ADFinlayson

Yeah, the ebony dust + CA trick is the bedrock of my guitar building ability. I spent a good hour cutting out that inlay piece, even with the dremel. Checking and rescoring with a scalpel regularly and used a super fine router bit in the corners - I don't think I could get it any more precise with a modelling chisel either. I did have some bigger than usual gaps around the inlay. This is by far the smallest version of my logo I've done so it was awkward to cut out and inlay, I used some dust from this neck blank mixed with the some titebond to make filler. I mixed it really dry so there isn't much glue in it which got the colour really close to the neck wood. Here's how it's looking at the moment. I've done some levelling on the body, I had a bit of blush too which I hopefully sanded out. It's really wet in England at the mo, I'm managing to keep the shop to 50% humidity with the dehumidifier on 24/7. Trouble is as soon as I switch the booth extraction on, all that dry air is sucked out of the shop, fresh air comes in from outside and it get's up to 60% in not a lot of time. So I'm waiting on some anti-bloom thinners before I spray anymore on the body. I made up some shader for the neck with some yellow, a dash of brown and a dash of pink and sprayed it on conservatively, and it's had a couple of coats of clear over the top. Lastly, once I had a few coats of clear over the white, I decided to tap in the ferrules which was a total swine to do, these are the flush fit ones and there isn't any overlap to hide any chip out, I did have to touch up a couple of areas with some white lacquer on a cocktail stick to hide tiny imperfects after knocking them in. I did this so that I could spray over them and re protect the area after knocking them in with the lacquer remelting. I think infuture it would be easier to just install them before finishing and try to tape them off. I did do a bit of research but never found out how Fender do it.

easy to do, I had a few stitches last year from trying to catch a chisel, at least you know it's sharp enough for woodworking.

Needs a control cover and intonation doing, and it's done

Forgot to add the video of me spraying it

I like a bit of inlay work, but there is nothing enjoyable about inlaying ebony into maple! Hopefully a bit of amber might help to mask the filler a bit, but I doubt it. That is the smallest version of my logo I've attempted to inlay, anything bigger looked silly on this headstock, in fact I don't think my logo suits tele headstocks at all. Annoyingly the one place it does seem to work nicely is exactly where the string tree needs to go. This is the second logo too because the first one broke so many times that I think it would actually be categorised as a chemical product.

That is quite possible, but the other pissabolity is that G&W changed the shape to avoid copyright. I don't have enough experience with Telecasters to prove either theory

Here's one for Mike. I've had a couple of nice Fenders in for setups lately. A blonde custom shop strat from 2012, came looking new but has seen some use. and this, I'm told is a Chris fleming 55 relic tele. It belongs to the chap that winds my pickups and he's been after a similar build with 1 pickup and a rosewood board. So I took this one to pieces and took all the dimensions I could. The body shape is actually quite different to my G&W tele templates! So I started with this bit of swampash from Stewmac once rough shaped got it down to 7 15oz and I did warn him it might be a bit heavier than his CF tele I still had 3mm of thickness tot take off and all the routes to do, which resulted in getting it down to 4 7oz which felt like a nice weight. Skip forward a few steps because I forgot to take photos and we have a swampash body moderately figured birdeye from a blank I got on the cheap a few years ago, and an indian rosewood board He was complaining about high action or unplayable buzz and choking out on his CF tele - I improved it a lot with some spot levelling but the 7.25" radius is always going to be hampering lead work IMO, so we went for a 12" radius on the neck. I didn't route this body to the template. I drew around the existing tele to get the shape as close as possible. Aged parts going from this, tuners and gotoh intune bridge from stewmac and the rest are all ages parts from Charles Guitars You may notice the fretboard is a bit thicker than what you would expect to see. he wanted just SS frets in it so I decided to keep the board a bit thicker than I see on most fenders, although I wasn't actually able to tell from these custom shop examples because they were both one-piece necks. Also. getting the rosewood dust out of the maple on the neck is a real PITA! Getting on to finalising everything. A lot of people say that when you're starting out building, the tele is the easiest design to start with. But I think these have maintained the world record for the most awkward 6 holes that any man has had to drill since the 1950s. I'm using the fender style flush fit ferrules so no tearout is acceptable. Also first time using this kind of jack plate. I thought it would be a nightmare and I'd have to go out and buy a specific size forstner for a one-off hole but happy days, 22mm bit fit nicely. On to finishing. I'm using Northwest guitars nitrocellulose because that is the only place I could find a suitable white. I doubt this stuff is compatible with the Morrels pre-cat cellulose that I normally use so I also got a tin of their clear gloss which is a 250ml tin which they claim is enough for 4 tele bodies and they recommend thinning 50/50. Both points are complete horseshit. After colour and 6 coats of clear on top of it. I did a light sand with 600 and went through it in seconds. So I had to sand the back off and do it again. Not a bad thing because in hindsight, it was just a bit too transparent. This is where it's at now. the 250ml tin that can cover 4 guitars is now empty... Fortunately a friend of mine that uses NW guitar lacquer said he only uses their colours and uses Dartfords lacquer which is compatible and available in 1L and 5L tins, and he's convinced it's the same lacquer but rebranded for NW Guitars. The larger quantity means it's significantly cheaper too which is good because £10 for 250ml is not cool. It's now had 3 coats of 70/30 lacquer/thinner on top of the colour and it's building up a nice gloss so I'm much happier with it. Now I need to crack on and get my logo inlayed in the headstock and get some lacquer in the neck.

