82DeanZ

Cool. I had to ask because with the missing fret I thought it was even shorter than 24.75 in. I thought it might be 22.5 in. like the Daisy Rock guitars. The next question would have been why. Short scale has been on my mind lately and maybe that's why I noticed. My wife and I had a baby girl 4 weeks ago and of course I've been thinking about building her a guitar! Thanks for the info and nice job again.

Best Regards,

Mike.

I can't believe I did it but I was compelled to vote for that amazing acoustic. That flame all the way up the neck is simply delicious. The inlay is amazing and all the lines just flow. Great fluid symmetry throughout from the shape of the bridge and soundhole to the angle of the neck inlays. Just beautiful. I would love to own that guitar. I'd love to hear it played.

Best Regards,

Mike.

Very nice! I like it. Great first project. Two questions for ya. What is the scale-length of the neck and why only 20 frets? Also, is the nut overhanging the sides of the neck or is that an illusion? Again, I like it and good job.

Best Regards,

Mike

I always thought Guitarfrenzy would make a good mod. Setch too. Frank Falbo and Myka are right up there, but may be too busy actually building guitars to mod. My dos centavos.

Best Regards,

Mike.

Lacewood is a bit on the dark side so you might want to consider bleaching the wood first. Do a quick search on this forum for bleaching techniques. Drak (a senior member on this board) did an unbelivable purple stain on a lacewood Warlock...incredible. I'm pretty sure he bleached first before dying it. Good Luck!

Best Regards,

Mike.

Custom Tele made for a friend and mentor:

Couldn't resist throwing in an action shot!

Here are the specs:

Body:

One-piece swamp ash

3-pickup route

custom on-off switch

string through body design with gold string ferrules

water soluble Transfast orange dye

Electrosocket output jack

12 coats of Minwax tung oil

2 coats of Minwax finishing paste

modern design gold bridge

Neck:

Birdseye maple

3+3 custom headstock with gold locking Sperzels

custom waterslide decal logo

graphtech nut

22 fret, 24 ¾ scale ebony fretboard

4 mm edge inlayed abalone fret markers

6105 fretwire

gold neck ferrule attachment

Great eyes Greg! The Little 59 is exactly what he put in there. I forget what he said the middle pickup was, but it's something special too. I believe the neck pickup is just a stock Fender Tele pickup. Great variety of sounds. The tuners are locking Sperzels. He also added a separate tone control for the neck pickup. Hmm...can't think of anything else. Thanks for checking it out Greg.

Best Regards,

Mike.

I caught up with my teacher today and got to see the custom tele I made for him with all the electronics and the tuners in place. The thing looks great, plays great and sounds awesome. We actually did my lesson today with him using the custom tele and me using the custom JS6 that I made not too long ago. Really cool. Here's a shot of Roman diggin' in deep:

Here's a couple more shots of Roman with the Tele:

Roman Holding Tele 1

Roman Holding Tele 2

I couldn't resist taking a couple of shots of the two guitars together:

Tele with JS6 1

Tele with JS6 2

Thanks for looking!

Best Regards,

Mike.

The way I've been taught to do it is to mark the top of each fret with permanent marker after levelling. Then when crowning stop while you still have a thin, even line of marker left at the top of the fret. That way you know you haven't changed the level on any of the frets.

Wow, great answer Frank! You were one of the "senior members" I was thinking of and you came through in spades. Thank you very much. So I won't worry too much about buying that expensive jig and just keep practicing as before. Good stuff.

Best Regards,

Mike.

Very, very nice work Wes. I know what you mean about the humidity in Texas. I drove through the pan-handle one summer and everytime I had to stop for gas I thought I was going to pass out it was so hot and humid. I can still vividly remember how it felt everytime I opened the car door.....wham! I lived in Indiana for nearly six years and in New York for nearly 4 years so I'm no stranger to humidity. Texas has those places beat hands down. Anyway, congrats on the awesome axe. Good work.

Best Regards,

Mike.

This tutorial should get you where you want to go:

http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/bridge...e_guitar01.html

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Best Regards,

Mike.

