A Trio of Tasty Teles.

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I've been busy. I ended up with a free tele body from Musikraft, that they sent by mistake & fancied trying a 2 tone 'burst, however I decided that the grain wasn't suitable, so I ordered an alder body here in the UK, but the join (2 piece) was too visible for a sunburst. I complained & they did me another & let me keep the first one, so I had 3 tele bodies, what's a man to do? build 3 teles, that's what. Here's the ash Musikraft body;

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As is my wont, I'm going to relic them. Now I know relicing isn't for everyone so you will just have to bear with me. I'm always trawling ebay for bargains & I picked up a WD maple neck, however, when it arrived it was that awful luminous orange colour. So, out with the stripper & I'll refinish it myself.

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OK, stripped down.

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A rub down with mellow pine wood stain & it's looking better already.

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A spray over with clear gloss nitro & here's what we have;

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A '59 esquire custom passed through my hands & I loved the double bound look & fancied having a go. Here it is;It's actually a 3 colour 'burst but the red has faded to almost nothing & I prefer that look.

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I know reproducing a convincing 2 tone 'burst isn't easy so I checked out Clive Brown, the best guy here in the UK. Now I'm sure Clive would do a terrific job & I'm not a cheapskate (Clive isn't cheap) but a 4 month waiting list, yikes Hmmm, could I do it myself? I did a bit of research, which scared me even more, then I thought bugger it, in for a penny as they say, so a phone call to Steve at Manchester Guitar Tech for some advice, then I ordered some tobacco brown & some water based amber stain. After thinking long & hard about the other 2 bodies I added some surf green & some gold.

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Let's get to grips with this binding. I ordered a router bit & some white plastic binding from Stewmac & got stuck in. Here's the router table mounted;

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Check for size;

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And steam in;

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No turning back now;

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This is what we're left with;

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The body I ordered from Guitarbuild, I asked for it without the radius rout as I'd be routing it myself, "yes, no problem, that will be only £15 more" er, don't you mean £15 less, as it's less work? I asked. Actually, no, as they have to re-programme the CNC router. Arrggghhh.

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I talked over installing the binding with Bill Puplett, tech to the stars & a good friend. Bill gave me some useful advice, not least scraping the inner corner of the binding so the glue has somewhere to go. I started with the toughest bit around the cutaway. I used a heat gun to soften the plastic binding;

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I used superglue gel.

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Same deal on the front. A little tip, do the back first to get the hang of it before you do the more visible front.

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The neck pocket is tricky, I used a sharp modelling knife to trim it.

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This hacks me off, I was squeezing like a mad thing to get the glue out of this thing. So when I'd finished, I took it apart to see what's going on inside. It's just a bloody tube inside all this plastic crap. Just sell us the tube. Do you think we're too stupid to use a god-damned tube.

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OK, that times three & time for grain filling. I used rustins neutral tint, thinned down with white spirit to a creamy consistency & applied it with an old credit card (bloody Santander, I'm glad I'm not with them anymore)

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Scrape the excess off while it's still tacky & leave overnight to dry.