It often takes weeks when they transport anything over land from southern europe, I normally go with the cheaper option which is lorry all they way here and it does take an absolute age for goods to get to Calais. The thing with the likes of Maderas Barber, Madinter and G&W though is it often takes them weeks just to pack and dispatch the products. I know people harp on about brexit and the extra border checks, but an extra few hours at Dover is nothing when it takes them a fortnight to do a 15 hour drive with no border checks Anyway thank you, yeah the pinstripe is cool and I'll be doing it again for sure. Not only do I like the look but it also masks a dodgy glue joint should one occur I stuck some all in one swirl remover on my spare buff which did a masterful job and everything is now super shiny and she is getting used to her new shoes. It's tuned to drop B with 12-60 gauge strings so I think it's technically a bass.

yeah it's great, my only gripe with it is the amount of space it requires and space around it to work safely so I've got it on casters which are a bit giddy so I end up wheeling it out and clamping the base to the leg of my workbench. Apart from that rather picky niggle, it's a massive time saver.

yeah it's a real time saver, at least it would if I was better at locating scratches!

Crikey I haven't updated this one in ages. I'm working on level and buffing I started with the medium buff but I think I missed a few 800 scratches with the 1200 so I need to go back and do some more sanding Pinstripe came out really nicely Hopefully I've got all the parts I need so I can get on with assembly this weekend. It's taking ages to get anything shipped at the moment. Southern Europe seem to take weeks to dispatch anything and our postal service is on strike again.

That is some impressive drilling!

So I'm out of walnut which is annoying, I'm waiting for a delivery from Maderas and thought, seeing as the mould is empty and the side bender is still out... why not? I've got some african mahogany backs and sides sets that were dirt cheap, something like £5/pair of sides, same for backs and I have plenty of the same for making neck, and the end blocks etc So I thought I'd try another one as I am still yet to actually bend a set of sides with my DIY Fox bender. And they came out absolutely flawless - no waviness, flat spots or tears and fitted the mould perfectly. Woohoo. I followed the advice of @Dave Higham and made a small modification to the bending machine, the hooks made a huge difference when it came to taking the sides out. I don't have any kerfed linings so I thought I'd try doing solid linings. I thicknessed another side down to 2.2mm, cut it down into 18mm strips, taped them together and bent them. I dry fitted them with pegs and marked down where they need to be cut to get them to fit in with the end blocks. Obviously 2.2mm linings is not enough of a glue surface so I planned to add another layer but first I thought I would interlock the side braces. I cut some quarter inch strips out of the leftover side and notched the linings so the braces with go all the way through. Then I glued in the next layer of linings so all in I have 6.6mm of glueing surface which is a hair under what the kerfed linings I was using would give me but I am already convinced that this is far superior. It's very difficult to get it in and out of the mould but that is because the shape is almost identical and there is absolutely no flex, I think it will break before it bends. Here's the back glued up. My thinking is to keep this one dead simple, magohany top and back, spruce bracing, no bevels, and I think tortoise shell binding and rosette would look cool. I've got some Aged Olympic white lacquer for a tele build I'm working on so it might look cool with a TV white style finish with dark grain if I can manage to do a tidy job of taping/scraping the binding/rosette.

