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A chambered tele-ish sort of thing


Freeman Keller

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I've been kind of bored lately. Decided I needed a new project. Don't necessarily need another guitar, I've got the humbucker side pretty well covered, but I don't own a telecaster. I've built four, yes, but they've all gone away, so maybe its time to build one and keep it.

 

I fished around in the wood/wine cellar (both like the same conditions for aging) and found a nice piece of mahogany, a neck blank and a fairly outrageous piece of flamed maple

 

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Ran them thru a friend's thickness sander and sketched a tele shape on them, seems to work pretty well. Cleaned up the seam in the maple with a router against a very straight piece of aluminum

 

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Shot the seam against a carpenters level with some 120 grit sand paper on it

 

 

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And glued them together

 

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Before I go any further I need to do the disclaimer and a bit of background. As you all know, I am an amateur hobby builder, I don't consider myself a luthier, but with each guitar I think I get a little closer. I don't have a real shop, I build in one corner of my garage. Danocoustic asked to see my "shop", here it is

 

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With a closeup of the main bench

 

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and the corner with some of my power tools

 

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The garage also houses three cars (I'm down from five), motor scooters and all kinds of play toys - skis and kayaks and bikes and a little climbing wall. One of the neat features of the garage is an attic that I've rigged a pulley system to raise and lower tools and things I don't need - small table saw, my side bending machine, go bar deck, various molds for every guitar I've ever built. I can store these things out of the way, bring them down when I need them, then put them away again.

 

The shop lacks some things that a real shop would have. My dust collection system is a shop vac that I plug into the sander or band saw, that means that my cars are always dusty. Heat is marginal, I don't have any control over humidity so sometimes I'll have to stop work while the weather changes.

 

But the important thing is that I can build guitars here. I kind of like showing this so people who say "I can't build a guitar because I don't have a wood shop (or some fancy tool)". Well, I don't either, but I manage to build a guitar or two.

 

 

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OK, one more post about what I think I want to do here. The telecaster is kind of the antithesis of the electric guitars that I've built and like to play. Most of these (other than the Barncasters) were based on various models of Gibsons and all have humbuckers. I like that kind of guitar and that kind of sound and if I didn't already own them I would consider making a tele-clone with 'buckers. But really, a tele should be twangy and so this guitar will get traditional single coils. Haven't decided on which ones yet (I do have a set of StewMac Golden era that I might start with).

 

Second thing, its going to be chambered. I liked the results of chambering a LP clone (the reduced weight primarily) so I'm going to hog this one out. That makes it kind of like a Thinline, but I definitely will not put an f-hole in it - I think they just look wrong. This is a stunning set of maple so I'll do some sort of finish to take advantage of that - I was considering a Cremola or tobacco 'burst but that might hide too much of the wood. We'll see as we go on.

 

Otherwise it will be a pretty normal tele type guitar. Screw on neck, I've got the mahogany for the body and neck and that nicely matches the flame in the maple. Rosewood fretboard and probably rosewood binding - that might change as I think about finish. Rosewood or maple veneer on the head so basically the guitar will have three woods that seem to work well together.

 

Probably some other important things but I can't think of them right now, so lets let the glue dry on the top.

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When I saw the maple in the wood store I knew it was pretty nice, but I didn't realize how nice until I got it home and splashed some DA on it. Here it is after the glue up

 

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So, what color do you all think I should paint it?

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Unlike most tele's, I'm going to make the body out of mahogany. And the neck. I made a quick and dirty routing template that looked about right, screwed it on to the block, took my drill press out side and put it on a little child's picnic table (my daughter's when she was seven). Drilled out as much waste wood as I could.

 

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(darn, there's that car in a skirt again)

 

Fired up my router and smoothed it out

 

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Now you see why I do it outside

 

Back inside I used the smaller router to clean it up a bit

 

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And sawed it out

 

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When I saw the maple in the wood store I knew it was pretty nice, but I didn't realize how nice until I got it home and splashed some DA on it. Here it is after the glue up

 

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","data-attachmentid":32371896}[/ATTACH]

So, what color do you all think I should paint it?

 

Must you paint it? Consider a tinted stain---that's too pretty to cover up.

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I've got a link book marked but it no longer works. I did the thread quite a few years ago - it was a tongue in cheek explanation of why I thought I needed so many cars (guitars). I had matched a couple of my guitars with a certain car that was sort of in the same theme - for example under the skirt is a 1963 Morgan which I called a "modern vintage" car and I matched it with my take on a 1930 Stella and a National resonator

 

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This was a "pair of dueces" - a 1932 Ford (belongs to a friend) with a 1932 Dobro (belongs to me)

 

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and these were affordable classics - my 1975 BMW, 1970 Yamaha, 1974 D-18 and 1980 D12-28

 

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There were other matchup - my wife's TT and a couple of little parlor guitars, metal resonator and my Sportster, but no electrics. Anyway, link doesn't work and it would be way too much work to try to reconstruct it, not to mention that I've sold the Bimmer, the Sportster, and the TT.

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i woud have said see-through butterscotch-blonde, but than i remember your hollowbody is also yellow-ish and your lp is clear coated wood...

 

so i would like to see something different from the usual.

the red on my ES is great but does not fit a tele imho.

 

color should be definitely see through...

 

how about a nice dark blue?

or a nice green?

 

i love my see through green warmoth strat, altough the body glows under black light :)

 

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We will be discussing the color that I'm going to paint it a bunch as we get closer to that point. I've got some ideas and will keep every scrap of the top to experiment with. You'll all get to vote (but of course I have veto)

 

One other thing before I forget it - I weighed the body block before and after the chambering but before I cut the shape. I've left a total of 1 pound 14 oz on the driveway floor. With a little effort I could have made that an even 2 pounds. What a difference a chamber makes.

 

Couldn't post this picture before because of the 5 pic rule, but here is the body in the rough

 

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Back outside, this time to flush cut the outside of the body.

 

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I haven't decided if I want to use the Oak 4 way switch or something different but its pretty deep and I wanted to make sure I have enough clearance in the cavity.

 

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Route a hole in the back for the electronics - I don't want to mess up the top.

 

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Make a cover plate for the electronics

 

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Nice progress.

 

I notice that you've got your control plate "flipped" (V-T-SW vs SW-V-T). I also prefer that configuration to the stock scheme. Works better for me, since I "play" my pots. Less likely to inadvertently change your pickup selection, too. We ham-fisted strummers do that sometimes.

 

If you're using standard Tele single-coils, I highly recommend the 4-way switch. The original three positions are unchanged, plus it adds a way-cool 4th option (you know this, I'm just being Mr. Knowitall). Of course, you could go with custom wiring with a 5-way switch---I've gotten some interesting results from such experiments.

 

Enjoying the thread, brudda. Keep it coming!

 

:thu:

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