Mr_Buttman Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 (edited) Hello guys. When i saw a electric guitar for the first time i thought that the best guitar shape is arrow or something like this with sharp edges. And of course, i hated tele shape. But after some years i've found that it's shape is very pretty. Finally we (me and my bro) decided to make our own telecaster but with some original things. First of all, the wood: Body Sapele body+makore top ( ok, it's not the thin top, as usual, but it's thickness is 1.7 cm and the sapele "body" thickness is 2.5 cm ) You can see body wood here: 1 - the dark wood is sapele and under it you can see makore. 2 - in order to machine makore we had to cut it and then glue the pieces together 3 - the top after some leveling and sanding (i think pretty nice texture) 4 - body glued In our last project (ES-339 style) we used makore for the neck (it was really dark and heavy) and sapele for the body (it was light) but... i'm really suprised how the weight and the color of one wood spieces can differ. Now we have dark sapele and light makore. We selected the most resonant pieces for the body and neck Neck Another exotic wood in the guitar - Anigre. It's very resonant and rather lighweight. 5 - the future neck After that introduction i would like about technical specifications and style. Neck- 2 way truss rod, 2 carbon fiber rods, sperzel tuners, binded freatboard with custom inlay Body- hipshot bridge, top and back binding Golden age neck humbucker and haven't decieded yet about bridge one. The guitar will be called ....... "Space Hooker" and will have custom inlay with "sputnik" and stars on the freatboard and also will have the dark blue finish. I've made a picture in Photoshop, sorry for it's quality, but you can see the main ideas there. Any comments are welcome Edited November 26, 2008 by Mr_Buttman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanesque Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Sorry for the quality? I would have thought that was a real guitar. SWEET choice of woods. you should leave the back natural, and just stain the top blue...I have always thought that was a nice combo. I'm a big Tele fan after never having owned one...so I know what you mean. Someday I'm gonna build my own semi-hollow tele. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted October 18, 2008 Report Share Posted October 18, 2008 Did you get your woods from this guy? The types you're using make me suspect, especially the anigre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted October 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2008 Thx Ryanesque, i haven't decieded yet what color to use in back and after your words i'll leave it natural. avengers63, i've got the woods in big Russian furniture company which order it in big German wood company Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted October 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2008 Some update: The body routed Carbon rods and trussrod channel routed The neck routed Gonna shape the neck and fingerboard soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted November 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 Some update We decided to change the inlay - now we have meteorite except sputnik and some other changes neck with truss rod and carbon rods Fingerboard with inlay (not glued and leveled) inlay detailes 1 inlay detailes 2 smoothed fingerboard-headstock transition neck heell headstock prepairing to route routed pickup cavity Interim result Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesy Posted November 25, 2008 Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 Looking really nice. The binding on the neck looks nice and thick. Is it the same binding that is used on bodies, or something with different dimensions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IPA or death Posted November 26, 2008 Report Share Posted November 26, 2008 That's going to be a nice one Mr. Buttman. I love teles too...I've made a couple. But nothing as nice as this one will no doubt be. Keep up the good work and the good posts. As a side note--and not to take over your thread here--maybe you or someone else could fill me in on carbon fiber rods. I'm assuming they are used to add stiffness to the neck, but do they also make the trussrod less useful or harder to adjust? Just wondering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted November 26, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2008 Thx bluesy and IPA or death! That is stewmack binding 1mm thick - we use it both for the neck and body. With carbon rods (yes, they give extra stiffness) truss rod works great (i mean double-action truss rod because i don't use standard rods) - even 1/4 turn of the nut gives a good result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted March 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 I had so many projects so this build went really slow. Fortunately we gonna finish this in 2-3 weeks. So, we glued the binding, inlay, drilled tuners holes and fretted the fingerboard. Now you can see the guitar after 2 coats of sealer - i think very nice textured body and neck. Next week we gonna add the color. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted March 27, 2009 Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 Thats looks really good, I'm not normally a tele fan but can see the appeal. The quality of the build looks class, keep the pics coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WezV Posted March 27, 2009 Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 that is a stunning body, great work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrostStorm Posted March 27, 2009 Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 Wow. That's what i call telecaster! Nice work, mate. You've got the same story as I do.. First hated tele's and then I tried out fender's 2 humbucker-tele, which had a nice setneck and played like hell.. Still regret that I didn't have the money at the time. Now I'm even more tempted to build a tele.. Just got to decide which one the next one will be, 7-string king V, or 7-string telecaster.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted March 27, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2009 Thanks guys! I'll keep posting next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I had huge problems with this guitar... After sealing whole guitar i've found some problems with binding so i decided to sand the sealer, route new binding channel and seal again and more... So now i've sealed the guitar again and added the color (in reality it's lighter and you can see the texture very good) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted June 4, 2009 Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 Oh My God! I was looking thru the post, looking at how BEAUTIFUL a natural wood Tele can be... ...and THEN I see you shot it PURPLE! ...No worries, it STILL looks beautiful! Beautiful job, although I really loved the natural look myself. You have inspired me to start a natural Mahogany guitar w/ binding! So Beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WezV Posted June 4, 2009 Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 the purple was a bit of a shock. cant deny its awesomeness though!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Buttman Posted June 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 Thanks Drak and Wez for your comments. I agree, the natural wood was awesome but as you said it's nice with purple too. And i didn't want to change my original idea. The back here will be transparent-purple too but the back of the neck will have natural wood color, hope this combination will be nice. By the way, i'm building x-plorer now and the body wood is absolutely the same as in this project. (the top is from the same board). I thought about the finish and i don't know what to do with side of the body - as you can see the "top" is very thick and even if i make tall binding i'll have combination of different wood... So if i leave whole guitar natural it won't be nice. Any suggestions what to do with the side of the body? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted June 4, 2009 Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 I've run into that myself, when the top lam is thicker than the binding. What I usually do is install the binding (I usually bind top and bottom if I'm binding), then black out the sides with black pigment added into my shader coats, taping off the binding beforehand. Binding both sides with black in the middle is a great look to me, very attractive I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Preston Swift Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 PURPLE... IS... THE... BEST!!! Seriously, that thing is sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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