jazzclub

The Telezipper This is the sixth electric guitar I have made. I had a great opportunity to make good laminations so I took advantage of it as you can see. This sustainious shreddingmachine also presents the flat-D neck shape. Here are the specs: Body: (from center to side) mahogany/maple/teak/birch/teak/walnut. (From top to back in the sidewings) walnut/teak/walnut (sapwood)/teak/walnut. Neck: Maple/mahogany/maple (neck-thru-body) Fingerboard: Rosewood Finish: Nitrocellulose laqcuer Hardware: GOLD Pickups: Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz (neck) and SH-4 JB (bridge), mounting rings are walnut Cavity covers: Walnut sanded to the guitar shape Headstock from behind: Hardware Shiny back The Jack

Actually I did use the same ferrules on both sides. It was kind of a mistake when I ordered the hardware parts. When the parts were coming to me I saw my friends string-thru-body guitar (I didn't have any), and I realized that the mistake was made. But as I think of the ferrules now, the front ferrules would have been too small for my taste. You couldn't even see the gold!

Another picture:

And now...let me introduce you the Telezipper! Armed and dangerous! Let me just say that the sustain of the guitar is unbeleavable. I put there a couple of Duncans (SH-4 JB in the bridge and SH-2 Jazz in the neck) and the sound is great. With JB the sound is clear but think I fell in love with the SH-2. The sound with it is so muddy on the lower strings and solos sound better that I could really play! The thing that stuck bugging me was the peeling of the laqcuer as you can see in the last picture. I managed to fix it a little but some air was left in between the wood and the laqcuer (the white lines around the cavity covers). I also had A LOT to do with the frets as the neck lived before finishing. But all in all I'm still pretty satisfied with the Telezipper. The neck shape works very good. I made it flat in the center so my thumb won't slide over the neck. Don't know if it's called D-shape but I've never tried a shape like it. The neck is also superhyperfast! Beware Yngwie Malmsteen, I'm your new god!

Here it is! I polished it with pulituuri (still don't know the english word for it) and then buffed it. Before polishing I sanded the whole guitar with 1200-grid paper. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi.../PIC00022-1.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/HPIM2009.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/HPIM1995.jpg

I had a bit of an accident with the cover plates. I had this great idea to put them on and finnish them at the same time I did the body so they would be at the same level with the body. When I took them off the lacquer peeled off the wood. Nice don't you think. The same happened in some places of the fretboards edge when I removed the tape from top of the frets. I'll try fix it getting some lacquer between the peeled lacquer and the wood. Suddenly I wish I had french polished the guitar!

The Telezipper after the last coat of lacquer. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00071.jpg I will polish it with a polishing liquid which is some old-style-stuff. That's the stuff from which the alcoholics get their nick name in Finland (pulituuri -> puliukko). They used to drink it you know. I also "deep fried" the pickup covers http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00070.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00069.jpg They will need another coats but they already started to sound like they were plastic.

Getting forward I started to finish my telezipper. And I did find the grainfiller which was Rustin's Grainfiller. I thought that it would have been transparent but it was cream, so then I figured out that it would get transparent once it dried up. But it didn't. As I couldn't do much about it because it was all soaked and hardened I just went to apply some nitrocellulose laqcuer. The laqcuer was ment for old-style-furniture so I guessed it was the one. Actually I used it on a snare drum I made few years ago which came out like this: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazziclubbi/reuna.jpg The laqcuer worked well and it was possible to thin 40-50% so I liked it. And used it to the telezipper. But first I applied the grainfiller. Not too close picture but hopefully you can see some creamy stuff in the walnut. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00064.jpg Ads some new shades in the body eh. And then the first coat of laqcuer after the grainfiller dried overnight.

Bad news! I noticed something horrible in the neck. I suppose that the wood wasn't dry enough when I started to build it so now it has dried in a bad shape. Not much but still it worries me. It's like a slight S in long direction so it can't be fully fixed with the trussrod. What should I do!!?? Please tell me!! Fortunately I've been too lazy to finish the guitar so I still can use pretty rough methods. P.S. I've been searching for grain filler like maniac but apparently there's only one place in Finland I can get it (Plektratrading). And that's of course Rustin's grain filler. So if there's some finnish dudes here could you help me to get it.

Starting to finish the Telezipper...I just have one question before I mess up everything. If I use shellac as the grain filler, is it compatible with nitrocellulose laqcuer? I don't want any chemical reactions as I read that nitro is pretty active stuff. By the way have you ever used any polishing varnish or liquid?

Today I made a logo to the headstock from a veneer of walnut. It was a really challenging job to do I must say. I made it with a dremel-like tool. As you can see it went to three pieces (that wasn't suppose to happen). So it became a jigsaw puzzle! Here's the jigsaw puzzle assembled and sanded. The figures will show better when it's lacquered.

Hi there! It's been a long time since I've done anything about the guitar. But I pulled myself together and shaped the back of the guitar. By sanding of course. I'm especially happy with the neck joint or heel (what do you call it). It gives a very easy access to the last fret. I put the cavitycovers on before starting the shaping so they would follow the shape all the way.

Been busy because of school but I got the fretboard finally glued on. I used some epoxy that gave me about 2 hours of working time with the target. So I had enough time to get the fretboard clamped properly. And oh boy was it slippery! After all the fretboard settled down just right.

The headstock with some shaping: The curve is made with a ballheaded cutter and the chamfer is done with a basic file.

And now with the veneer on: What do you think about the side with all those different colors. Looks stupid? Any suggestions?