Finally- The "butcher block" Tele "Lite" Special

[reddogbass]

It's been a long time since I've made any contribution of value to this forum. I'm not sure this contribution is "value" but here goes anyway. This particular "tele" build up has been a long time coming. It's been under construction for several months- endured a move- and suffered while I took an extended vacation.

Disclaimer: You will see several features and details which are not true to the Tele mark. After several "tele" style bodies, not one was meant to be exact. I just love the Tele shape, and also like to employ things that are pleasing to my eye, regardless of the "trueness."

Second- this is not a "tutorial" of the Buckocaster type. It isn't meant to be. I'm in no position to show how tools are used, or how finish is applied, etc. Besides I didn't have full photographic capabilities as the various stages of construction unfolded.

Third- I apologize for the photos. It was shot many months apart, using two borrowed cameras, before I finally got my own, and I haven't learnt to use that yet. LOL

How it all begins- All of my guitar builds have blanks I made in this fashion. The blank is a typical "butcher block," hopefully shaped like a guitar in the end.

This particular one is fir. The wood is some old brickmold which I know was was milled at least thirty years ago. It had been stored in an old gents rafters for that long.

I milled it to thickness, and glued it up. Here is the "raw" wood.



The maple piece to the left of the pile will become the neck, and layed up in the same "butcher block fashion. More on this later.

Here is a view of the end grain after the body has been shaped.



Sorry for omitting steps between "raw" wood, and how we got to this stage, but I wasn't able to take photos every step along the way. I'll try to explain some of the features in text.

Here's a view of the waist showing more of the "butcher block.



To this point the blank was glued up, and the cavities machined into the blank, and capped both front and back. Here's the back ready for some finishing. The one cavity in the back is for a brass plate which will locate the strings, and provide a ground point for all that is electrical.



More in next post.

[reddogbass]

Second installment-

And this is the top.



There was a bunch of other stuff going on prior to this point. The weight reduction cavities were machined, as were the neck pocket, pickup and control plate routs. Then the top was applied, and it was then routed to match the routs in the core.

Other than not having photographich capabilities at all times, I don't show a lot of the process because it might only apply to Reddog!

A lot of what I "special tools" are scabbed together in-house, for a particular purpose at that time. I don't have any really sophiticated tools. Here are a few of the "special tools." As much fun as it is to see Ehawley's stuff (and I am envious), it is possible to do this with a low budget mentality.

Once the blank is glued up and ready for shaping, it is first planed to thickness using my "bridge planer."



This is nothing more than a rounter mounted on a "bridge" suspended over a flat board. The work piece is inserted under the "bridge" and planed flat. Damn if this doesn't work very well!

It is finish surfaced with a DA, and band sawed to a line drawn using the following template. The template is not used for routing to shape. It is sawed and sanded. For me this seems the most expediate, and it ain't have bad in the end either.



This a home-drawn template, and I use it for both bass and six-string bodies. It ain't exactly to "tele" shape and size. I made this before I could find any dimensions (via tdowns PDF file). I just kept scribbling until I thought it looked right. It is roughly the correct length and width.

Though there is some detail drawn on the template( loosely termed) it was only absent mided doodling. For the cut-outs and routs I use other templates, all indexed off a centerline, and machined before the shape is cut.

Here's some of the other low-end tools I use.

First the wall with some of the templates and tools-

[reddogbass]

Third installment-

The router-



You'll notice the selection of bushings. I prefer these to bearing bits when it's necessary to follow a template. I have plenty of bearing bits for other purposes, but when following a template I'll use these. The bits are less espensive. The bushing doesn't require sophisticated templates, and it doesn't eat templates.

The "cheap" spindle sander-



More tools-



You see it doesn't take much. A few clamps, a couple routers, band saw, table saw, and what else you see in the pics are all I use.

You too can do it- really you can!

That's it for this segment. I'll be lucky if the pics load. LOL For now I'm gonna go try and root the Indians into a win. I'll be back for the neck and finishing pics next time. Don't want to make this first post too long.

[reddogbass]

Fourth Installment-

This shot shows the top view after the routing for hardware, f-hole, and binding took place.



The top lam is 3 mm birch aircraft ply purchased at a local RC hobby shop. It's actually a good top wood for flat tops, especially with opaque finishes. It's a very good rigid lamination- relatively hard, and cheap!

You will notice a glue line on the bottom bout. The birch ply only comes in 12 inch widths, and rather than glue on the centerline I was able to utilize a small scrap, rather than a whole 'nother blank to complete the top.

You'll see a small repair just south of control rout. When I went to rout the top to the routings in the core, I'd actually forgotten I'd moved the control plate rout closer to the bridge. So I started in the wrong spot. That's what I get for burning too many brain cells, and taking so long to complete the various steps in building this.

The angled rout is for a Gotoh TOM bridge. The bottom of the rout has a brass plate through which the threaded bushings are inserted, and becomes a ground for the bridge. As the strings are grounded on the back it's really not necessary.

The bridge PU is routed for a standard single coil (strat type) PU.

The neck PU rout is an HB size.

The top has been relieved for the binding. The "how-not-to-do" binding is a whole 'nother installment itself.

One departure from standard "tele" is the length of the neck pocket. This one is 3 1/2" in depth. Main reason is to shorten the guitar as much as possible. Being short I need all the help I can get reaching the lower frets. Also, the scale length is 24 3/4, instead of 25 1/2".

Yeah I know, but 1/2" here, and 3/4" there adds up eventually, and makes things more comfortable for me.

Another difference is the f-hole. I don't particularly like the original thinline f-hole. It's too long. It's the wrong placement on the top. And the ends are more raisin-shaped than round. So... I drew my own using a couple nickels and a french curve, applying it to the top.