You know, I've been wondering about this lately as well. It's also unclear to me how leveling frets using this thing helps:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_suppl...e_Neck_Jig.html

My only guess is that leveling under tensions might account for any twist created under tension. As you point out, you are going to add a slight bow in the neck upon setup. I've done 3 fret levels and had good success doing it just like you. That is, get the neck as staight as possible and then level. I do take a couple of extra passes on the upper frets to impart a bit of a drop near the tongue end. I hope one of the senior members here can enlighten us.

Best Regards,

Mike.

I've used polyurethane from a can with great results. It sets up very quickly. I was able to wet sand within 3 days of application. Go for it!

Best Regards,

Mike.

82DeanZ, that Tele looks nice.

My biggest gripe was that it took so long to cure.

I just finished a guitar that was dyed directly and finished with Miniwax tung oil. It was swamp ash and not flame maple, however. Here's what it looks like finished:

Here's the thread that discusses how I did it along with some progress pictures.

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=16827

http://www.1001freefonts.com/fonts/dfonts.htm

Actually, the concept comes from my band. The font style was a complete accident! I didn't even know it came from a movie until I read your post. I just saw it at the free font site listed above and thought it looked cool. Now I have to go rent the movie!

Best Regards,

Mike.

I realized that the headstock logo is hard to make out in the photos so here is the graphic:

Just thought I would give those interested a closer look (some of you may even know where the concept comes from ) . Thanks!

Best Regards,

Mike.

Congrats on all your hard work. Looks great!

Thanks Greg!

Ha! I've been trying to decide whether to use contours in my tele mod --this came up just in time. Like the way that forearm contour looks...nothing on the back though?

I like the forearm drop too. No carve on the back, though:

If it were mine I'd probably put it in, but he said no. Honestly you don't even notice it's not there. Maybe if I had a bigger gut I'd notice. Ha!

Obviously the guy is skinny as a rail so I can see why he didn't care for a backside carve. I'd kill for his long, skinny fingers, though.

Best Regards

Mike.

Well, I delivered the custom Tele to my guitar teacher this evening. He was obviously excited:

As I said before, he is going to finish it with his own electronics and his own tuners. The body was finished with about 14 coats of tung oiled buffed out with #0000 steel wool and finished with 2 coats of Minwax Finishing Paste. I did the custom logo in Paintshop Pro printed on Testors waterslide decal paper. The neck was finished with four coats of tung oil and rubbed out with steel wool. The birdseye maple really popped on this one:

http://www.pariah-now.com/images/Tele%20We...%20Backside.jpg

Here is a shot of the finished body with custom pickguard and custom on-off switch:

http://www.pariah-now.com/images/Tele%20We...shed%20Body.jpg

Finally, here is a total body shot:

http://www.pariah-now.com/images/Tele%20We...al%20guitar.jpg

I'll post a picture of the guitar after he gets all the electronics in. Maybe I can even get him to record a sound sample of it. Thanks for looking!

Best Regards,

Mike.

Thanks ZoSo. I like your MOP inlaid ebony idea very much. I need to get busy working on a logo! I actually have an idea, but it would be a bit complicated and I don't have a lot of experience with inlay yet. I was actually thinking of woodburning it into the headstock. That wouldn't work very well with ebony though.

Best Regards,

Mike.

I -just- got done dying the Lacewood Rhoads V, and have the black and blue dyed fingertips to prove it. Tee-Hee! (I ran out of my latex dye gloves  )

Thanks for the history on the lacewood Warlock. Very inspiring. I can't wait to see the Lacewood Rhoads V! Should be too cool....

Best Regards,

Mike.

Here's a link to the method that I used recently:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Pickguards/Rou...43.html#details

It works very well. I would recommend that when you make your template that you spend the time and shape it very precisely. If you don't, every little wobble in the template edge will show up in your pickguard. Good luck!

Best Regards,

Mike.

Drak, that has to be the absolute best use of lacewood I have ever seen. Did you do the Drak Blak Sand BaK technique on that one? Why was that one introduced to the WOD? What a shame.

Best Regards,

Mike.