Tiskit86's Former Challenge Build

[tiskit86]

Ready..........., Set............


I need a plan.

[crazydave911]

Well......................you build a tele

Welcome! And good luck!

Dave

[tiskit86]

Originally Posted by crazydave911

Well......................you build a tele :lol

Ah, yes. Now I remember!

[RogerC]

plan?! That just wastes time

Good luck!

[tiskit86]

Reclaimed lumber. It's cool, right? I've been thinking it might be nice to do something with some local flavor (Northern California). There was a very large, very old water tower up the road in San Rafael, CA that was retired and has been repurposed for a bunch of different projects, including this restaurant:

http://www.pitchengine.com/heritages...green-projects



And I happen to have some of it too. It's not your everyday guitar makin' wood, but it's light, super resonant, rustic looking and gorgeous when finished well. And it's a cool story because it's being put to use all over the Bay Area. Most of what I got a chance to see was really very light and brittle, but there were a few select boards that looked like maybe they wanted to be guitars in their next life. Play some blues maybe, after spending 75 years or so standing there holding water, and probably several hundred years before that hanging with his other redwood buddies in these unbelievably beautiful forests. And they were milled just over 1.75" thick. That's practically begging to become a tele.

So here we go. It would be cool to do the rest of the guitar in reclaimed wood too, so I went down to the lumber yard that deals in these things to see if I could find some more stuff. Got a piece of machiche that came off someone's deck, and a piece of quarter sawn cherry that I don't know where it came from. I also got a nice piece of 4/4 flame-maple too just because I saw it and I'm always staring at you guy's incredible flamed neck builds and didn't know if the cherry or machiche would really make do for a neck. I got time to figure it out.

So here goes:

[RogerC]

Loves me some reclaimed wood. My first guitar was reclaimed with a cherry neck, so that gets my vote

[tiskit86]

I do!






Sometimes I wanna just hug it, if it weren't for that continuously running hoop of steel with sharp, jagged edges.

[tiskit86]

Well, time to do something about the redwood. The planks are right around 6" wide, which means almost, but not quite 2-piece body. If I were a professional, I'd put some effort into matching the top and the end grain. I had a Kirn Barnbuster that was a 3-piece body and was really very well matched in terms of top and end grain. It's one of the things that made it stand out as a high quality, well-crafted instrument, and that I probably hadn't noticed much before. So thanks to Ron for that bit of learning.

I can get two bodies out of this if I do it right.







On a 3-piece body, I prefer to have one full-width piece going down the middle, and two "wings" so to speak. In my mind, most of the action on an electric guitar happens right down that middle 6" or so, while the rest is really more about cosmetics and comfort. I like to have as much strength and continuity from the neck pocket down to the strap button, and so avoid glue joints in there if I can. Even though I know intellectually that the glue joints are probably stronger than any other part, it's a psychological, feng shui thing. No self-respecting pickup wants to be straddling a glue joint that's not right down the middle of it.

[Muzikp]

[QUOTE=tiskit86;4010256]



QUOTE]

That’s nice looking wood. Is that the end grain match-up you are going with? It looks like if you swapped the top right one with the middle left, and then switched the middle left with the middle right one the end grains would all look pretty good (does that make any sense?). Not sure what that would do to the grain match along the length of the body though.

[tiskit86]

[QUOTE=Muzikp;4010371]

Originally Posted by tiskit86

QUOTE]

That’s nice looking wood. Is that the end grain match-up you are going with? It looks like if you swapped the top right one with the middle left, and then switched the middle left with the middle right one the end grains would all look pretty good (does that make any sense?). Not sure what that would do to the grain match along the length of the body though.

I ran out of time right after rough cutting the planks and taking that picture, so it's all still sitting in the garage like that. But I think you nailed it, thanks! They do look like good matches that way. I may need to shave a few mm's off each face and see what those look like too.

[Matt Haskins]

To answer your question--Yes, reclaimed wood is cool. I'm looking forward to see what you come up with.

[tiskit86]

Originally Posted by Matt Haskins

To answer your question--Yes, reclaimed wood is cool. I'm looking forward to see what you come up with.

Thanks, Matt.

[tiskit86]

I think I got the grain matched pretty well, but I never know for sure until everything is thicknessed and the body is cut out.

First up, my DIY jointer. Another tool I couldn't be more happy with is this 2.5" spiral upcut router bit. Like butter.







It makes a super nice edge. I don't know if these pics show it or not, but I tried to capture a little bit:

[macaroonie]

Just a suggestion. If you were to resaw a piece ( like the one shown below for example ) to 3/8" or perhaps 1/4" you would get yourself a sweet looking bookmatch to overlay on your 3 piece core. It would probably only need a couple of 1" add ons at the fat part of the body to make up the width and with a bit of jiggery you will find a grain that will match in for that too.



like this

[tiskit86]

That's a great idea! Thanks!

I didn't glue up the other's yet, so will look at them in the morning to see what kind of possibilities for resawing they have. I do have a couple of book matched redwood caps that I bought last year and stored away. But for this particular guitar, I want it to look it's age, if you know what I mean. I'm hoping to make it obvious that it had a useful former life and was repurposed into a guitar. So I likely won't fill some of the gouges, scrapes and other marks.

[tiskit86]

Body blank looks good. I think I got the grain right.

[tiskit86]

Since the router table is out and the neck is what seems like it might take the most time and effort, I thought I should get started today with at least cutting out the blanks. My neck template is fine, but needed a little tuning w/ some sandpaper and a flat surface. I just haven't decided yet whether to go with the cherry or the maple. The cherry is 1" thick and nice and smooth; could easily be a 1-piece. The maple is gorgeous though, and with a rosewood or ebony fingerboard will stand out. Decisions, decisions.



I don't know if you can see it here, but there is a ton of flame in it.

[tiskit86]

The 1-piece cherry neck idea is growing on me, so I think I'm just gonna make 'em both. Mostly I'm just concerned about the cherry and redwood sort of clashing. Like a sport coat and a shirt with 2 different shades of maroon.

Like this guy:

[RogerC]

You're right, that is a tough decision. I like your idea of making them both-- it's kind of like hitting that provisional ball in golf. It beats having to walk all the way back to the tee box

[tiskit86]

Not a lot of progress over the last few days because I've really been struggling with back and leg pain. I've had a bulging disk at S1 for a few years that sometimes pushes on and irritates the nerve root, and on a couple of occasions has worked it's way into a full on inflammatory, sciatic pain event. The last two weeks has been one of those. Not sure what set it off, but I haven't been able to sleep, walk right, sit right, or do much of anything without excruciating pain through my butt and down my leg. I don't want to complain because there's lots of folks got it much worse than me, but two weeks of persistent, intense pain can take you to some pretty low places psychologically.

So - just got home from the outpatient surgery clinic after a spinal epidural injection. I'm finally gonna sleep and dream about telecasters. Good night, friends.