iluvteles

Done the tuner holes. 8mm through hole with a 10mm counter bore. Takes ages to do as you have to keep changing bits to cut the holes.

ScottR. Yes I like them. I bought a bag of 50 and they were not that expensive so have used them on all the guitars I have made so far. 5 in total. I'll superglue the dots in when I have shaped the headstock as I may mess things up so dont want to waste the dots. Starting to look like a left and right teles now

All the holes drilled for the abalone dots.

All the cavities now router out

Drilled the holes for the truss rod today and it turned out to be a right pigs ear. Not happy with them but I have what I have so onwards I will go.

This is where I'm upto. The left neck has been redone and all thats left before I glue the fretboard on is to drill the holes for the trussrod at the heel. I route my necks by using a template and route them on a router table. I have to say I hate this part of building a neck. I just dont feel safe using a router table or even hand held routers for that matter. Its done now so back to enjoying the building process.

I like building teles. I never liked them until I started to build guitars and now I like them for the simple classic design. AND they are good guitars to start off with for beginners. I've decided to scrap the left hand neck. I just was not happy with it. New one in progress. Photos soon

Started the righ and left necks today. Once again I rushed things and forgot to put a stopline on the left hand neck and routed the truss rod channel right through the end of the neck. I should start a new neck but I have this thing about making do with what I have and just go with it that I later regret.

I've roughed out the bulk of the material for the pickup cavities and nexk pocket but I cant do the final route until I have the neck made. Reason being is that the template I use has the neck and pickups all in line so I need to do them in one go. As I dont know the final neck thickness I cant work out the neck pocket depth so it will just have to wait a few months until I get the neck complete. As I was drilling the jack socket hole on the left hander the body wall split. I've sqeezed a bit glue in but I dont know now much went in. Maybe I should have used super glue and injected it in but its done now. If its no good I have a spare body blank.

I've done it before and I'll probably do it again. Will I ever learn? Probably not

But I should know better

I once told a new builder to study what you are about to do before you do it so you ensure you are doing it right. Only work on guitar building when you have enough time to do it. Use the right tools. Dont try to "make do". Did I do any of this? NO and nowI have paid the price like I alway seem to do. I could not be bothered to make a tele shape out of MDF to spred the clamp pressure when I clamped the top on. Now I have depressions. I could not be bothered to get the router table out to profile the bodies so I used a hand held router. How I have a router dig at the horn. I could not be bothered to sand the ties that the laser leaves then its cutting the templates out. Now I have little bumps. I could not be bothered to tidy up the body sides before I rounded over. Now the roudover has followed the bumps and dig. All my fault because I was in a hurry. Now I have to tidy both bodies up to get them right. At least the black laminate turned out nice.

Yes it vacuum dyed. When I bought this batch I had a long talk to some bloke from Anita and he told me it has to be vacuum dyed to get the colour all the way through. Also its filmsy stuff so I think to make it yourself would be a bit hard. Have a look at Marquerty web sites. there must be more of the stuff around.

Hi Shelvock, I got this batch from Anita Marquerty but I think they have closed down. I have one bit left so I'll be looking for a new supplier when its gone.

All I've got done in the last week is glue the drop tops on. I've put a black laminate of dyed Sycamore inbetween the body and top just to jazz it up a bit otherwise these two teles would be just a bit too plain. Just one more strange fact. Each body has taken one full bottle of 118ml glue :-\

I've been unclear on what to do with these teles. I just wanted to build something. However I'm now decided. Its only going to be 2 tele the 3 is spare incase I mess something up. The left hander is for my brother as the last one I made hime had a 16 radius neck, laminated neck and painted black. he does not like the 16" radius or the laminate neck and the black finish is not 100%. so its being stripped of its hard ware and I'm making him a replacement as cheap as possible. I.e. Sapele body with a maple neck and maple 12" fretboard. All the good hardware will be transfered over. The 2nd is for me and will be made as cheap as possible. It will be "beside the sofa" guitar to pick up while I'm watching the news or some other related bore. Its frets will be marked with all the major notes as I dont know them and I'm a pap player so I'm hoping by seeing and playing the notes I'll learn. Its will be the same as the lefty but cheap hardware. I'll try for £100 max. Progress to today: Chambering done. Its not as neat as I wanted but its just weight reduction so I'm not really bothered. I know its not the attitude to have but they are going to be cheap guitars. Weight reduction is just under 800g.

Not done much on this build as I've been a bit unwell for the last week but did get the chamber template done and skimmed the body blanks flat and equal. The body blank on the far left has now been rejected because of the figure defects and will be used as a spare. I still do not have a clear plan on what the teles will come out like. I'm just going to build and see what happens. The body blanks are now 35mm thick.

Glued up the second body today. No photos as its just the same. If I had put the same photo up would anybody have noticed anyway? All I've done today is get the templates ready. I was going to cut out the template for the chambers but started to play air guitar to classic Queen. Things wike Brighton Rock and Stone Cold Crazy so did not get it done.

I decided to make a start. Still not sure what the specs are but cant wait forever. Today I've sanded the body blanks flat and equal thickness, sqared the sides, glued and clamped. I've got one body done but will do the other two over the next few days. I'm real happy how square the glue edges have turned out.

This has been a big threads but very worth while. Here is my question: Is it legal to sell templates to help guitar builders to make replicas of braded guitars including headstocks. For example copy routing templates made from MDF or plastic????

I normally only build 1 guitar per year and only build from about Easter to Haloween to avoid wood warpage due to the cold but I'm having to start early as I have 3 teles to build in 2013. Two of them will be simple Sapele bodies the third may be all sapele but with a Yew drop top. All will be chambered and thats all the specs I have so far. So..to get a headstart I've bookmatched 3 bodies and 3 drop tops all in Sapele. As it is winter I'm letting the bookmatched wood rest and move before I sand flush, joint and glue up. Any advice for UK winter guitar building would be helpful. Photos so far of the Sapele straight off the saw.

Thanks for the replys. The wood I have is dried already so this is what I'm going to do. I'm keeping to wood in my garage which is dry. Once cut into rough body blank thickness I'll just stack them up out of sunlight and not touch them for two weeks. Then i'l drum sand them flat and leave until I need to use them. I'll only joint and glue when I'm ready to build instead of having a stock of glued up blanks and tops. Lee has a plan

Thanks for the reply Wes. just to be clear. You keep your wood indoors? Do you wrap it in plastic or just open to the environment? I have some great high figure stuff and I know they will glue down but I want them to be right.

Just wanted to ask the forums advice about how other hobby builders store there wood. The reason being is that I'm building up a collection of high figure drop tops like English Yew, Ash and Walnut, body blanks and neck blanks. They are glued up and drum sanded flat but after a while they start to warp. the drop tops and body blanks tend to curve. What am I doing wrong. Its seems like a basic question and answer but I need to know as I dont want to add to my private stock if it wont store well. Do I store it in a cold dry garage? Do I store it indoors where it is warm? Do I wrap it in plasic or not? Any advice would be great Thanks

I agree with a minimum number of posts to be able to vote. I think a mimimum of 10 would be fine for now. It can always be changed later if its too low.