Lyn #12 - The Pine Tele

Hey Guys, I thought it was time to get back on the horse (saw horse that is). I’ve got a Pitbull neck but wanted a project to test my skills/sanity so I thought I would try a scratch body this time.

I know that pine is probably not the first choice for a guitar body, but wait, IT GETS WORSE!

If the pinnacle of guitar making is to make a body out of one piece of tone wood imagine how embarrassed I am to tell you that I have no idea how many pieces of wood are in my build.

The original idea come to me after Lyn’s brother gave me some leftovers from his home reno. I ended up with a 900x400 sheet of laminated pine, 18mm thick. Sooo, 2 pieces glued together would give me 36mm, but still not thick enough for a Tele body. As the pine sheet had already started to warp I decided to sandwich a sheet of 9mm marine ply between 2 outer layers of the laminated pine, figuring that the marine ply might give it some strength. Time will tell.

I accept that this whole project might be a massive fail, and even if I do manage to complete the guitar, it will probably sound rubbish. But at least I’m going to give it my best shot. Plan B will be to scrap the guitar and use the hardware on a decent body. I figure I've got nothing to lose except what's left of my sanity.

Oh, and one last thing, I WILL NOT BE USING ANY POWER TOOLS. This will be built on my back patio using hand tools only.

Next job will be to cut out the body shape on all 3 pieces of wood and glue together. Stay tuned.

Cheers
rob

Pic 1. Before cutting out the body shape I thought I had better cut a neck pocket. Cutting well inside the lines. (You can always take more away but it’s a lot harder to put some back). Just to clarify, the neck pocket and pup route “floors” will be the middle ply layer.

Pic 2. Neck pocket finished, nice snug fit.

Pic 3. Starting the P90 cavity. For the small drilling jobs I used an "egg beater" drill for the larger holes I used the brace and a spade bit.

Hi Robin

Nice to see someone trying out something completely different. As for the sound - I've got a mid 70's lawsuit era Fender JB copy made by Cimar and it has a plywood body. It doesn't sound too bad. Swapped the warped neck for a new one recently and it plays great. Plywood is easy to work with without any big power tools. Good luck with your build!

Arzi

plenty of guitars are made of ply or laminate mate, so you are fine there. early strats were pine as well, and people fall over themselves to buy those.

nice work with the neck pocket, fit looks good

excellent news Rob to have you back building and a scratchy. My first 10 or so scratch body builds were pine bodies and it taught me so much. Can't believe you won't use any power tools !
Look forward to seeing it progress, on the plus side pine is soft and easy to cut/route.
Best of luck and sure this will be an excellent first scratch body build

@ Arzi and Stan
Thanks for the encouragement guys, I guess that I got sucked into the tone-wood debate and I just assumed that a combination of pine and plywood was going to be pretty substandard. I am now a little bit less apprehensive about the outcome.

@ Wokka
The choice of no power tools? I'm not sure if I am just a rebel or stupid. I really needed something to occupy my mind and a scratchy seemed to fit the bill. Hopefully there will be a sense of achievement when finished.

Thanks guys.
rob

Great Robin , congrats on your first scratch build. Well done

My jazzmaster is pine and it sounds fantastic, but it dents very easily (I don't care). Remember, The tone of the instrument is a sum of its parts. One part is no more integral than another. Go with what you've got and you might be very surprised.

Will be watching this one with keen interest, Rob.

Check out this blokes video's, all hand-tooled guitars!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APbzm6KApYI

@ Kim
Thanks Kim, but I think the congrats are a bit premature, lol. But I am hoping for at least a keeper.

@ Pabs
Very encouraging mate, I am starting to warm to this build. I know what you mean by "dents very easily", I thought that basswood was fairly delicate, and I am taking all the care I can but this pine is showing signs of wear already and I haven't even begun to get serious with it yet. But like you I don't care, guitars are meant to be played, I'm not precious about any of my guitars.

@ Andrew
Hi Andrew, actually his series of videos was the tipping point for me going ahead with hand tools. He is very unassuming but obviously a craftsman. And he does the whole guitar, body, neck, fretboard, pickups, the lot.

I would guess he has $2K + worth of hand tools. Envious much.

cheers guys
rob

Weren't the first Fenders pine? Great to see you back on the horse Robin. Great also to have you around again - hoping and praying things are travelling OK for you.