Wazkelly build diary for DIY closing down sale Flame top Tele

[wazkelly]

Finally pulled my finger out and spent a fair amount of time playing around with action and intonation yesterday and happy to say it is now done and as good as it will ever be. This is bridge # 2 out of 3 that have been fitted and being an 'Ashtray' style I find it much better to use, particularly for palm muting the strings. Fitted strap locks whilst I was at it too.

Couple more shots taken in fading light as a reminder of what it looks like....bad storm came through and knocked power out for around 5 hours so I ended up playing it acoustically in the dark waiting the lights to come back on. Still getting used to 10-46's after using 9-42's for past 35 or more years and my left hand fingertips were reminding me about it for most of today.



Still have a couple of finish touch-ups to do before I can call this one done and hope to get around to doing a demo sound video at some stage too. Also hoping for better light conditions when I get around to doing the final photo shoot.

[Simon Barden]

Looks very nice. I've recently converted to 10s from 9s, though I did swap on my Teles first as 9s just sounded and felt wrong on them. No logical reason, but they just did. It doesn't take you that long to convert, and then 9s feel too floppy. The only downside is that string bending near the nut is a lot harder.

I assume people here are soldering together the foil tape strips once they've been applied? Otherwise the adhesive acts as an insulator and you are unlikely to get good continuity.

[wazkelly]

Not me, as all I did was apply the foil snail tape just overlapping all over the place and no hum issues. Initially I used the conductive shielding paint but found the control cavity was where all the buzzing was coming from and then did the PUP cavities just in case.

[Simon Barden]

Might be worth running a multimeter over the different foil sections and seeing what resistance to earth you are getting. If some of them are quite high, a quick dab of solder at one place on each join between strips could improve things even more. It's how it's always been shown in the UK guitar mags when they have articles on DIY shielding.

[wazkelly]

As I had some TO out working on the Swampy Tele thought I might as well do a couple touch ups on this one that were required after an accidental brush with the soldering iron scorched a bit on the bottom rear section. Also a good excuse to smooth out some runs and other spots too. Not much more to do on this other than some refinish touch up work.

[Simon Barden]

Nice touch-up work, Waz.

[wazkelly]

Thanks Simon.

TO is such an easy and forgiving product to work with. I ran out of the stuff as I was finishing off this axe and then disaster struck when I was wiring it up where the soldering iron fell off it's cradle type stand and was only on the body for a second but long enough to do damage. Was waiting to start another build and do the all the TO jobs at the same time as that seems to be the most efficient way of working with the stuff otherwise it can go off and not cheap to replace.

[Rev]

Generally, I'm not the biggest fan of semitrans finishes (Ive seen a couple that were good, but most remind me of coffee tables). But the work on both halves looks really nice in that color.

[stan]

looks good Waz, love the blue

[andrewdosborne]

Lovely Tele Waz and nice work with the TO.

Sent from Lineage OS 14.1