Hello all,
I have been around here lurking for quite some time. I didn't really find and introduction forum here so I'll do a quick one here. I am finally ready to build a couple guitars, despite the lack of knowledge and financial flexibility, I am GOING to do this. Long story short, I just got back into playing guitar after about a 10 year hiatus. My thought was I can buy a kit guitar and do it up right and play that to my heart's content. I did so (semi-hollow body Les Paul) and right off the bat there were issues with it and it bothered me to the point I just need to build my own from scratch. The pickup routes were off probably .100" or so, the quilted maple veneer was poorly glued, etc.
I say all that to say this: I found this site and there have been so many builds in here that are absolutely jaw-dropping, and some of you people in here are true craftsman. SO I come here for help, encouragement, and some accountability for these projects. I don't have a lot of woodworking experience nor do I have guitar building experience. I am a prototype machinist for the Air Force so I do have some abilities. I just hope that those skills translate to guitar building!
Anyway, Here is the list of guitars I want to build (not in any order):
1. Solid Body Telecaster
2. Solid Body Stratocaster
3. Semi-Hollow Tele
4. Starcaster
I bought a 10.5" 8/4 chunk of Swamp Ash that I believe I can get 3 or 4 guitars out of it. I feel like I ought to start with one that may be simpler (solid tele) but My heart is really drawn towards the semi-hollow tele.
That being said, I want to make these my own, not just a copy I can buy off the shelf. Maybe for the Starcaster, but the others need to have my own flair to them. I really want to start with the semi-hollow tele, and I just had my tonsils taken out so here I am recovering and tweaking on pain meds researching the crap outta stuff. I have most of the semi hollow tele planned out and I wanted to run it buy you top minds and see what you all think about the build plan before I buy anything else.
'69 Semi-Hollow Telecaster
--Laminated Through Neck (use some kind of combination of some of the following: flame maple, orange osage, black locust, bubinga)
--10-15 degree angled headstock similar to a PRS with a tip of the hat to ScottR's "not quite a tele" headstock (that thing is gorgeous!) I attached a picture I found. I want it to be similar to that.
--Finely Figured Pau Ferro Fretboard with no inlays, stainless steel medium jumbo frets
--Spoke nut dual action routed at heel truss rod
--Abalone side fret markers larger than average
--I want to use a strat jack plate but i want to countersink it flush along the lower radius where the cable would be plugged in downward and can be easily looped into the strap.
--I want some black limba or nice flame maple for the body top. I want it at least .500" thick, I want to round out the body a little bit.
--old school 3 saddle bridge with option to run strings through body or top load because I'm still toying with the idea of a bigsby and I think that setup would maintain the original tone im looking for.
--I want to do a 5 way switch with series, parallel, and half out of parallel selections. Wiring scheme below too.
--Fender Vintage Noisless Tele pickups
--I'm thinking about doing a black, emerald green dye scheme on the body top like the picture I found, maybe more black than that.
I don't have a lot of tools, but I do have access to pretty much anything I may need. But I do want to grow my inventory of guitar-specific hand tools.
So there it is, I'd love to hear your opinions, as I have a pretty healthy respect for the abilities of a lot of people on here.