jchabalk
Tele-Holic
I put together a parts telecaster in 2019. It was my first build (assembly is probably the right term, right?) and while it turned out pretty good i never really liked it. I'd selected a bunch of nice parts and my body and neck were high-quality. It ended up being a pretty light build coming in at 6-3/4# when completed.
The big problem it had though is that i was pretty far out of balance; the body was really light and the neck was not. This resulted in bad neck dive which made it uncomfortable to play for any length of time. Even when seated the headstock always wanted to go to the ground. This wasn't something i'd anticipated when planning the guitar out - you just bolt everything together and "it works" right???
So i set out to build another tele back in December. I did a bunch of research here last year to make sure my approach for this guitar would solve the balance problem i had AND result in the guitar i wanted as i ended up not liking some of the choices i'd made the first time around. My plan was to reuse parts of my old one that i liked and change some of them out that didn't work well together.
Along the way i weighed every part to try and figure out how everything contributes to the weight of the final build.
The quick summary is that it turned out great and I'm really glad i did this. I ended up with a guitar that's well balanced on my lap or on a strap, that sounds amazing and plays easily. I spent a lot more time on assembly with this guitar making sure neck fit was as perfect as possible, screw holes were accurate, everything was straight and the lines were all clean. I'm really happy with it.
Here's a quick parts summary:
- BODY Guitar Mill Telecaster "ready to ship" w/ Butterscotch TruGrain finish: 68.8oz (body only)
- NECK Fender American Original 50s Telecaster Neck (Reverb): 24.7oz w/ Fender tuners and nut
- PARTS Mix of Callaham and Glendale parts, most of which i had although i went with a string-through bridge on this build.
- Don Mare Pickups: STelly Neck: 6.187ohm, SuperSport Bridge: 7.145ohm. I had these from several years ago and really loved how they sounded on my old build.
Here are the weights of parts i recorded in case this is useful to others - let me know if you have any questions
The completed neck weighed in at 24.7oz, the completed body weight is 88.3oz resulting in a total guitar weight of 116.1oz. There are ~3 oz. missing between the body weight and final total as i forgot to weigh the Glendale control plate and switch (and wire / solder
).
The neck makes up 21% of the weight, and the body 79%, a ratio of 1:4.
On my previous out-of-balance build the neck was ~25% of the weight and the body ~75%, a ratio of 1:3.
So moving that relatively small bit of weight from the neck -> body changed the ratio in a significant way and resulted in a really well balanced guitar.
The other question that i'd been trying to find an answer to was how much weight gets added to the body when building a guitar (eg: if i buy a body that weighs N, how much is going to weigh when it's built out?) There's certainly some variance in which parts you end up choosing, but at least for this build the parts added 22.6oz to the finished body weight. In the end the body weight increased by ~33% - which is good to know when selecting a body.
A lot of this is probably pretty well known to the regular builders here, i was having a difficult time wrapping my head around it while trying to figure out my parts, especially since i don't do this much and i didn't want to end up with another guitar i didn't like
Here are some pictures
Body detail right after i unpacked it. The "TruGrain" finish from Guitar Mill is very thin and they don't apply grain filler which you can see pretty clearly. I didn't set out looking for this finish but rather for a body in a particular weight range. That limited me to pre-made and pre-finished bodies (used or new) that had the weight published. This fit the bill on weight and color, and in person i really like it - so... score.
Inserting the string ferrules. I have a top-load bridge on this guitar, and so now have 2 options for stringing. You can see where i smacked the body a bit near the low-E ferrule. The fit was great (there's no way they're falling out but i didn't need to be too aggressive with driving them in either.
I removed that excess shielding tape prior to installing the bridge plate. Placing the neck pickup was the most difficult part of the whole thing. On my last build i got it close and it bothered me a bit every time i picked it up. I followed a few different methods for doing this that i found on the forum (bluetack to place and finishing nails to mark).
I spent a bunch of time on alignment and fitting everything (and sanding) before drilling any holes. This made for a really clean final guitar.
The color is a pretty light butterscotch in real life, but not this light. Apple Photos seems to be processing the image a bunch upon export.
Here's the relic job i did on my (formerly) perfect Callaham pickguard. I was putting it up on shelf above my workbench while i was building and after the ~37th time of taking it down to check fit it fell behind the shelf and crashed on the floor. Many words were uttered.
I somehow managed to get the intonation perfect by just placing the saddles close to where i thought they'd need to be. Just got lucky. A minor action adjustment to get the radius right after finishing up was all that was needed.
Another picture of the open grain
Installing these jack cups make me nervous. I followed advice i found on the forum here this time: I opened the hole up with a bit of sanding so the cup fit ~1/3 of the way with hand pressure, then i waxed it and drove it home with a hammer, using a short screw driver inserted through the hole to protect the cup. It seated perfectly, definitely won't fall out, and the cup wasn't marred.
The big problem it had though is that i was pretty far out of balance; the body was really light and the neck was not. This resulted in bad neck dive which made it uncomfortable to play for any length of time. Even when seated the headstock always wanted to go to the ground. This wasn't something i'd anticipated when planning the guitar out - you just bolt everything together and "it works" right???
