KelvinS1965
Tele-Afflicted
Having finished my Gibson Gold Top refinish, I'm making a start on my Cabronita. I was never happy with the finish as supplied; I usually spray my own, but at the time I thought it would be nice to have a painted body to start the build with. Unfortunately being a custom order I was stuck with it when it arrived: NOS finish wasn't what I thought and had crazing and some (very) light relicing. Also the colour was supposed to be 'Pewter' but this came looking much more of a shade of dark blue.
As supplied, close up I sent to the supplier:
I'd just lost my Dad at the time, so I couldn't be bothered to argue any further with the supplier, so just put it together as it was, after I gave it a bit of a buff to remove some of the crazing to a degree:
While I still wasn't keen on the colour I decided to move on with putting it together. At the time I'd put a MIM 'Fat '51 U' neck on my MIM Classic 50s Telecaster, so the idea was to put the Classic 50s neck on this Cabronita. A pair of TV Jones Classic/Classic + pickups and I found a wiring diagram for the Custom Shop Cabronita that uses a pull switch on the volume pot to engage some capacitors which gives a fixed tone cut (different values for each pickup).
A bit of a squeeze, but I managed to fit the wiring in and not have any shorting:
I used a cheap bridge I found from my usual UK supplier Axecaster. The bottom E string intonation was such that I had to wind the saddle as far back as it would go and it was still a tiny bit sharp on the 12th fret, but otherwise it sounded and played well:
My wife bought me a neck plate for Christmas and I found a blank Tele control plate at Axecaster, so I put that on the back for some added bling. I recessed the ferrules sometime after this photo was taken:
The completed guitar was really light:
Eventually I wanted to put the Classic 50s neck back on the MIM Tele, so I could sell it. I've since built a White Blonde Tele that the Fat U '51 neck is on and these days I prefer taller frets than the low vintage ones on the Classic 50s neck.
I bought an Allparts V profile neck with Vintage tall frets, did a level, crown and polish, fitted a bone nut and sprayed the neck in a Vintage Amber tinted clear from NorthWestGuitars.
Around this time I replaced the bridge with a Fender hard tail one:
Yesterday I took the body apart ready to sand it down to refinish it.
I'm waiting to see if the sides and back look nice enough under the paint, so I can just spray it with a tinted clear, similar to my Gold Top Les Paul. I don't think it will have a faux binding effect, though I might see if I can do something creative with masking and different shades of clear/tint. The front will be sprayed in a base coat of Les Paul Gold Top Gold, then I plan to mix some Cherry clear with some bright yellow, to try to make a more orange tinted clear coat (all the same brand of paint I'm mixing).
Hopefully the end result will be a Candy Apple Tangerine finish.
I'll update the thread once I start making some progress.
As supplied, close up I sent to the supplier:
I'd just lost my Dad at the time, so I couldn't be bothered to argue any further with the supplier, so just put it together as it was, after I gave it a bit of a buff to remove some of the crazing to a degree:
While I still wasn't keen on the colour I decided to move on with putting it together. At the time I'd put a MIM 'Fat '51 U' neck on my MIM Classic 50s Telecaster, so the idea was to put the Classic 50s neck on this Cabronita. A pair of TV Jones Classic/Classic + pickups and I found a wiring diagram for the Custom Shop Cabronita that uses a pull switch on the volume pot to engage some capacitors which gives a fixed tone cut (different values for each pickup).
A bit of a squeeze, but I managed to fit the wiring in and not have any shorting:
I used a cheap bridge I found from my usual UK supplier Axecaster. The bottom E string intonation was such that I had to wind the saddle as far back as it would go and it was still a tiny bit sharp on the 12th fret, but otherwise it sounded and played well:
My wife bought me a neck plate for Christmas and I found a blank Tele control plate at Axecaster, so I put that on the back for some added bling. I recessed the ferrules sometime after this photo was taken:
The completed guitar was really light:
Eventually I wanted to put the Classic 50s neck back on the MIM Tele, so I could sell it. I've since built a White Blonde Tele that the Fat U '51 neck is on and these days I prefer taller frets than the low vintage ones on the Classic 50s neck.
I bought an Allparts V profile neck with Vintage tall frets, did a level, crown and polish, fitted a bone nut and sprayed the neck in a Vintage Amber tinted clear from NorthWestGuitars.
Around this time I replaced the bridge with a Fender hard tail one:
Yesterday I took the body apart ready to sand it down to refinish it.
I'm waiting to see if the sides and back look nice enough under the paint, so I can just spray it with a tinted clear, similar to my Gold Top Les Paul. I don't think it will have a faux binding effect, though I might see if I can do something creative with masking and different shades of clear/tint. The front will be sprayed in a base coat of Les Paul Gold Top Gold, then I plan to mix some Cherry clear with some bright yellow, to try to make a more orange tinted clear coat (all the same brand of paint I'm mixing).
Hopefully the end result will be a Candy Apple Tangerine finish.
I'll update the thread once I start making some progress.