COMPLETED -- $100 Telecaster Challenge - Palletcaster

Here are some progress photos... I still need to do a bunch of stuff... make a nut, wire it up, make a pickguard, Set up, strap buttons, string tree, maybe replace the brass saddles and hope it all works.

The neck is a slow neck... I prefer a slow neck because I hate playing fast... it is 1.02" at the 1st and 12th frets... this thing is a bat.

The knobe are copper solder on pipe caps I got at Lowes for .53 each with a wood insert to fit the pots and switch.

 

I used silver solder like you solder copper pipe together with.

There is no finish on the copper... I thought about it but didn't do it. I will either leave it "au natural" or maybe put some Gibbs on it... it can tarnish and darken... patina ya know.

I took it to work yesterday and put it on the digital scale... 6.62lbs. I thought it may have been lighter since the body is only 1 1/2" thick, but I guess it's the big neck...

Well I have today off work as a "furlough" day so I am going to try to get a few things done. I need to scrape the lacquer offa the frets, make a pickguard, wire it up and put in the output jack, drill the knobs for setscrews and maybe make some copper saddles.

I wonder what effect the copper bridge plate and copper plate on the bottom of the pickup will have on the sound? The pickups are some I bought off ebay a couple of years ago that are supposed to be out of a 50's classic and I added a plate to the bottom of the bridge pickup.

 

On Thursday I had off work as a "furlough" day I got a few things done. I scraped the lacquer offa the frets, wired it up and made a home made socket cup kinda like an electrosocket and put in the output jack, drilled the knobs for setscrews and made a nut out of a dog bone from Petsmart that I had cut up for a previous project. I didn't have a .047 cap so I used 2 of the little .022 chicklet ones (because they were laying around) in series for a value of .044 and wired it like my other Pine tele (std 3 way). I made a string tree out of copper but it looked crummy so I put on an allparts tree.

Left to do:
I need to do a fret level
make a pickguard
make saddles (time permitting)
play guitar.

 

I made my own "electrosocket" to save $12... I tool a 3/4 nibco copper solder on pipe cap and cut it off, cut the end almost off, cut it down the side and made it fit in the 7/8" hole... then I melted some silver solder in the cup to solder the end back on and fill the split in the side... then with a few drill bits and my handy dremel tool I made it look kinda like an electrosocket.

cost .53 and and 1 1/2 hours labor...

 

Then I made a pickguard out of a scrap of leather that had some barb wire scratches in it. I copied the allparts pickguard shape. On this one I decided to not do any tooling except the groove around the outline. I dyed it black with fiebings USMC black and put some pecards leather dressing on it.

 

Here are the finished seductive couch photos...

 

Cost:
Pickups $40
Tuners $15
Pots $10 ($5ea)
Switch $9.50
Screws $3
Knobs $1.50

Total $84.50

Wood... free
Leather... scrap
Copper... scrap
Decals left over from 1st pinecaster
I still need to replace the saddles and string tree with copper ones.

I will post a sound clip in a few minutes...

 

Here is a sound clip to prove that it plays... (pardon my playing)

This is the Neck Pickup on rhythm and the Bridge pickup on lead.

www.members.cox.net/mp3post/palletcaster.mp3

Recorded plugged direct into the computer using Cakewalk, I did add some reverb to the mix.