First build: Single P90 telecaster

Courage or foolishness. Probably more of the latter.

 

I love those old challenge threads. I'm not even close to that level, but you have to start somewhere. I figure as long as the next one is better than the last than I'm doing alright.

 

After I got the maple neck spindle sanded to the line I realized I made the neck pocket too skinny. Luckily I had plenty of cutoffs of alder left over. It won't be the prettiest, but I'm determined to not have to scrap this body.

Here's the cutoff piece. I left it a little big so I can sand it flush.

 

You can barely see the repair I had to make on the neck pocket. Also filling the chips and dents with sawdust and glue really works great.

The only spot that's really bad is the router blowout by the neck pickup, but I can hopefully cover that with a pickguard. The grain looks pretty good on this one too. Now to research how to do tru oil finishes.

 

Thanks man. You think I should sand it back to the bare wood and give it another go? I guess I waited less than 24 hours after I put the primer on to do the color coats. Patience has never been a great virtue of mine. Haha. But I want this one to come out nice.

 

I appreciate the help Eric. I used the Zinsser BINS primer on this and the other finishes I've done. I'm wondering if it's different because I used automotive paint and maybe I should use a similar primer. Guess I'll sand it down and figure it out. I think I have a can of the same brand primer around somewhere. I just wanted to seal the wood with the Zinsser.

 

Sometimes you need to start over.


Going to sand this down to the bare wood and then prime it with primer of the same brand.

 

Made some headway on my first neck today. I used silicon to install the truss rod, then made pins with brad nails to set the fretboard in place, covered the rod with tape and spread the glue, then clamped the board on there. I also drilled the tuner holes. Looking pretty good so far.

I still need to shape the fretboard to match the neck shape. If I had a bandsaw I would have marked it and cut it separately, but I didn't want to try it with a jigsaw. So my plan is to use my spindle sander to get it to the line.

I also got some burn marks from my sander on the heel and a little on the headstock.

This neck will be for the odd shaped guitar I'm building. The Tele is going to get the Bolivian rosewood, but I want to plug up the truss access on the heel of that one and try to get a cleaner look. I think in the future I'm going to use the stewmac hotrods with the wheel adjustment. I think I can make that route look way better than my current ones, but you have to start somewhere.

 

Used the spindle sander to do the transition from the fretboard to the headstock. Now I'm using my Shinto rasp to get the headstock to thickness. I really like this rasp. I also used it on all of the body contours. It's a lot of work but I enjoy it. I'll probably rely on it a lot during the actual neck carving.

 

Also because I didn't cut the fretboard to width before it got glued on there's a corner by the low E tuner of the fretboard that I need to cut off straight.I didn't think of it until I had it all sanded down. I'll probably do it real carefully with files or a chisel.

 

I did a lot of research on what to use for side dots. Since the fretboard was rosewood I didn't want to use copper or brass. I didn't want to pay shipping for white dots from stew mac. So I went to Michael's and picked up some 12 gauge aluminum wire. I guess for making bracelets or something, but it's a perfect fit for the 3/32 drill bit.

So I tried a test fit on a cutoff from the Bolivian rosewood and it fit great and sanded down really easily.


I marked the spots for all of the holes on the side of the neck 1/8" down from the fretboard and halfway between frets.

Next I took some super glue on a tooth pick and spread it in the holes, pushed the aluminum to the bottom and cut it off with wire cutters a bit proud of the surface.

After I let the glue dry a bit I hit them with a file to flatten out the top to not tear the sandpaper. Then I hit them with a sanding block and some 320.

I like the look of it. Plus for $3 I got enough to do about 20 necks. Haha. I'd like to try something similar for the inlays. Aluminum tubing with epoxy in the center. Maybe the next one. I think I'm going to leave the fretboard blank on this one.

 

I started the neck carve. This is undoubtedly the most intimidating part of the build for me. I've never done this before but I've read hundreds of threads on it. Some of them I probably read 100 times.

I've been using my Shinto rasp, ferrier's rasp, and some files. It's tiring but rewarding. It's starting to look like something.

 

Made some headway last night and today. It feels like a real neck. It's pretty chunky. Kind of reminds me of my old 50's classic neck. I still might take a bit more off of it to get a smaller C. Still need to work on the transitions a little more and round off the area by the fretboard, but it's getting there.

 

I also just ordered 12 feet of fret wire from Stew Mac to hopefully get enough to fret both necks. I got the medium/high fret wire. I would have liked to use stainless steel since I won't have to worry too much about fret wear and I love it on my Warmoth neck, but I didn't want to fuss with sanding a bunch of stainless steel on my first fret job.

Thank you to all the current and past members for the knowledge that's all over this site. If a lot of the threads weren't 10+ years old I would have commented and thanked you. I wouldn't be able to do any of this without the people on this forum. Cheers.