David's PRS and Matt's Tele

[ADFinlayson]

Davids CU24 finished, some pics of the finished Article. 50% of the garage is in boxes now so won't be touching the Tele build until I'm all setup in the new workshop - Not a bad thing because it's bloody cold in the garage at the moment!

 

[ScottR]

Love the color on that!

SR

[Gogzs]

Damn, hope it sounds as good as is looks. Amazing job.

[10pizza]

great top! Love blue-stained tops.

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Looks great

[Lumberjack]

Beautiful work, the matching carve on the back is a treat!

[komodo]

You really outdid yourself on that one!

[mistermikev]

looks lovely brother.  i see a depth in that finish that is at least 87/92nds deeper than before.  nice work.

[Bizman62]

I wish the threads you started only a few years ago at the Crimson forum were still available. Your progress has been exponential!

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

I wish the threads you started only a few years ago at the Crimson forum were still available. Your progress has been exponential!

Hell, even the progress made here alone. The difference between the first  shown here and the most recent is profound. I'd say the biggest improvement has been in finishing.

SR

[ADFinlayson]

Thanks chaps, It's been UPS'd to it's new owner who is a PG member, so he might be on soon to tell you all how crap it is.

[Bizman62]

Oh yes, that David!

[ADFinlayson]

Finally got back to Matt's tele, I figured it would be a winter job seeing as it's getting an oil finish. Started by routing the neck pocket. I had to make a custom template for this - the G&W tele template being for a bolt on was not a good fit and I needed to account for the truss rod wheel.

Next to do was route the neck pickup cavity, and make sure it all fitted nicely with the wheel and fretboard overhand

Then I routed the roundover on the top and drilled for the jack which I forgot to photograph. Neck was to carve a bit of a nicer access around the neck heel seeing as I don't need to worry about bolts. I didn't go too mad here because I'm concerned about strength around the pocket with this design. But that box has been checked non the less. 

Then after giving all the sides and around the heel a good sand and rolled over all the sharp edges, I got the neck glued in - One clamp to hold it down and another to stop it wondering off. It was at this point I realised one of the end pieces of binding had come off. Fortunately it hadn't gone far so I superglued it back on, then flooded it and the other side with fine superglue to make sure.

Next up was bridge fitting, it was at this point that I realised that the tuners Matt had bought were in fact the wrong tuners. What he thought were left-handed tuners (for reverse headstock) were in fact listed on Thomann as L meaning left aligned for right handed guitar and he was a bit pissed off about that. I kind of felt bad because I could have realised sooner but he sat on them for ages before he forwarded them on and wouldn't have been able to return them anyway. After lengthy discussion he decided he wanted to just fit these... He paid plenty for them - €160!

After sleeping on it, I made an executive decision for him and ordered some left handed black gotoh locking tuners. I figured these look weird because the pegs are out of whack with the headstock, I don't know how well they will work in reverse and I think we've come too far for it to be amateur hour. He can flog these on ebay or something seeing as they haven't actually been used.

So back to bridge fitting... It transpires that the G&W tele templates have the pickup cavity about 3/8 too far south for mounting the bridge pickup on the babicz (pic below). so I had to reroute that, fortunately all nicely hidden.

I've drilled out the centre of the 3 screws in order to get the bridge located. then once I was happy with alignment I drilled out the 4 hole above and I will fill the centre screw hole by glueing in a dowel because it's very close to the holes for the string-through on the D and G. 

So the next job is to drill out the string through holes, but I'm waiting on the ferrules before I can do that. Then it will be on to the home stretch. Very happy with how the neck joint came out. The weight is actually not bad at all after hollowing out the extremely dense bit of walnut. Hate the bridge. 

 

 

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

Hate the bridge.

They truly made the name obnoxiously large didn't they. I have had excellent result with Babicz hardtail bridges, but I've got to admit that one is pretty ugly. Gotoh makes a very nice tele bridge.

SR

[Prostheta]

Agreed. Those Babicz bridges are definitely obnoxious. Nothing about them screams pleasant.

[mistermikev]

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Finally got back to Matt's tele, I figured it would be a winter job seeing as it's getting an oil finish. Started by routing the neck pocket. I had to make a custom template for this - the G&W tele template being for a bolt on was not a good fit and I needed to account for the truss rod wheel.

Next to do was route the neck pickup cavity, and make sure it all fitted nicely with the wheel and fretboard overhand

Then I routed the roundover on the top and drilled for the jack which I forgot to photograph. Neck was to carve a bit of a nicer access around the neck heel seeing as I don't need to worry about bolts. I didn't go too mad here because I'm concerned about strength around the pocket with this design. But that box has been checked non the less. 

Then after giving all the sides and around the heel a good sand and rolled over all the sharp edges, I got the neck glued in - One clamp to hold it down and another to stop it wondering off. It was at this point I realised one of the end pieces of binding had come off. Fortunately it hadn't gone far so I superglued it back on, then flooded it and the other side with fine superglue to make sure.

Next up was bridge fitting, it was at this point that I realised that the tuners Matt had bought were in fact the wrong tuners. What he thought were left-handed tuners (for reverse headstock) were in fact listed on Thomann as L meaning left aligned for right handed guitar and he was a bit pissed off about that. I kind of felt bad because I could have realised sooner but he sat on them for ages before he forwarded them on and wouldn't have been able to return them anyway. After lengthy discussion he decided he wanted to just fit these... I paid plenty for them - €160!