I have been continuing on down the rabbit hole with the moderate success of #1. I wrote #2422 for the serial on this one but it occurred to me after I closed the box that this is #25, that might cause some confusion for a luthier one day. So spruce braces this time and sticking with the thin ebony bridge plate. I forgot to take a photo but I drew around the inside of the solid brace of the arm contour on the underside then used that as a reference to sand in the shape of the soundboard before sticking it on Had to do a thorough job cleaning up the squeeze out here so I could glue some binding around the edge of the arm bevel. I glued both the top and the back on this time while it was still in the form to try and help mitigate the deformity of the last one. although this one actually seems to hold it's shape outside the mould unlike no1. Then I did the end graft out a of a piece of walnut. I chose walnut for my binding etc as it's much easier to bend than ebony, and still quite dark so hoping it would look good against the limba under finish and allow me to hide any woes. Then I routed the binding channel in the top This mean my smooth shape was no long smooth where it met the rebate so I tidied those up with a chisel and a sanding stick to get a nice transition again once I did that, I glued in my sacrificial inner binding piece and rerouted that area of the channel Then I got to work on the actual binding, I cut it down on the sander between the two transitions so that it would bend around the extremely awkward curve. The I carved the arm contour, the idea is that both of these pieces of binding are carved away with the bevel and are hidden by the veneer. I left the veneer and the bevel with titebond on them for 1 hour as per the Driftwood Guitars tutorial then ironed the veneer on. I sanded the walnut veneer down to .8mm which I now realise was two thick It looks great but alas I managed to get some very visible glue lines in places and there is a small patch where I sanded through. I then realised that there is a slight hump in the transition as it goes back up towards the strap button which meant that my carve isn't completely even and that was causing the glue line and the sand through - the veneer doesn't finish exactly where the spruce starts So I need to sand the veneer off, tweak the carve and do it again.

Thanks Nicco I actually can't remember if I used legit or african mahogany for the braces, it might have been a mix of both that I got out of the offcuts bin. At any rate, all the african mahogany I have used has been quite soft and I've found the difference between the two to be negligible in terms of hardness, and workability. The only difference I've ever notices is that the Honduras stuff tends to look a little more on the pink side and african more yellow/orange.

how far from the thumb the picking action is... exactly that. Thanks man, I am absolutely not a steel string acoustic player, I've never owned one but enjoying playing it. I took classical lessons as a kid which is where the finger picking comes from but I've pretty much solely played metal in drop C for 20 years

Thanks Andy, yes I was impressed with the amount of bass, I was surprised because all the research said mahogany braces are a no no. The top is quite thin so is the back so I've only got 10 gauge strings on it which will probably be affecting tone. I was pleased to know that the amount of lacquer I would normally spray on an electric hasn't hampered the sound either. Thanks Mike, re picking, I do a lot of hybrid picking when I play guitar but as I've been playing this acoustic over the last few days I've noticed holding a pick is tying up my index finger so I've just got myself a couple of thumb picks, but wow those things are weird, way bigger and thicker than my usual 1mm black Dunlops so will def take a bit of getting used too, I'm tempted to try filing/thinning them down a bit.

I've done some tinkering and there is still a little buzz but I think there are still a few variables that are causing it - I think I've got the action set way lower than normal for a steel string, it only has 10 gauge strings on, I haven't glued the fretboard yet and the biggest factor is potentially my playing style as this is the first steel string I've owned - I fret on or close to the fret a lot of the time but fretting in the middle of the gap between the frets seems not to buzz Anyway, here's a demo!

Works! There is a bit of a rattle which sounds like it's coming from the saddle which I need to investigate, fretboard is not currently glued down so could be that, could be that the string barrels aren't snug with the bridge plate or could just be that the action is set very low, needs some investigating.

