My First Build - Figured Maple Matto-tele-caster

[alysum]

G'day,

Next week I'm planning to start building my first guitar when I head overseas to my folks, I will be using my dad's lute-making workshop with all the tools we need (tho we don't have a router yet).

I'm planning to make a combination of 2 guitars I like; my custom Fender telecaster FMT (made in Korea) and Matthew Bellamy's Manson 'Bomber' body shape.

Features will be:

• bolt-on Warmoth telecaster maple neck with brazilian rosewood fingerboard
  
• thin mahogany body
  
• carved figured maple top, dark blue or grey stain
  
• natural maple binding
  
• hardtail bridge (string thru rear)
  
• Kent Armstrong Motherbucker bridge pickup
  
• Kent Armstrong P90 neck pickup
  
• Volume + push-push tone (to split the motherbucker to a humbucker)
  

My dad has a beautiful maple plank we will cut out. When I'll be in transit in Paris I will get some mahoghany at this place.

Can't wait to start this after reading this forum so much as well as Melvyn Hiscock's book...I just hope I have everything I need ! So far I have [maple top, neck with nut, tuners, string retainers, set of strings, 2 pickups, 2 pots, 2 knobs, jack socket, LP switch, bridge, 2 strap holders, cavity cover, wiring kit, grain filler].

Havent yet got: [mahogany, stain color, laquer, templates (to make)]

Will be updating this thread once I start.

Cheers

[TripleFan]

Just curious: what´s the trem in the pic of the Bomber you posted?

Good luck with your project!

[Xanthus]

Lookin' like a sweet project! Will it have awesome electronics like Bellamy's guitar?

And the bridge looks like a lo-pro Floyd recessed into a pocket. Nothing fancy.

[alysum]

Hello,

I got an african mahogany plank in Paris last Monday; it's 50mm thick...going to be a lot of machine planing to do to get it to 30mm. I'm taking it to be planed tomorrow.

My dad has lots of maple so we found an okay figured plank, cut out 2 bookmatched pieces and glued them. Unfortunately because of the band saw and the fact that the glued maple bent overnight, the surface is uneven so I'm hoping the machine planing will flatten it on both sides. I might actually prepare a second one in case this onemesses up.

I got the maple neck with brazilian fingerboards from Warmoth; it looks beautiful, wish I made it lol

More tomorrow then with some pics I hope ! Right now I'm drawing the body shape on paper etc...

Xanthus> no I'm keeping it simple with no effects in it for start plus I like to show off the flamed maple instead of the extra knobs all over

Edited July 22, 2007 by alysum

[dude]

A guitar-builder in a lute shop? That sounds almost like how Parker started out.

[alysum]

A guitar-builder in a lute shop? That sounds almost like how Parker started out.

ahah no my dad is a lute maker not a shop

[alysum]

Apologies for not updating this thread; I have now made an effort to put all photos on and resize them so here we go !

[click on thumbnails for larger pictures]

The wood

African Mahogany plank (50mm thick)

My dad has so much maple to choose from but not many are wide enough (16cms) plus not all of it is very good

So we cut out on the band saw several planks

We took the mahogany and 2 tops to a local chap who had this huge sanding machine. After several passes, the mahogany got to 30mm thick and the maple to 12mm. Nice and flat all over.

Joining the maple top together

The first top we did was no good as we did a bad join and the surface was all uneven and bent so we chose a second one.

But the next day the 2 tops moved and was no longer bookmatching so we did it again with more clamps at both ends.

Body template

I had a rough drawing I did from my telecaster back in Sydney to base myself on for the bottom part of the body and the height of the body (about 41mm). For the mattocaster cuttaway I based myself on the picture of his 'Bomber'.

First I drew the shape on tracing paper than onto some thin plywood.

I drew precisely where the bridge will go with the usual 25.5" scale length, pickup cavities, controls, neck pocket with joint at the 16th fret etc...

Edited July 25, 2007 by alysum

[alysum]

Gluing the body and top together

The maple and mahogany were already well sanded on the machine using 80 grit. So I just did a quick manual sanding using 150 grit then glued with cold glue and heaps of clamping !

Cutting out the body

The body is ready to be cut around !

Band sawing the guitar

The result !

I left some space on the right of the neck pocket as I want to do it manually.

I'm currently sanding the body contour manually which is time consuming

[alysum]

By the way I hope to get a better join at the bottom when I carve it around.

The figure doesn't show much on the outer ends so I might have to do a sunburst spray around.

[alysum]

Body back contour

Carved the contour at the back for more comfort using spokeshaves and cabinet scrapers. I struggled using spokeshaves along the grain so dad helped. Then sanded with 150 grit.

Carving the body back edges

Manually carved the edges with a cabinet scraper and 150 sanding

Edited August 3, 2007 by alysum

[alysum]

Bit of a setback, there are a couple of big cracks on the mahogany at both ends which is very surprising...looks like the supplier didn't dry it properly

So I've been putting hot glue in and storing it in a cooler room.