At this point I couldn't really saw it out and didn't bother to make a template, so I routed it freehand. One would think that for this you would want to use a really small carving type tool (Dremel, Roto-Zip, etc). In a test piece I started with a tiny engraver- moved to a base mounted Demel- from there to a laminate trimmer with spiral cut bit- then to my next heaviest router.

I finally settled on the biggest, heaviest router I have. Mounted with a down-cut spiral bit, it was the most stable and easiest to control. I then freehanded the f-hole in the top. It is really easy to control this router-bit combo.

One of my goals with this rig was- it has to be light. The semi-hollow construction nets the following weight. This is the bare body with the bare neck attached. Under 5 lbs.




It's time for a little paint. Here's where things went awry, and the binding fiasco begins.

My original color scheme was to be a translucsent candy red over an orange base, with a subtle dark sunburst, with creme binding and pickguard. It is somewhat noticeable in one of the "binding" pics.

In my infinite wisdom I decided to try and paint first, and apply binding later. Normally I'd apply binding- build up lots of clear on the binding only- paint- and then in the colorsanding process, expose the binding with no chance of sand-through. I thought this "new" method would eliminate a couple steps, and if it worked it would be a good method for all to try, making one of the most tedious jobs in guitar building easier. WRONG!

The body in orange paint with two coats of clear, before the sunburst and the candy topcoat. It is masked in the binding rout so the binding glue adheres to wood, rather than paint.



This picture has the sunburst and topcoat applied along with a couple coats of clear, which has been scuffed up. Now the plan is to glue in the binding, scrape it flush to the clearcoats, and apply a few more coats of clear before the final buffing. As it turned out this experiment failed.

I forgot the glue may react with the previously applied paint, and I didn't think I'd be such a slob (which will show in following pics).



The only thing worthy of note here is the shaping of binding before application. I use a heat gun to soften the ABS, and shape it to the body. This binding can be held to the body closely with a minimum of taping. It makes the application SO much easier.

Sorry for being so wordy, but I don't have all the necessary shots, and we know a picture is worth 1000 words. More to follow.

[jwells393]

Reddog .............. this thread is a little messed up (requires horizontal scrolling) because of your large pictures. The forum software resizes them to 640 pixels wide. However every pixel of the large pictures must load and it makes the text as wide as the original picture size. This would make this thread nearly impossible to view for someone with a dial-up connection. I suggest you resize your pictures to 640 pixels wide before posting them.

[reddogbass]

Thanks Jack- If that's what is showing on others monitors, it's a problem. I hate that too:

But- When I view this thread, all's "normal." Properties shows the photos on my monitor as being 480x360. I thought I had it under control. But what do I know?

Any suggestions? What do I do now?

[hankseiz]

Looks normal on this end.....Fine work.

[Big Tony]

This is cool.

Thanks for sharing, reddogbass!

/ Tony

[klasher]

I noticed you're not installing the bridge pup at an angle like regular teles and strats. Any idea what kind of effect that's going to have on the tone of the bridge pup?

[reddogbass]

I noticed you're not installing the bridge pup at an angle like regular teles and strats. Any idea what kind of effect that's going to have on the tone of the bridge pup?

The reason I didn't was mainly because I thought since it wasn't bridge plate mounted like a normal tele, it looks better being somewhat symetrical. This was never intended to be "exactly" tele-like. Plus, the pup selection is also "abnormal" for this crowd. More on the pup's later.

Tonewise? I'd bet that if you could turn one of the angled pups straight, you wouldn't be able to tell. I'm not sure about this, but I think the main reason they're angled at the bridge is so the polepieces could be spaced farther apart, and allow more windings. I might be wrong about this. If I am I'm sure I'll hear about it. But, I don't think it has anything to do with where the magnet is on the string, especially as close as they are in relation to one another.

[reddogbass]

Here's why you DON'T do it this way!


As stated earlier I was experimenting with paint first- install binding later. I've always installed binding- scraped- add lots of clear to binding- paint- color sand to clear to expose binding (eliminates sand through of finsh), and then final clearcoats.

I was hoping to find a less tedious way of doing it, and hopefully others could benefit from this if it worked. It worked for the sake of the experiment- Just don't do it!

I didn't think about the glue reacting with the paint. I also didn't think I'd be such a slob and make a mess with the glue. I was and I did.

Here's a couple shots of the glue booboo after the blobs have been sanded flush. Naturally it took away the subtle sunburst thing I had going on. Really disappointing, as it was looking good to me. Disappointing my butt- I was PO'd!





So a little sanding- some primer and lacquer putty to fill the craters, and we are at this stage. Too bad I had to resort to this.



Well I so PO'd at this point (because of the work involved so far) I decided I didn't even want to look at that color on this one. I decided it was quicker to go with another color scheme, rather than create this one.

Since I had the binding and pickguard in cream (a gibson binding color) and I'd seen an LP that made me drool....



It's BLUE! But in real life it's much darker than the pic suggests. In some light it almost looks black, but the color is actually a shade or three lighter than what I would call "midnight blue."

Neck thing coming up.

[jwells393]

Dang ........ some of your pictures are even bigger than before. The blue guitar picture is 2,304 x 3,072 pixels

[fenderix]

In your latest post, I can only see the 1st of the 4 pics. Please resize them, reddogbass!

[reddogbass]

I'm working on the resize thing- Sorry!

[tuuur]

Hey Reddog... great thread so far! I truly like how you spell out the way you solve problems you encounter in this build.
Those bushings you installed in the router seem the way to go in my own build, as no hardware store in my neighborhood seems to sell the bearing bits. I didn't even know these bushings existed!