I've made myself a crude neck clamping jig. Bit of cork to pad the sides and I'm coping I can screw the edges down while screwing the bridge down to the inside. and sprayed some lacquer. It's be way too hot this last week, hasn't cooled down over night either so the workshop has stayed between 25-30ºC which has been a pain for spraying, there is a fine line between orange peel and runs. Then wet sanded with 600 and 1000 Followed by medium buff Then carefully scored round the tape with a scalpel and pulled the tape. Took quite a bit of time to get rid of that orange hairline And now the bridge is glued in So far so good but I've got a nasty feeling that my neck has got out of alignment between me testing it with the outer strings on and taping everything off for paint. Will see what it looks like tomorrow.

Another little update from last night's activities - I wasn't a big fan of my bridge design so I took the pointy bits off, then I sanded the underside of the bridge to match the body. Then I used some aquacoat to do a couple of coats of grainfiller on the back, sides and the walnut rosette, sanded the first coat back with 240, then sanded the second back with 320. Then I reassembled and taped around the neck and the bridge, to make an outline that I could follow to tape off the fretboard area and the bridge area You can see I taped just inside the outline by a couple of hairs, the idea is I am going to route a teeny tiny rebate on the underside of the bridge so that joint looks seamless. Then I sprayed a couple of thin coats at lunch time. Issues you may spot - You can see just how misshapen it is around the end block, ebony binding and spruce is a nightmare and I've really struggled to get the dust out which is noticeable. The centre seam is a good few mm off the centre line of the bridge so the strings are a good few mm to one side of the sound hole So at this point I'm not too concerned about what it looks like, I just want to get to the end and take the lessons from #1 on to the next one

I have a round tapered second cut file that I think might just to the trick actually, thanks for the tip

I have one of those and I think the taper angle is much too steep for bridge pins.

Thanks Andy, that all makes a lot of sense. I hadn't considered that the extra string tension might raise the soundboard slightly (potentially a lot because my soundboard is quite thin) so I will check that, although I am a little concerned about adding another couple of strings while the bridge is just screwed to the sound board with a couple of electrical screws. I'm quite happy with the alignment of both the feel and the fretboard joints to the body at this point and there is currently quite a lot of meat on the saddle with quite a tight angle over it to the string holes on the bridge, possibly too tight currently. So I think I'm going to crack on with finishing the neck carve and spraying the body. I think worst case scenario I should be able to tweak the neck angle again after assembly as it's a bolt on. Another question: what size should I drill the string holes on the bridge? and what do you use to ream them? I'm conscious that a stewmac reamer £80 and that feels like silly money, any cheaper alternatives?

well hold the phone! I made the bridge tonight. I started by sanding my bridge blank down to 9mm, then I drew pencil lines to extend the next taper and marked on the bridge 3mm in from the lines (those denote the two Es), then I used my string spacing ruler to mark out the position of the other for strings and drilled 6x 4mm holes. and then I shaped the bridge with the bandsaw and the spindle sander. Then I nipped over to my dads and pinched a few of his electrical screws which worked perfectly for what I need Then I got the Mrs to hold the bridge steady while I drilled through the bridge holes into the body and screwed it down. Then I cut a bone blank down short and fed two strings in through the sound hole, the 4mm holes are just small enough to stop the barrels coming through. Then I made a nut and put the two E tuners on and was able to check alignment and see where I needed to locate the saddle. This method worked but it was a bit awkward because the bridge saddle wanted to slide forwards under tension of the top E. but I was able to get some fairly accurate intonation with it and marked the front of my temporary saddle with the scalpel so I knew where I would need to route my saddle channel. Then I MacGyvered up this little jig to route the saddle slot. I had a couple of little wobbles on the first pass but that didn't matter because my bit was not big enough to do it all in one, once I was down to depth, I stuck a veneer on to my fence and went at it again and that removed my wobbles and made the slot just wide enough for my saddle blank. I radiused my fretboard to 12" so I did the same thing with the saddle, rounded over the edges to match the channel and screwed the bridge back down. Very happy with that! Action is a hair high for my taste and 12th frets air a hair sharp but I think it's all well within tolerance. I need to sand the base of the bridge to match the curve of the sound board so that might be enough action wise. Now I just need to take it all apart, tidy everything up and throw some lacquer at it while I figured out how I'm going to glue the bridge down. Chuffed!