that in preparation, I'm building shelves

[glen smith]

Originally Posted by Muzikp

A few passes with this horribly crude and savage tool



Then some time spent on my homemade thickness sander



Start the shallow passes with the router on the sides, don't want any tear out now, that would be awful





Halfway through day two of working on these and I think they are ready to be chambered.

Could you give some details on your homemade thickness sander?

[Muzikp]

Originally Posted by glen smith

Could you give some details on your homemade thickness sander?

Sure, it's pretty simple, the idea is loosely based on the safe-t-planer. I planed a 2x8 as flat as I could get it. Then I traced a 7" circle on it and cut it out on my bandsaw. I drilled a hole through the center of the circle and counter sunk a bolt and lock washer (very important to get the hole exactly in the center and straight up and down) otherwise it wobbles.



The bolt sticks up through the other side and I placed a large washer and two nuts on it to hold it all together. The chuck on my drill press is large enough to fit the bolts all the way into the chuck and the washer presses up against the chuck to make sure it's flat.



I put adhesive backed sanding discs on it (which can be problematic to remove when they are worn out) usually takes a healthy soaking of naptha to get them off.



Set the height of the drill press table and move the wood around under it until it's not really sanding anymore. Obviously you can't take off an 1/8" of material in one pass with this since you have to be able to feed the wood under the spinning disc. But depending on the grit sanding disc you use you can take material off pretty quickly and keep adjusting the table height.

The only thing to worry about is having your drill press spin too fast which builds up a lot of heat and can leave burn marks on your wood. I set the drill press to it's slowest setting and make sure I keep my wood moving at all times.

If I had a real thickness sander I wouldn't hesitate to throw this away but it's all I have at the moment.

[glen smith]

Very ingenious, thank you.

[Muzikp]

And then there were two





It’s interesting how end grains work out. You can see the in the photo below, top one I couldn’t get the end grains to match up very well. The bottom one almost looks book matched…almost.



But when you compare the backs, the one with the sort of book matched end grain doesn’t look as good on the seam as the one without the matching end grain.

Here’s the one with the poorly matched end grain



And the one with the better match



And a couple more gratuitous photos



Both have good looking curl in the tops. These should look great with some tint and clear.



Speaking of tint still looking for color ideas…anyone?

[TelePenguin]

Grey-Green or Orange

[PHawley]

I feel like red dye is underused. Something like this is what I would aim for:

http://www.wildwoodguitars.com/produ...egoryID=90&n=4

http://www.wildwoodguitars.com/produ...egoryID=52&n=9

In any event, I'm sure your dad will be ecstatic.

[Muzikp]

Yep those reds look great. I may try and get one of them to look like that.

In the meantime these things are like rabbits. Now there are 3 and 2 of them have some holes now.





Now I'm trying to decide if these should be like a Les Paul control layout with 2 volumes and 2 tone knobs or more like a tele with only one of each. Maybe I can do both and compare them to see what I like better in the end. Dunno.

Hopefully I can get the roundover, neck pockets, control cavities, switch cavities and binding channels done this week. We shall see.

[atastymint]

Orange-ish top and dark-brown back like your wife suggested is a perfect idea. Think gretsch country roundup

Ignoring the looks, I always go for 2V + 2T when I can just because of the versatility. I love playing with the neck pickup set to 1/2 or 3/4 volume with tone all the way up, and bridge pickup with 100% volume and tone set 3/4 up. With good old tube amps, this really lets you have some nice instant switching of sounds.

[Muzikp]

Originally Posted by atastymint

Orange-ish top and dark-brown back like your wife suggested is a perfect idea. Think gretsch country roundup

Ignoring the looks, I always go for 2V + 2T when I can just because of the versatility. I love playing with the neck pickup set to 1/2 or 3/4 volume with tone all the way up, and bridge pickup with 100% volume and tone set 3/4 up. With good old tube amps, this really lets you have some nice instant switching of sounds.

Thanks. I am sorta leaning towards the 2V & 2T. Although that means my wood control cavity covers that I worked so hard on to make the grain match won't work , they will be too small for the 2T & 2V route. Oh well, next time for sure that will be thought through better.

[Muzikp]

I attached my template to drill the neck bolt holes. I drill from back to front before I route the neck pocket. This way if I have any tear out from the drill bit coming thru, the tear out gets removed when I route the neck pocket.



Once I drilled all the holes in the 3 bodies I routed all the neck pockets.



I haven't cleaned up the edges or little end parts of the neck pockets yet, whatever they are called.

I'm starting to realize how much more efficient it is to make multiple bodies at once. Whenever I do one at a time it seems like I spend more time changing bits and jigs than I do routing. This has gone really quick.

And it looks like this should answer the control cavity layout question (Thanks for the input atastymint).



Going with the 2V + 2T configuration. Why limit my tone options I thought.

At some point I need to make progress on those necks.