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?

I made a headstock template based on the headstock of the earlier guitar I have made... http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00050.jpg ...and it came up like this http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00049.jpg The holes of the screws are right in the middle of the holes for the machineheads so they didn't do any harm

I had to make the headstock wider so the shape would fit. Unfortunately I was out of maple so I put some birch there. And planed... I don't know if that birch look so pretty there but I'll put a veneer of walnut on top

Santaclaus came by and brought me some parts The fretboard is made of something called Sonocilini (don't ask), it's supposed to be some sort of rosewood but it's a bit softer. The company I got these stuff claims that many guitar manufacturers use this wood in the fretboards because of its better availability. The fretmark dots was white plastic so I wanted to change them to MOP dots by myself. Easy job. And the frets had to be done myself too. Little harder job but not so hard because the slots were already made. The truss rod is a 2-way working. All hardware is golden. And the candies were great!!! This company always put some candies along. That's why I order from there!! I already had the machineheads so they are not in that picture. The parts in the picture cost me about 110 euros. That's about 147 US dollars. The machineheads would have cost the most but I got them free changing pickups for my friend. In this picture half of the fretheads are sanded with the fret bevel tool I got instruction from projectguitar.com. The dots are also changed (couldn't say from the picture).

Yeah that japanese saw would be awesome. I have to get one someday when I have a little extra cash. Anyway... I ran into another problem when I figured out that I don't have any holes for the wires. I was again too enthusiastic doing all the gluing without routing the channels for the wires first. So here's my solution: I made a drill bit myself from an iron rod. I just filed a simple head to the rod and there it was. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00031.jpg Of course it burned the wood (you can see some rust on the head) but it was the best choice I had. Actually it came out pretty well. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00026.jpg The hardest hole was the hole to the neck pickup cavity. The hole starts from the upper hole you can see. I just had to guess where the hole would go and I hesitated when I was in the middle of "the journey". But I carried on and... http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00023.jpg Some times I feel lucky... The other start of a hole in the mahogany is there because I was first going to drill from that to the other pickup cavity.

+1 and then a plane. Dont be scared of getting your hands dirty with the non-power tools I used to saw by hand in the "early days" too. But then I didn't have any other choices.

It really would have been much easier if I did that cut before putting all the parts together. But yes, I used a mitre saw with a telescopic arm, if the mitre saw is what I think it is. And lots of rolling and fitting of the guitar because of the angle limit of 45 degrees!

I don't know what is a scarf joint, but I had to glue an extension because of the neck angle (not enough wood below the bottom line). I made a 13 degree angle to the joint. I put two pieces of wood on the sides so the mahogany stripe would go straight. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00039.jpg http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00036.jpg I suppose this is the scarf joint?

Now that I knew how low the volume and pickup switch would be, it was time to rout the cavities to the back side. I had a 6 mm routing cutter that had the rod as thick as the cutting part, so I could use the cutter as a driver too. I know there is a possibility of burning the cutter but had to try it. First I routed the cavities raw with a 10 mm cutter leaving 1-2 mm room. Then I made two simple templates from 6 mm plywood and routed with the 6 mm cutter against the templates. As a matter of fact either of the cutter or the template didn't burn at all. The body was still too thick so I couldn't rout the cavities all the way down but I think I figure something out. There's always a chisel.

As the body is mostly walnut it weighs pretty much. More than any of my guitars I think. The shape takes the weight down a lot. By the way does anyone have any suggestions for finishing? I have been thinking about danish oiling it but on the other hand I've always liked a shiny lacquer finish. Oiling would be a whole new dimension for me though.

As I had the pickup cavities done I didn't need to have the top flat anymore so I started to do the surface. With this: The same sanding clamp as last time with the Zipper Cherry, Rotoflex. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00018.jpg The shape's starting to look like something http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a20/jazzi...bi/PIC00008.jpg Another angle