[Jon]

I was wondering if those were checks, sorry to hear that happened. Maybe after the body is the correct moisture content, you can make it a little smaller to get rid of those checks?

[alysum]

Yes they are checks. My dad has put some glue and varnish, that's all we can do really. Fortunately the maple will hold it so in the end it's not a disaster. But a good lesson for me ! I suppose the climate change from Paris to Southern France made the wood move.

[alysum]

Cavities

I spent quite a few days last week on learning how to use the router using a bit without a bearing (couldn't find one in my area) and make some templates for the neck pocket + pickup cavities. And I struggled a lot; I believe it takes time to get used to the the router. And I should really look to use a bearing for my next guitar.

So I almost only used the router for the controls cavity at the back. But after I messed it up a bit when I chiselled around the cavity to make it flat for the plastic cover I had. If it looks too bad later I will made a new ebony cover a bit bigger.

For the neck pocket, I let my dad chisel it as I was too nervous to do it !

Regular checks were made to check the action hence the bridge placed on the photo.

Then I drilled the 4 holes with a pillar drill, marking the holes using a template of the bolt on area. I forgot to drill through a piece of wood after drilling through the body; consequently a piece of wood got split on the top left hole as you can see on the pic:

This has been repaired with a piece of mahogany.

I also made the mistake to sand the edge a bit too much at the top the metal plate.

On the picture you can see the body side has been temporally varnished to try stop the cracks in the mahogany. There are about 10 in all...

Nevertheless it's lovely to see a neck and body combo for the first time ! The 3 hard tail bridge holes have been drilled after marking out the scale length.

Next the bridge cavity routing went wrong when I started and went too far to the top (as can be seen on some pics later) so I switched to chisel. The neck cavity was also carefully done with a chisel too as there is no cover around. Fortunately the bridge cavity routing error will be hidden with the cover.

[alysum]

Top carving

Now the fun part; carving the maple top starting with a planer + violin makers planer then a curved cabinet scraper. The thickness on the edge went from 12mm to 6mm. It's not a straight slope but a slightly carved surface just like on my Fender Tele FMT.

A closer look at the body after 150 grit sanding. You can see the bridge pickup cavity mess !

Jack socket hole

Drilling the hole started well then for some reason the drill bit went crazy and drilled a slightly oval instead of round hole though the round metal socket hides most of it. I can always put a big oval plate in the future.

I should also have done this before doing the back edges so I wouldn't have had to drill the maple a bit. Keep learning from mistakes...

[Jonathon]

I love that wood for the top! The whole thing looks great, good luck with that. I can't wait to see the result!

[alysum]

cheers

Well I'm going on holidays for 2 weeks on the coast so there won't be any progress for a while. And I'm going to take this break to read and think about how to stain the body without staining the maple binding; issue which I have raised on this thread.

[alysum]

Apologies for the delay, I've had 3 weeks vacation :-)

The mahogany has been moving again...so it has a slight curve on the back and I had to enlarge the neck pocket and pickup cavities. I can live with it though...

I drilled the volume pot hole and selector. Decided to go with no tone pot and have a push-pull on the volume to split the motherbucker. (I broke the push-push pot when trying to pull off the dome, silly me...).

I've been trying out hundreds of different stains from black leather to pale blue and trying to do natural maple binding and never got satisfying results (especially on the mahogany); I think it's just too difficult to get a nice maple binding on your first guitar. The stain on the maple top and mahogany wouldn't leave a straight unstained line despite the different finished I applied on a test block of binding. So I decided to go natural and not apply any stain at all.

After sanding down everything with 320 grit, I put water glass all over the maple (top and bonding) to raise the figure, sanded with 1500 grit then sprayed 2 coats of clear lacquer then sanded with 2400, then twice 2 more coats then 3600 grit sanding. The neck got the same treatment. It's looking nice but not thick enough I think so I will put on a couple more coats and sand at 4000 before polishing it.

[alysum]

I've finally finished the guitar which had a long break between moving back to Australia, then having to look for a job etc...I also realised I got the wrong kind of pickup ring; by default Kent Armstrong sends you a Gibson style one (the one with a sloped bottom) which is odd so I had to order a flat one and figured out a chrome one would look nicer too !

So next was to screw the pickups on. The P90 didn't have any springs to push it up so I put some in. Also screwed on the string retainers.

Soldering the components was a pain in the ass ! Not that I had carefully planned out everything in advance, but I just suck at soldering ! Trying to keep still & cool, get some solder on that tiny place etc... I guess it's a good learning curve....

Once it all worked I did the final polishing to the body and strung up properly the guitar. It now looks lovely when finished !

Just have to adjust the action and intonation before I can play properly.

Overall I'm happy to have made this. obviously there have been a few minor mistakes such as the pickup cavity, controls cavity, jack socket hole a little too big etc... which I'll learn from but still I cannot believe how much the mahogany has warped, really...so much...thankfully the top is carved so you cannot see it really from the front. have to make sure I dry out the wood longer next time.

Here are some photos !