So i set out to build another tele back in December. I did a bunch of research here last year to make sure my approach for this guitar would solve the balance problem i had AND result in the guitar i wanted as i ended up not liking some of the choices i'd made the first time around. My plan was to reuse parts of my old one that i liked and change some of them out that didn't work well together.
Along the way i weighed every part to try and figure out how everything contributes to the weight of the final build.
The quick summary is that it turned out great and I'm really glad i did this. I ended up with a guitar that's well balanced on my lap or on a strap, that sounds amazing and plays easily. I spent a lot more time on assembly with this guitar making sure neck fit was as perfect as possible, screw holes were accurate, everything was straight and the lines were all clean. I'm really happy with it.
Here's a quick parts summary:
- BODY Guitar Mill Telecaster "ready to ship" w/ Butterscotch TruGrain finish: 68.8oz (body only)
- NECK Fender American Original 50s Telecaster Neck (Reverb): 24.7oz w/ Fender tuners and nut
- PARTS Mix of Callaham and Glendale parts, most of which i had although i went with a string-through bridge on this build.
- Don Mare Pickups: STelly Neck: 6.187ohm, SuperSport Bridge: 7.145ohm. I had these from several years ago and really loved how they sounded on my old build.
Here are the weights of parts i recorded in case this is useful to others - let me know if you have any questions
| Guitar / Component | Weight (oz) | Comment |
| Finished Guitar Mill Body | 68.8 | |
| Copper Tape Shielding | .2 | |
| Fender American Original 50s neck | 24.7 | incl: fender tuners + nut |
| Don Mare STelly (neck) | 2.7 | |
| Don Mare Super Sport (bridge) | 3.4 | |
| Glendale String Ferrules (6) | .5 | |
| Glendale top-loader double-cut bridge plate | 1.9 | |
| Brass saddles | 1 | |
| Glendale Neck plate | 2.2 | |
| Screws for neck plate -> body | .5 | |
| Glendale Jack Cup | .4 | |
| Switchcraft 1/4" jack | .3 | |
| (2) Callaham Stainless strap buttons + screws | .4 | |
| Callaham telecaster pickguard + 5 screws | 2.2 | lightly relic'd when i dropped it behind my desk |
| (2) 250k CTS pots | 1.1 | |
| (2) Glendale Dome knobs | 2.2 |
The completed neck weighed in at 24.7oz, the completed body weight is 88.3oz resulting in a total guitar weight of 116.1oz. There are ~3 oz. missing between the body weight and final total as i forgot to weigh the Glendale control plate and switch (and wire / solder
).The neck makes up 21% of the weight, and the body 79%, a ratio of 1:4.
On my previous out-of-balance build the neck was ~25% of the weight and the body ~75%, a ratio of 1:3.
So moving that relatively small bit of weight from the neck -> body changed the ratio in a significant way and resulted in a really well balanced guitar.
The other question that i'd been trying to find an answer to was how much weight gets added to the body when building a guitar (eg: if i buy a body that weighs N, how much is going to weigh when it's built out?) There's certainly some variance in which parts you end up choosing, but at least for this build the parts added 22.6oz to the finished body weight. In the end the body weight increased by ~33% - which is good to know when selecting a body.
A lot of this is probably pretty well known to the regular builders here, i was having a difficult time wrapping my head around it while trying to figure out my parts, especially since i don't do this much and i didn't want to end up with another guitar i didn't like
Here are some pictures
Body detail right after i unpacked it. The "TruGrain" finish from Guitar Mill is very thin and they don't apply grain filler which you can see pretty clearly. I didn't set out looking for this finish but rather for a body in a particular weight range. That limited me to pre-made and pre-finished bodies (used or new) that had the weight published. This fit the bill on weight and color, and in person i really like it - so... score.
Inserting the string ferrules. I have a top-load bridge on this guitar, and so now have 2 options for stringing. You can see where i smacked the body a bit near the low-E ferrule. The fit was great (there's no way they're falling out but i didn't need to be too aggressive with driving them in either.
I removed that excess shielding tape prior to installing the bridge plate. Placing the neck pickup was the most difficult part of the whole thing. On my last build i got it close and it bothered me a bit every time i picked it up. I followed a few different methods for doing this that i found on the forum (bluetack to place and finishing nails to mark).
I spent a bunch of time on alignment and fitting everything (and sanding) before drilling any holes. This made for a really clean final guitar.
The color is a pretty light butterscotch in real life, but not this light. Apple Photos seems to be processing the image a bunch upon export.
Here's the relic job i did on my (formerly) perfect Callaham pickguard. I was putting it up on shelf above my workbench while i was building and after the ~37th time of taking it down to check fit it fell behind the shelf and crashed on the floor. Many words were uttered.
I somehow managed to get the intonation perfect by just placing the saddles close to where i thought they'd need to be. Just got lucky. A minor action adjustment to get the radius right after finishing up was all that was needed.
Another picture of the open grain
Installing these jack cups make me nervous. I followed advice i found on the forum here this time: I opened the hole up with a bit of sanding so the cup fit ~1/3 of the way with hand pressure, then i waxed it and drove it home with a hammer, using a short screw driver inserted through the hole to protect the cup. It seated perfectly, definitely won't fall out, and the cup wasn't marred.
and with a classic setup otherwise. Another fine tribute to timeless masterpiece of design.
