Drak Build(s): Tabletop Tele & Floyded Tele-Strat

[Drak]

A Tale of Two Tele Shapes. What's not to Love, I Love Telecaster shaped guitars! Although after these two, I must admit, I think I have enough Teles to suit me for quite awhile.

These are basically 'free' builds, as I have all the parts for both guitars already and the donor wood has been sitting in the back of my woodpile for ~15 years.

I never quite knew what to do with the thing, it's too big to be a cutting board, so I guess someone was going to make a tabletop out of it. I don't know. It's 1.5" thick Oak lammed strips and heavy as all hell.

Wellsir, I would much rather have two more free guitars than some old wannabe tabletop collecting dust. But this job will call for some serious weight relief if they are to be made viable guitars.

I'm just going to post progress pics of both builds here, as they're being built at the same relative time, more or less.

[Drak]

The real Tele:

Basic layout, ho-hum.

Weight Reduction, front and back. If you notice, the control cavity goes all the way through. I routed the back also to get the weight relief.

And...maybe one day, I might install my active EMG 'recipe', which it has room for. maybe, maybe not, but the weight got relieved and there's the opportunity to make it active one day.

I had to shore up several dried-up and failing glue joints along the way.

First mock-up. The dye color palette I chose was designed to compliment the colors of this Leopard pickguard. So you know why the color is what it is.

And you can see where the EMG controls will go in the future, if I engage that plan. I bought those knobs, which are brass, not gold, and really liked them for this.

First color coat before the pore-fill, this is a super-thin coat, 80% thinner, 20% lacquer.

This is the final product more or less, after thin coat, pore-fill, and distress sand-back effect, I like it!

...And just a few short days ago, it was a tabletop...

I don't know what's up with the lighting, but this is the same exact guitar, looks very different with the downstairs lighting for some reason. Maybe that's a good thing, it has light-changing characteristics!

Just trying out a different look, I like the blackguard look too.

...And a Maple neck just because I have them lying about.

Friggin Oak is rocking it, I'm really liking how this is turning out, totally unexpected.

 

 

[Drak]

This is the Floyded Tele-Strat.

This one wound up about .5 lb. lighter than the Tele.

Basic layout. Ho-hum.

I routed every last inch of Oak I could out of this thing.

Was a bit tricky remembering everything associated with the Floyd and keeping all that intact and routing around it as much as I could and stay in the safe zone. This one Will be EMG/active, that's why there's an extra hole outside of the pickguard.

So here we have both of them. I didn't like the color that came out of the Tele-Strat (shown here) so I modified it to look much more like the real Tele. They look nearly alike now minus their respective wood grain patterns. OK with me, I like the look. But this is how the Tele-Strat started out. You'll probably be surprised to see them together now, they totally look like Brother Builds.

This is the real pickguard assembly for this guitar tho. It's a DiMarzio AT-1 bridge and two Bill Lawrence L-290 SC buckers.

[komodo]

I’m not even a Tele guy (though the metal tele I built is probably my most played guitar) and I’d pick both of those. The black guard on the first lets the oak speak louder, and the maple neck ties it together. The second looks like something Steve Morse would rip your head off with.

[Drak]

Thanks K.

Yes, I agree with you actually. The Blackguard/Maple does look really nice, actually-maybe-probably nicer than the Leopard.

But I'm fighting myself to keep the Leopard guard in the mix for some reason, I won't let go of it quite so easily, but it may wind up Blackguard/Maple in the end.

What do I do with the Leopard guard then, I ask? I have about 20 other half-finished guitars waiting their turn and no other Teles in the loop.

I'd hate to waste it, and I do like it. A conundrum, if not a possibly tacky and garish conundrum...

 

And the Floyd job...if you look at the very first pic, you'll see the name Timmons Strat on it, it is my Andy Timmons 'thang', which is why the AT-1 and H-S-S setup, like his Ibanez setup...kinda...

[Bizman62]

The Leopard on natural wood matched colour wise and it worked with the coloured body quite well... But it gave me shivers! You know the elderly ladies who like to stuff their puffed bodies into tight Leopard knitwear, flooded with Poison, scruffy makeup and a rattle can of lacquer over their hairdo, thinking all that will make them the wet dream of any oncoming male.

Then again, a guy in tight Leopard leggings and lots of hair could look good with that guitar, playing homecooked country music with a stadium attitude!

