aturner

Let's see, right now I'm getting parts and starting to work on a powder blue double-bound tele which won't be done for quite some time because from a week from now 'till early September I'll be Army-ing it up. After that I'm going to be doing some experimenting with carbon fiber...

I'm not a big fan of guitars that look like they could do some serious damage to you leg if you played it sitting down, but I'm digging the inlay.

For the inlays I'd probably go with the small black dot, probably in the bottom left of the space, right above the fret. You could use the same stuff as the side dots; keep 'em small but still noticeable, at least to you. Your parts list looks pretty good. Depending on how handy you are you could probably do without the plans. It's not too difficult to blow up a picture of a tele using a good photo and trace it. As long as you know the scale length (25.5 inches) you can guarantee it'll be the right size. If you can only blow up the body the tele is about 12 5/8 inches wide at the lower bout. Also, I noticed you'll be using three pickups but you only have a three way switch. Why not go for a five way strat-ish switch for a little more versatility?

How did you get the frosted look on the pickguard?

Very true.

MIMF = Musical Instrument Makers' Forum

I know there is a tele headstock plan, but I'm pretty sure there isn't one for the body.

Unless you're building an upright bass you're going to need a trussrod. The tension caused by tuning the strings to pitch makes the neck of the instrument want to bow outwards. The trussrod is used help counteract this bowing by both strengthening the neck and allowing you to correct the bowing. The reason a URB doesn't need a trussrod is because the neck is thick and short, the thick ebony fb adds an exceptional amount of strength, and the strings are traditionally made of gut which needs less tension than steel strings to tune. Short answer, you need a trussrod regardless of the neck joint. Also, try using the search function.

I read somewhere that teles have a lower bout width of roughly 12 5/8 inches. When I drew it out full size and arranged my parts on the template it looked too small. Is there someone out there who could quickly confirm or disprove this for me?

Can't say I'm a huge fan of active pickups either. I don't care much for large fingerboard inlays or Les Pauls in general, but that's neither here nor there.

It wouldn't hurt to go for the maple neck, and the ebony fingerboard will also help towards brightening the sound. As for the inlays, I don't know if they'd make that huge a difference but not having them wouldn't work against you. The top you're using is only 1/4 inch thick? Do you plan on doing a really shallow carve or carving into the mahogany underneath and just covering the edges up with the sunburst? Or maybe a third thing I haven't though of...

Granted we are talking about bodies, but the neck does play a key role in the dynamics of the instrument. Both examples I gave are neckthroughs, so the bridge and pickups are attached to the multiple-laminate necks. You're free to disagree, but personally I don't see much difference between the two (multiple laminate neck vs multiple layered body). If you want to stick strictly to bodies, I'll go back to Alembic. They usually have a top and back plate, core wood for wings on either side of the neck, and multiple veneers between the core and top/bottom plates. But like you mentioned, as long as the glue joint is tight it shouldn't be much of an issue, plus it looks sweet.

As per the question of multiple glue joints affecting the sound, I can't imagine it making a huge difference. Just take a look at just about any custom Alembic: you're talking about guitars and basses with 7 piece necks, plus another half dozen body laminations. The core of the original Firebirds were 9 pieces of mahogany glued together. So it's not like there isn't a precedent for nice guitars being made up of many pieces of wood glued together.

I would probably make the cutaway a bit smaller, more along the lines of a blueshawk. I like the upper bout of the first design more than the second. +1 on the neck and hardware.

I really like the design, my preference goes to the semi hollow with f-holes. The headstock looks a bit small compared to the body though. I have a bias towards larger headstocks (a la Rickenbacker), more so than most and that's probably coloring my opinion.. If you do decide to make your own neck that's what I'd recommend.