After sleeping on it, I made an executive decision for him and ordered some left handed black gotoh locking tuners. I figured these look weird because the pegs are out of whack with the headstock, I don't know how well they will work in reverse and I think we've come too far for it to be amateur hour. He can flog these on ebay or something seeing as they haven't actually been used.

So back to bridge fitting... It transpires that the G&W tele templates have the pickup cavity about 3/8 too far south for mounting the bridge pickup on the babicz (pic below). so I had to reroute that, fortunately all nicely hidden.

I've drilled out the centre of the 3 screws in order to get the bridge located. then once I was happy with alignment I drilled out the 4 hole above and I will fill the centre screw hole by glueing in a dowel because it's very close to the holes for the string-through on the D and G. 

So the next job is to drill out the string through holes, but I'm waiting on the ferrules before I can do that. Then it will be on to the home stretch. Very happy with how the neck joint came out. The weight is actually not bad at all after hollowing out the extremely dense bit of walnut. Hate the bridge. 

 

 

looks fantastic... walnut is ooh la la.  don't even want to know what a chunk that big would cost.

[ADFinlayson]

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

They truly made the name obnoxiously large didn't they. I have had excellent result with Babicz hardtail bridges, but I've got to admit that one is pretty ugly. Gotoh makes a very nice tele bridge.

SR

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

Agreed. Those Babicz bridges are definitely obnoxious. Nothing about them screams pleasant.

Yes unnecessarily large, the logo is an eyesore and I hate the fact that I have to unscrew all the locking nuts to take all the saddles off to screw it on, then put them back on to check the strings are aligned nicely, then take them off to remove it, then screw them all back on so I don't lose any parts. Massive time waister. The Gotoh one, as Mike pointed out the other day would have suited the strings spacing on this neck better too being slightly narrower. I'm sure the babicz lovely to play, but it's horrible. 

18 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

looks fantastic... walnut is ooh la la.  don't even want to know what a chunk that big would cost.

If memory serves about £320 shipped from Bosnia, the most expensive single piece of wood I've used on a build to date. No pressure

[mistermikev]

Just now, ADFinlayson said:

Yes unnecessarily large, the logo is an eyesore and I hate the fact that I have to unscrew all the locking nuts to take all the saddles off to screw it on, then put them back on to check the strings are aligned nicely, then take them off to remove it, then screw them all back on so I don't lose any parts. Massive time waister. The Gotoh one, as Mike pointed out the other day would have suited the strings spacing on this neck better too being slightly narrower. I'm sure the babicz lovely to play, but it's horrible. 

If memory serves about £320 shipped from Bosnia, the most expensive single piece of wood I've used on a build to date. No pressure

shoot... good thing it's in good hands.

[ADFinlayson]

4 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

shoot... good thing it's in good hands.

Debatable.

[Prostheta]

Game on!

[ADFinlayson]

Not an enjoyable experience. I made a little dowel to fill in the mounting hole I drilled to locate the bridge. Then I drilled the outer holes all the way through from the top so the brad point was just poking out the back, then measured 4 even marks out between and drilled in from the back slightly larger to take the ferrules, then drilled the inner 4 from top down until I reached the holes from the back. They're not perfect but they're pretty close. I'm sure it will be more noticeable when the ferrules are in.

Anyway, on to sanding and finishing

[mistermikev]

1 hour ago, ADFinlayson said:

Not an enjoyable experience. I made a little dowel to fill in the mounting hole I drilled to locate the bridge. Then I drilled the outer holes all the way through from the top so the brad point was just poking out the back, then measured 4 even marks out between and drilled in from the back slightly larger to take the ferrules, then drilled the inner 4 from top down until I reached the holes from the back. They're not perfect but they're pretty close. I'm sure it will be more noticeable when the ferrules are in.

Anyway, on to sanding and finishing

well that is a part of building that I always dreaded.  so difficult to get it perfect.  they look pretty straight from here... but as a good fall back point... they make a lovely single piece ferrule block that is sort of handsome.  I always thought these just would look nice countersunk into the body.

[Prostheta]

Grainger Guitars in the UK make excellent ferrule blocks.

[ADFinlayson]

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

well that is a part of building that I always dreaded.  so difficult to get it perfect.  they look pretty straight from here... but as a good fall back point... they make a lovely single piece ferrule block that is sort of handsome.  I always thought these just would look nice countersunk into the body.

 

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Grainger Guitars in the UK make excellent ferrule blocks.

Thanks chaps, I'll have a look into those if I do a string through in future. 

I have a question regarding these string-through holes - I drilled 7/64 holes from the top as that is the size of the holes in the bridge, and I drilled 7/32. Would it be easier/less fiddly to string up if I enlarged the the 7/64 holes? or is it better to leave as is? I was contemplating enlarging the holes in the bridge, but they're so close to the secondary screw holes that it's not wise to enlarge the bridge.

[Prostheta]

I'd look at it from the viewpoint of the user. If the 7/32" holes from the bottom have a hard transition between them and the corresponding 7/64" holes, there'll be a lot of string mashing during attempts to thread the end through. Equally, opening both out to 7/32" will cause the same thing to happen at the bridge. I'd take a countersink and make the transition angled internally if it is not already. Without the appropriate size countersink, a twist drill run in reverse is enough to do this. Don't run it forwards, otherwise it'll self feed, plus reverse burnishes the wood inside the drill hole making it smoother for the string to ride into the narrower portion.