[Drak]

4 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

flooded with Poison

Ha! OK, I had to think of the possibilities for a moment there...Poison...could be Botox (what I think it is), ...McDonalds, ...Bret Michaels, I'm sure I'm missing the point, but that whole line was hilarious. When I read it, it made me think of the perfumed flowery smell that goes along with older women sometimes, ...which is not pleasant.

Do Tell Biz...what's the poison? For some reason, it made me think of Linda from The Wedding Singer, who those women used to be?

[mistermikev]

kind of surprised you didn't go with your signature semihollow/steerhead with those... seems they would have been ripe for it given your comments about weight.  looks lovely... but my back hurts.  I know the pain of having a guitar I love... that weighs 10lbs!! 

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, Drak said:

When I read it, it made me think of the perfumed flowery smell that goes along with older women sometimes, ...which is not pleasant.

Do Tell Biz...what's the poison?

You were thinking just right, the overwhelming scent that flows around older women so widely that you can't hold your breath long enough to bypass them.

[Drak]

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

kind of surprised you didn't go with your signature semihollow/steerhead with those

To do the Steerhead, I am usually putting a (1/4"?) top over a chambered core wood, the steerhead gets cutout and shaped before I glue the top on.

No way to achieve that here without ruining the nice distressed Oak appearance, which was the whole point with these.

But they're both within regular weight limits now, the pickguard/rear route plan worked.

Even at 1.5", they were both sinfully heavy pieces to begin with.

If they were too heavy after routing, I wouldn't have proceeded, I would have trashed them or sawed them or something similarly horrific.

I mean, it was just an old tabletop taking up space in the back of the woodbin, no loss to me if it didn't work out.

The rules around here are very simple: If it ain't workin', it ain't workin', and it does not proceed forward from there if it hits that wall.

And some indeed...do. Komodo can tell you all about it I'm sure .

[RestorationAD]

This is the Project Guitar content I am here for. I guess I am going to have to get my tele builds on deck this summer...

[Drak]

2 hours ago, RestorationAD said:

I guess I am going to have to get my tele builds on deck this summer.

You are all light-years ahead of me flying multi-laminated jets ...while I happily pedal my Telecaster Flintmobiles.

I can say no more, ...except nice to see you again, come see me in Bedrock some day! 

[Drak]

10 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

You were thinking just right, the overwhelming scent that flows around older women so widely that you can't hold your breath long enough to bypass them.

Is THAT what that smell is? I'm going to have to stop by WalMart and ask the countergirl for a brief sniff of Poison to verify!

[Bizman62]

5 hours ago, Drak said:

Is THAT what that smell is?

Not exactly sure, I guess it's more about the name. However, it's a strong perfume for late night use when the men can already be in a less responsive mood. When I tried to find out the target audience I stumbled upon a thread where someone asked if anyone knew any knockout perfumes - apparently some women use perfumes as the modern female substitute for the caveman's club! Bedrock revamped...

[ScottR]

I've always thought oak was underrated in the looks department. Done right, it can be quite attractive. It is definitely a candidate for darkening the pores like is often done with ash.

SR

[Drak]

I can't believe I did this thing last night...I completely doubled down on garish and tacky.

These will be true brother builds now and the quaint whiffs of normality jettisoned forever to the very depths of the oceans.

Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!

[ScottR]

That poison reference is going to come to life. You are creating hair band glam.

SR

[Bizman62]

56 minutes ago, ScottR said:

That poison reference

[Drak]

[ScottR]

Meeeyowwww.

SR

[Bizman62]

LOL @Drak, you nailed what the ladies think they look like!

[Drak]

 

 

 

[Drak]

Well, I struck down the double down last night. You're Fired!

I laid everything out in good light, took some pics and pondered the situation.

The Leopard guards are out, I will find something better suited for them some day, and it was only $20.00, a very small loss.

The blackguard on the Tele is just killing it in comparison.

 

And as I had explained earlier, both bodies now look nearly identical, total brothers in arms now.

Which, I find a little odd, since they were dyed two separate ways, I did not use the same colors, but damn if it doesn't look like I did.

Here is the Timmons strat with maple and Ebony, still undecided on that one.

Two free guitars from an old Oak tabletop, I'm still surprised how much I like them.

[Bizman62]

Yes, definitely the black rather than the leopard. Such a stylish build shouldn't get dressed like an overaged cougar.

[ScottR]

The oak makes them look like serious no nonsense workhorses. All that's missing is that roadhouse blues smoke and whiskey patina.

SR