#7 - a birthday 12string

[FrankenWashie]

I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry when I saw the headstock. I’ve come round to liking it. However, someone in Mexico needs to be put up against the wall and shot.

Apparently that won’t happen until they agree to pay for the wall.

[DarkMark]

Lol, oh yeah! I’d forgotten about ‘that’ wall.

[Marcel]

Back to the TLA-12.... Fitted the neck snug and tidy, found my centre line, and then fitted the bridge plate and a pair of tuners, and added some enamelled copper wire as temporary strings.

The pre drilled string holes through the body do not line up with the bridge, actually they are all correct in distance and square wrt the centre line but all are too high up the body by about 4mm. It will be interesting how the real strings fare zig-zaging down from the ferrules to the bridge once it's all finally together.

But the next major drama will be enlarging the bridge PU hole. As can be seen in the photos, the hole isn't big enough just yet...

[Marcel]

Had to route out the bridge PU cavity just a little so that the Entwistle PU would comfortably fit....

And then it was on to getting a bit Black..... still damp in the photo... Not sure if I want to change the back and sides to a darker chocolaty brown, or the Redish hue like the samples at the top of the photo, or leave it the dirty Yellow it currently is...

After I decide it's clear coats next....

[Marcel]

Not perfect... but it will do for me...

[Marcel]

A little bit of assembly to make sure it all fits nice.

I'm happy with the Black front as it is. There is enough coats of clear to protect it but if a sanding/buffing process is to be enabled then it's going to need a few more coats.

Headstock is done in gloss clear and the neck is done in Tru-oil.

As for the back I'm still undecided. Could Tru-oil it as it is, or stain to either a dark Brown or a Mahogany hue and then clear gloss it. I like the vibe it has right now, a sort of rough worn look in but not your traditional relic appearance... plus it contrasts well with the Black on the front...

[Dedman]

I like the way it is so, you get my vote for tru-oil the back

[wazkelly]

+1 from me too on keeping it as is.

[blinddrew]

Another +1 here

[Marcel]

Seems that once I'm on a roll I just keep rolling... I kept on building, continued assembling... the extra coats to the back of the body whatever they may end up being can wait... it's sealed and finished enough for now....

Copper foil in all the cavities, Seven solder joints done in rapid succession. A few more screws in appropriate positions... The only hiccup being the supplied screws for the neck pickup being too thin so used the thicker kit pickup screws that now hold the pickup in the guard just nice.

I dug the strings out of the bag of goodies that came with the kit, and by using a digital vernier I sorted them by size... then re-ordered them into positional order...
0.026, 0.042,,, 0.016, 0.032,,, 0.011, 0.026,,, 0.009, 0.016,,, 0.011, 0.011,,, 0.009, 0.009.
Essentially it's a 009 to 042 set with the thinner four strings repeated as mates to the fatter four, and then the B and E strings simply doubled.

All went well until I tried to tune up...I thought I had got it right but the thin mate to the G, the 009, had somehow become a 011, And it didn't want to tune to octave up G and snapped in protest... So disappointingly I now have a 11 string guitar, but that didn't stop me...

I used the tuner to check basic functionality of the electronics, and everything seemed okay with both the Entwistle pickups, so I hurriedly plugged the guitar into my Blues Junior to hear what this build sounded like....

Taking into account that intonation hasn't been set yet, and that electronic tuners apparently make errors that the only the human ear can hear and correct, and that the neck is still settling under tension, the nut hasn't been adjusted, and the frets still need to be polished.... This build sounds surprisingly good. Really good. Lovely tone and clarity..... Once all adjustments are made, and with another set of strings this guitar is without doubt really going to sing...



And on the subject of my StratoTele Deluxe an update .... It seems Fender wants to at nil cost to me swap it for another more correctly assembled equivalent unit under some kind of warranty process. Oddly enough, I have never said I wanted to claim any sort of warranty, I just wanted some level of confirmation that it would be upheld if I ever did claim... The saga continues...