Pine Tele body advice

I probably would, that is a lot of contrast. I wouldn't take it so dark you can't see the knots though, that's part of the appeal of a pine body for me.

 

Pine can get pretty wild if you stain it. I'd go very cautiously, maybe with diluted washes of stain, or seal the wood first, which can mitigate the blotchiness.

 

Some contrast is really nice.

You could finish the body with some platina shellac, the palest amber. I've used WellerMart dewaxed shellac in 2 oz packets, about $15. Dissolve 2 oz in 1 cup of denatured alcohol to make what's called "2 lb. cut."

Platina is very slightly ambered. You can find pictures online of color gradations.

If you're worried about durability (I'm not), you can hit shellac later with a thin layer of clear poly.

Another good option is Solarez, usually used for surfboards. You spread it on in a darkened room, then take it out to cure quickly in full sunlight. If you leave the body in a sunny place, it will amber up nicely.

 

Rub a little tru-oil in one of the pickup cavities. You might be surprised, I bet it darkens/ambers the color a little bit. It might be just enough.

 

If you put enough coats of Tru-Oil on there it should darken quite a bit. Look up my threads about my Jazzbo Hepcaster reverse Esquire for an example. I used 30 coats on that body.

 

These are hundred year old Ponderosa pine from an old barn. The first one is finished in lacquer, the second TruOil. Neither had any stains or other color added. The first has a maple neck with rosewood f/b, the second has a rosewood neck with rose f/b





I think TruOil is an acceptable finish for pine, I wouldn't use it on other woods.

 

FYI Pine is used to frame houses,make closets and build outdoor sh*t houses. It was never meant to be used for guitar construction. It is cheap, fast-growing weed of a wood. DO NOT use it to build a musical instrument for the Love of God.

 

Sounds perfect for a telecaster then.

 

I agree.

Pine, by that definition and description, is well suited to become a Telecaster.
From both a physical and aesthetic (maybe even spiritual) standpoint.

Bender 66, I have (and have owned) T-style guitars with bodies made of poplar, ash, alder, basswood, and pine.

If you were to walk up to me two years ago, or perhaps two years from now, and ask me, "which of these Teles are/were your favorite to gig with?", I would say the two pine ones.
(One made for me by a local craftsman, and the other a 2012 Fender Modern Player Telecaster Plus.)

I dig all of them, don't get me wrong.
But I guess I have always bonded with the 'less is more', trailer park trash notion of pine body guitars.

Growing up in and out of the Deep South, I must also confess that I have an affinity for pine forests, and my own property here on a spring fed creek is populated with many tall, gorgeous pines.
And yes, Novak, they do indeed grow like weeds.

 

Dude has a pine body ready to role, what’s the point of telling him not to use a pine body? It’ll sound great and be a fun project.

It’ll be soft so maybe plan on a good, heavy, hard finish. As mentioned pine absorbs stain very unevenly, sanding sealer will be an important step. Test your sealing/stain/finish procedure on a piece of scrap board before going after the body.

 

2x4s are usually hemlock, maybe grab a piece of pine at Your local lumber store?

 

BTW pine is subject to warpage/porosity and doesn't hold screws or other fasteners well. I used to work in a furniture factory; we used every local wood except pine.

 

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Perhaps you are looking for making the body look something like this. This is alder with walnut and maple strip inlays. There was a lot of layers of stain on/stain off, feathering the stain to the rim for a slight burst, and so on before the tru-oil finish was applied. I wanted a lived-in look because this guitar had been abused, discarded, stripped, repainted, repaired, then stripped again.




Search for 'how to stain pine' can bring up suggestions. Start with scrap wood until you get close to what you want.
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/staining-pine/

Only if you believe wood is magically imparting talent to your playing, or read too many marketing brochures from companies trying to sell you stuff. Wood is there to look nice and hold all the other parts in their respective locations, and provide the ergonomics that determine how you play a guitar (Strat volume knob causes more picking closer to the neck to avoid hitting it, LPs cause palm muting and picking on the inside of the bridge pickup, Teles cause picking between the pickup and saddles where Twang hangs out. Tone is most effected by the pickups+pots 'n caps.

If you want fast growing ... look up Agathis and Paulownia. Those woods might just save the planet when used for guitar building rather than ripping exotic lumber out of the fragile rain forest ecosystems.

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I have 4 teles. All have pine bodies (one has an ash top). All play and sound great and hold their hardware just fine. One has had a couple stripped screw holes that I have easily fixed with the "toothpick trick".

Remember, there are different grades and hardnesses of pine...both by species and even within the same tree. I've had a few crappy pine bodies that were basically garbage that I bought for cheap to experiment with. But my better pine bodies have stood the test of time and continue to.

 

Pine is great to make guitars and amps out of.

 

These are pine too.