2010 TDPRI $210 Challenge - Roll the Dice

Got little more done on the neck last night, hope to get more done tonight. Tried a couple of different tints on some of the maple neck cut offs. The reranch aerosol neck tint looked a little too yellow for my tastes but the powder amber mixed with denatured alcohol looked pretty good (after several mixture tries). Found out once again that more sanding was needed after applying the tint. Guess I should have rubbed the neck with mineral spirits before tinting to identify the uneven sanding areas.

 

I will finish the current neck (the so called practice neck) but once completed will try to finish this flamed maple neck with a Cocobolo fret board. Time is running out!

 

Put 4 coats of tru oil on the neck and looks pretty good (if you don't count the blotchy areas ) Also sprayed several coats of lacquer on the pickguard. Good time to spray lacquer in central Florida with the humidity around 50% the last couple of days. Seems like we only get about 4 days a year under 95%.

 

Invited to a friends house this evening for dinner. They have another friend visiting from out of town who builds mandolins (and acoustic guitars) for a living. When they mentioned what I'm doing, he suggested I bring my build with me and he would critique it. I had to look him up on line.....

http://www.altmanguitars.net/instruments.html

Guess he knows what he's doing at $9,950.00 a pop with 10 to 12 month wait. I'll be taking a lot of notes tonight!

 

Flamed Maple neck w/Cocbolo board

Got a little more done on the second neck. The first one piece is complete and can be used if this one isn't completed on time. Marked the fret slots then lined up the center lines of both pieces and drilled the holes to for the pins to keep the fret board from swimming when being glued.

 

Cut the fret and nut slots then used the acrylic urethane caulk to secure the non adjustable truss rod.

 

Then aligned the pins and pin holes in the fret board and glued them together.

 

Heat index at 97 degrees Central Florida

It's hot out there! Unable to complete the second neck so I will level and dress the frets on the first (the so-called practice neck) as well as make a nut. Lost some of the pictures (???) using the fret rocker and marking the high spots on the frets, oh well. Of course it all begins with taping the fret board. Here are the tools used to dress and level. I was surprised at the effectiveness of just using sandpaper for much of this process.

 

Next steps, mark radius and string spacing on bone nut blank, then rough in string slots.

 

Installed the tuners and the output jack cup then began wiring. The control plate was purchased from ebay and other than adding a pio capacitor nothing else was added. The existing wiring did not resemble any diagram I have seen so far and did not function on the middle position when tested, so had to rewire the complete rig.

 

Don't know why the pictures didn't post...but here they are.

 

The last leg.

The decal. The name Feral was given to our dog by my son over 18 years ago. She proved a pedigree was totally unnecessary to be (as my wife says) the best dog ever. From the beginning this build had a rustic theme, and certainly no pedigree, which fits right in with the definition of Feral:

'Existing or returned to a wild(e) or untamed state, having a rugged, unkempt appearance or suggestive of a wild(e) animal; savage'

 

The Costs

Here's the damage so far:

Body $ 6.67 Ebay $19.99 / 3 = $6.67
Neck $ 2.50 Ebay $9.99 / 4 = $2.50
Fret Dots $ 4.46 Stewmac
Frets $ 4.01 Stewmac $44.43/11 = $4.01
Nut $ 2.00 Ebay
Neck Plate $ 1.25 Ebay Lot of 20 for $25.00
Tuners $ 21.95 GFS
Strings $ 4.00 Music Center
String Ferrules $ 5.93 Stewmac
String Trees $ 1.41 Stewmac $2.81/2 = $1.41
Control Plate $ 7.26 Ebay
Control Knobs $ 5.00 Ebay
Out Put Jack + Cover $ 9.62
Stewmac (electrosocket) and Ebay (jack)
Neck Pick Up $ 28.00 Bill Lawrence neck p/up
Bridge Pick Up $ 29.00 Bill Lawrence bridge p/up
Bridge $ 8.00 Ebay
Pick Guard $ 2.00 Mcmaster Carr
Strap Knobs $ 0.99 Ebay
Screws $ 4.00 Ebay
Filler $ 4.00 Reranch
Tru oil $ 6.00 Woodcraft
$ 158.41

 

What a learning experience this was...especially working on the neck. Made a lot of mistakes which I'll talk about in a bit under the posting of "the good, the bad and the ugly". But first, the finished product. Sorry about the picture quality, it does not do close ups very well. The first thing bought for next years contest is a new camera.

 

I can only upload 4 pictures at a time, here's more.

 

and more....as I've only built 2 tele's from scratch, just couldn't resist posing them together.

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The good. I really liked the way the turned out looks wise. It's just as hoped for. It's sounds great! The Keystone pups are as advertised and enjoyable even for someone with my limited playing capability (think of me as Jimmy Strummer). The best part though is the amount learned from this build and from looking in on the rest of the builders. 68thinline said it best earlier "the more mistakes made the more you learn". In that case, I learned a ton!

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Bad. A broken bolt in the bridge will have to be drilled and removed. It doesn't affect playability and the bridge is stable but what a pain in the butt. There is fret buzz and fret out on the treble strings between the 9th and 12th frets. I let it sit overnight and is much improved so I will let it sit another day or two before re-leveling the frets. I'm not sure if I had installed a truss rod if this would have been an issue.

 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Ugly. Almost all of these issues could have been avoided if the "measure twice cut once" rule had been followed. There is a misalligned tuner hole which throws the whole tuner row off. The 17th and 19th fret dots misalligned and the 18th, 19th and 20th fret slots are slightly crooked. All of these errors have not been repeated in the second neck currently being built. Seems an old dog can be taught new tricks. All I have to say is...can't wait till next year! See you then.