First Tele Build Questions

[GrantF]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum (first post actually), and I'm gonna attempt to build my own tele. I don't think the body will be too tough - it's the neck that I'm worried about lol. I thought about just buying one from Warmoth, but it'll end up costing me $300-400 and my budget is around $800. I'd like to build the neck, but I don't know if it will be super complicated or not.

My plan is to build an alder tele with quilt maple top and a one piece birdseye maple neck/fretboard. The reason why it's so expensive from Warmoth is because I want a conversion neck - I have an Ibanez AS-120 and it plays beautifully, and I want to basically put that neck (radius, neck profile, string spacing etc.) on a tele - with a 12" radius fretboard.

I'v read about how different scale lengths have certain advantages and they will give you different sounds.

So after all that, does a tele with a 24.75" scale length sound different than a standard tele? My goal is to have a Brad Paisley-ish sounding tele with fat bottom end, and a not-super-twangy high end. I'm not chasing his tone, but moreso his "sonic configuration" (if that makes any sense) of lows and highs. I don't want to lose those fat tele lows just because of the scale length. On that note, does the scale length significantly effect the feel/playability of the guitar or would a 25.5" scale with the same neck profile and radius feel the same?

Would I be better off buying a neck from Warmoth or building it on my own? This is my first guitar build, and I have minimal woodworking experience.

I'm sure I'll have more questions, so I'll post them (and hopefully pictures when I start) here.

Sorry for the ridiculous length of this post lol. Cheers!

[nosmo]

Welcome to the forum!

I bought a Warmoth body & neck and they do excellent work. Kind of pricy though. I thought it would be hard to build a neck, but it turns out it really isn't. There is more info on this forum than you can absorb. I'd say give it a shot and try to build your own.

Can't help you with the scale length stuff - but I'm sure you will get plenty of replies on that.

Good luck with it & let us know how it turns out

[GrantF]

Thanks!

I should also mention that I don't have a bandsaw or a drill press, but I might have access to them. I can use a handsaw, but there isn't really a substitute for a drill press.

[GrantF]

Anyone have answers for my questions about scale length?

[R. Stratenstein]

I don't know what scale lengths are used for Brad Paisley's guitars. They look like pretty standard Teles to me, some with B-benders which may affect tone, but you can probably Google Brad Paisley Guitars, find the guy who makes them for him (can't remember who it is), and see if he uses standard Tele scale 25.5" or something else. If you want to sound like Brad Paisley, I'd think that's the best starting point.

I'd think that a shorter-scale neck would tend to sound thinner and twangier than the standard 25.5, but that may just be theory. One of the things I like about guitars is that they have their own "souls", and sometimes don't sound like they "should", but have a different tone. Sometimes killer, and nobody really knows why. (Although they claim they do.)

A lot of Brad's sound is not only the guitar. I saw a video interview on Premier guitars website with Brad Paisley's tech, showing his amp equipment, how long he practices and plays around with various amp settings to get the sound he wants. And the kicker, cux' heck, aren't country pickers supposed to be clean and natural. Like gitar, cable, amp? Check out Brad's pedal board. His tech runs it from the mixing table, but there's a heck of a lot more to Brad Paisley's sound than the guitar.


Welcome to the build brotherhood. The neck is not hard at all. Study some of the threads of the masters here like Jack Wells, Colt W. Knight, Adirondak 5, Preeb, etc. etc. You'll do fine, and have fun.

[GrantF]

Thanks!

He's got a page on his website where he has all of his gear with fairly in-depth specs...he probably got tired of answering the same questions all the time.

I'm not really searching for his tone or sound. What I'm looking for is a tele that plays like my ibanez semi hollow, has a fat tele low end, and a not-super-twangy/trebly sound out of the high end.

I completely agree with you on the "soul" thing. I think if you put the same pickups in two of the same guitars they would sound different. It comes down to the guitar and the person playing it. People have their own tone when they play too lol.

[SacDAve]

If this is your first guitar build you might just want to buy a neck. When you add up the cost of the tools & materials needed to do a neck that $300 to $400 might not seem that bad. I would suggest just using a standard 25.5 scale for your first guitar that would get you a really nice neck for around $200. As for the scale length IMO it's not going to affect your sound that much.( lot of factors for final sound) You will get use to the scale length. Check out stew Mac for Fret saw, crowning file, radius block, truss rod, leveling block, router bits, rasp, file , finger board, fret wire and then some. Don't get me wrong I think it's great to take on building a neck but I'll tell you what I built a lot of bad necks before I got down. I know one if you build one guitar there will be more to follow.