COMPLETED -- $100 Telecaster Challenge - Palletcaster

I finished routing on the body and drilled the wiring holes, It just needs a little sanding and it is ready for finish.



I went over to Maricopa's house and he let me use his fret slotting saw and jig. Also in this pic is the piece of maple I bought from Home depot a few years ago to make a 6 string neck for a banjo and this was the left over. I am going to use a 5/16 square bar epoxied in the neck instead of an adjustable truss rod.



Here is my template that I made by copying the Allparts neck in the middle of the pic and here you can see the neck blank has the steel bar epoxied in and the blank is rough cut to shape.

 

Pine Palletcaster in Sonic Blonde (or is it Daphne Blonde?) with Paua dots.

I still need to profile the back of the neck and add some coats of clear over the next two days.

 

I decided to use a atandard size bridge and save the half bridge for something else later so I had to make another copper bridge. I made a copper bridge pickup base plate out of copper too.

 

Also here is a shot of the back of the neck with some finish on it.

 

I am liking the black pick guard with the Daphne Blonde and copper... Whadda y'all'uns think?

I might make a black leather one and save the allparts 1 ply in the pic for another project.

 

I drilled a little hole at each end of the slot and then cut between the holes with a little disc on a dremel tool.

 

Ian, The pickup I bought on ebay, it is supposed to be out of a 50's classic. I made a base plate for the pickup out of copper and I made the bridge out of copper.

RodeoTex, to make the bridge I out a fender bridge on top of the copper and scribed a line around it and marked all the holes. Then I center punched all the holes (except the 3 in the back lip) and drilled them all on a drill press. I clamped the copper between a piece of wood and the table and bent the sides over with a brass hammer. I cut out the pickup slot by drilling a series of 1/8 holes around the outside and then cut through the holes with a dremel cut off wheel and smoothed the inside of the slot with a dremel sanding drum and a file. I drilled the intonation holes last. Then I silver soldered the corners and filed it all smooth then went over it with a scotch brite pad.

 

Ya I will probably still make a leather pickguard and dye it black.