TL-1FW First Kit Build

Hi all. This is actually a finished project but I thought I'd share some of the process experienced along the way. I have done quote a few rebuilds and mods along the way but am by no means an expert/luthier.

So, the kit arrived, was inspected and put together. As the top was quilted I wanted to get the bridge centered with the join of the veneer. This meant slightly sanding the neck and putting a shim in the pocket to ensure everything lined up. A quick check on the bridge location meant cutting a bit out of the body for the bridge pickup. Other than that the geometry of the guitar seemed fine.

Well I am trying to upload some pics but ms photos will only resize to something that won't fit. Anybody any ideas how to get photos from my pc (which came from my phone) resized to fit?

Any help greatly appreciated.

To be continued...

I just use the resize feature on the standard MS 'photos' app. Right click on the photo once it's opened and the resize option is just below the middle of the list.

Choose the custom option, and then make the longest dimension 1500 pixels. Keep the 'maintain aspect ratio' box ticked. Then save a copy and use that. Just check the resulting file size as it still needs to be slightly less than 1MB. You may need to reduce the quality slider down if it's over that (some detailed photos with lots of small patterns can be).

Thanks Simon. That's exactly what I was doing but it kept coming back as too big still. I have tried putting the 1500 dimension in the other box and that seems to work. Will try again.

IMG_2772_resize_3.JPG (306.6 KB)

Ok. Thanks to Simon I've got a photo up but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get it the right way up. I've tried rotating the image first but it still comes up the wrong way.

Once again calling for help. Looking forward to continuing with the post when I get this bit sorted.

It may be that thumbnails always show it as landscape, but it does comes up as portrait when clicked on and enlarged. I've no idea why it does that.

Thanks again Simon. I'll just have to assume anybody looking will click on it.

So... back to the story

The above pic shows the guitar put together after I had shaped the headstock and started taping the f'board ready for a fret dress. The frets weren't too bad (only a few high spots) and the actual f'board was quite smooth although I did still sand it. Edges were a bit sharp so filed those down a bit.

While working on the neck the body was sanded down and first coat of Dingo oil (natural) applied. This process took about 9 days (three coats of each, one per day). The body came up nicely given the two pieces are not perfectly matched but it adds character. The neck was fished with tru oil and decal applied.

IMG_2790_resize.JPG (275.2 KB)

When body was finished and put back together did a setup (after filing the supplied nut) and only had to shim the neck slightly to get a good neck angle. I would point out at this time that the strings supplied with kit are really only any good for setting up. Next changed out the plastic nut for the bone nut ordered with the kit.

IMG_2793_nut_resize.JPG (303.7 KB)

Had a slight issue with the bridge in that the intonation screw was touching the bottom E string. Looks like I may have put the bridge plate slightly too close although it did intonate ok. Any way it seemed like this was causing the saddle to lift slightly so I decided to do a string through.

Pulled everything apart again (got it down pat now) and took it it up to a cabinet maker I know and used his drill press to drill for ferrules which I'd ordered from Ace guitars parts. This came out ok but extremely nerve wracking.

IMG_2797_ferrule_resize.JPG (332.9 KB)

Also wasn't happy with the thickness of the neck so shaved it down to 20mm at the first fret and 21.5mm at the twelfth. Re-applied tru oil which blended nicely.

Re-assembled and finished product as per photo. All in all a fun project which ended up in a playable guitar. I will play it for a while and decide whether to upgrade the pickups. Also nice and quite so didn't bother with the shielding I'd ordered. Might put it in my real tele which is noisy (go figure).

IMG_2800_front_res.JPG (169.0 KB)
IMG_2801_back_res.JPG (141.3 KB)
IMG_2803_side res.JPG (236.3 KB)

My guess is that the forum server-side software is not respecting the EXIF metadata about image orientation when it generates the thumbnail, leading to a thumbnail that is rotated compared to the original image.

You can also see this when you rotate and save an image in software that doesn't update the EXIF data correctly, leading to an image that looks right sometimes but then gets rotated to match the EXIF data when viewed in an EXIF-compliant viewer.

All very frustrating and technical, but that's what I think is going on.

According to this, some of the built-in Windows image tools don't handle EXIF data correctly. I am not sure which ones do and which don't though.