the telecaster kid

Well, many moons ago, a younger, naive me bought a nice custom telecaster body off of ebay, thinking I could construct a nice, classy guitar. It was made from mahogany and bloodwood, and was beautiful. Being a knucklehead, I proceeded to mangle and gouge it with bad tools and no skill. Over the years, I tried again and again to make it into a playable instrument, failing every time, and each time scarring and marring the body further. Today, I finally finished it.

Now, I must warn anyone who reads this, these images may be disturbing to guitar lovers.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...e5e07538bd0.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...b2038e4084f.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...227fc5a717c.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...06627239e31.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...4da60a22e75.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/spie...c724ea6c2b0.jpg

Specs:

The body is an ebay custom, made of mahogany with bloodwood stripes.

The neck is a one-off fender telecaster copy.

The tailpiece is a bigsby copy, taken from an old japanese guitar.

The bridge is a TOM knockoff. The posts are carriage bolts drilled through the body with nuts holding them in place, and setting the height of the bridge.

The tuners are schallers.

The pickup is 4-coils, made by taping 2 seymour duncan mini-humbuckers (little 59 and hot rails I think) together, and wiring them in series.

The controls are 1 volume knob, with a knob that says "tone" on it

The control plate is a piece of pickguard with several screws holding it over the control cavity.

I drew teeth, and eye and nostril on the headstock, and I wrote "KILL MUSIC" on the body, all with sharpie.

The routings were done with a chisel. There is an extra routing above the control cavity that does nothing. It had a purpose at one point.

The paint is the result of the body being painted several times, and each time the paint was scraped off poorly.

The fret markers were dots, but I turned them into Xs with a sharpie.

well, now we're getting somewhere, just the finishing touches, nobs to go on, mirror truss rod cover and the rear cavity covers to finish. we decided to fit a set of iron gear steam hammers. my son loves it and for a first go at customising a guitar we dont think it turned out too bad.

Reminds me of shiny pokemon cards, for some reason. Definitely not my style, but still very well done.

Ramp... Why would you ever want to play softly?

A corvus logo in blood red (and probably dripping) all along the back of the neck.

An extra bevel on the belly side, accentuating the reference to an axe.

This gives me an idea. We should come up with some corvus contest logo inlay/decal thing. To show solidarity

As am I!

Well, after not doing anything on this project for a while, I'm officially back on track with it. I've now glued the neck, which is mahogany/maple/mahogany, and cut the wings, which are walnut. I'm also laminating 1/4" spalted maple onto the wings, on either side of the neck. I actually just got back from my friend's shop, and i left everything there, so sorry no pictures yet.

It looks kind of like a guitar hero contoller from the back.

Since when does BC rich make 24.75" scale Warlock necks?

I stand corrected, 25.50" scale.

That's going to become really important when you get to drilling the holes for the bridge.

Alright, I'll have some tomorow.

Well, I bought a telecaster body a long time ago. It was cool looking: mahogany with bloodwood laminations. Well, I had no skills or any clue as to how to put it together at the time, and I mangled it. I ended up painting and stripping it a couple times until now it's a hideous hacked up mess. The body is all dinged and gouged, so I'll be filling the holes, putting a block in where I hacked my horrible swimming pool pickup route, and laquering it solid red. Yeah, i know, covering up cool looking wood... It has to be done. there's no way I can make it look good anymore with a clear finish, and I don't even think it looks that awesome anyway.

I'm also using this as a guinea pig for my prototype sustainer. When I get it to work, I'll put another system togeher, and that'll be going in my corvus buid project.

I have a neck I bought for it, and I'm also thinking about doing a scallop on it. Not sure about that though, just throwing the idea out there.

To save everyone pain, and myself embarassment, I'm not posting any pictures of the body until I get it presentable.

Yeah, I think a metal fretboard is gonna be a no-no. I'm gonna do the more conventional 24 fret gibson scale ebony board.

In other news, it seems that I won't be able to start actually working until the weekend after next. That's probably a good thing, more time to plan before I get too eager to start cutting. In the meanwhile, however, I'm going to rebuild a telecaster project I started a long time ago. I'll make a new thread for that.

Hmm, fretless... Dunno, what would a sustainer equipped fretless be like...? I might actually think about that one.

Yeah, I don't know about the headstock. I'll figure it out when I start my 1:1 size plans.

In other news, I just scored a huge mahogany board today, for free. The guy just wanted to get rid of some wood, so I ended up with 4 cedar boards, a wide cherry board and four big mystery burls.

Something just hit me. Has anyone ever tried a metal fretboard? There's an Indian instrument called a sarod, that uses a stainless steel fingerboard. http://vinodsharma-harmonium.com/images/SA...OUT%20TUMBI.jpg Probably not a good idea, just throwing it out there.

*What do people think of this new bevel/lower horn?

I changed the shape a little and added more bevels. I think it looks a little better now.

Comments?

*not sure why it's blue

Oh and I changed the body shape a bit to accomodate the extra four tuners at the bottom, and my own personal taste.

So I've started the plans for my entry in the corvus build-off. I'll be doing a ten string, ala BC Rich Bich. The rough idea looks like this.

At the risk of wood porn, it'll be a plain maple neck-thru. The wings will be an old spalted maple set I have, on some black walnut I actually got for free.

I'll also be implementing my prototype electronics, meaning the neck pickup is a sustainer.

I really don't see why y'all are so snobby I think it's a cool shape. Not as cool as a telecaster, of course.

How about a seven string? Is that within the rules?

*Edit: It just hit me, the body shape is a perfect candidate for a ten string ala BC Rich Bich. Is that acceptable either?

Jesus Wes, why so negative? I think it's an amusing idea. All that anti-corvus stuff was bothering me. I personally think it's a cool shape. I'm in at least. I have some questions though. Does the neck have to be one piece, or can it be laminated? Also, does the pickup have to be a humbucker, and if so, are there any restrictions on what kind? And also, are we limited on the headstock shape?

Damn, those first builds look fine... mine looked like this:

Pickup has been replaced since, and there are many other flaws (most visibly no neck PU and no cavity-cover) but it works great since more than one year, I recently had the chance to try my friends BC Rich Widow, took it... and put it away two notes later. I just love this ugly beast because it is mine. But the second turned out 100% better, and number 3 and 4 look promising

Dude, I've been really hesitant to post my first build, 'cause it has so many cosmetic issues, but for some reason yours reminded me of mine somehow. Now I feel I should show it.

I'm a not a big fan of faux-distressed finishes, but this is something entirely different; and I love it!

+1 for that. I really don't like relic stuff, but this is sweet.

Oh the headstock will look like this:

Thanks,

Jeff

Oooh, nice. I usually hate 4/2 headstocks, but that one's pretty sweet

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I think the explorer neck looks cooler on it.

Whats a timecaster?

Something to do with the Muppets

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Timecaster

Haha, yeah, muppets. It's an old company that made some really nice guitars. Paul languedoc, one of it's founders, made guitars for trey anastasio.

My dad has an old time guitar that he stripped the paint off of, and took apart. I'm refinishing it clear (as opposed to the bright yellow it was when he got it) and wiring it up with dimarzio H-S-H pickups, and coil drop. I'll have pictures up soon!

-Chris

Nah, that guy's right. I'm done with the lumber selling business. I suck at this, there's really no point of me continuing to frequent this forum. Sorry.