TL-1TB 1st Build

My Kit arrived yesterday and is looking pretty good, semi hollow basswood tele body, maple neck & fingerboard. I decided to swap from the ATL-1SB as that wasn't due in for another couple of months, thanks to Ben and Adam for sorting this out for me.

I figure this will give me an opportunity to play around with a few changes as I ll be able to do a solid colour and don't have to worry about covering a nice grain. I also got a second neck so I can can have a go at a semi scratch build after this. I don't want to use the trem with this guitar and have bought a Wilkinson through body bridge and am looking at a pair of Irongear Platinum P90s to replace the HBs. Plan to do away with the scratch plate and have got a copper sheet to make pup rings and would like to make a matching control plate out of it too. Would there be any issues using copper for this?

Done a test build and everything seems to be there except the solder which isn't a problem. I want to use the maple fingerboard neck as the grain looks amazing, its a little too big at the moment but I understand that's a good thing!

1 Question I have first is, the P90s won't be in stock for a week or so and although I have the dimensions from the web site have decided to wait until I actually have them before I route out the cavities. Should I also wait to have these before I measure up and put the bridge in place or can I go ahead with this now?

The Platinum P90s will be the same dimensions as standard humbuckers, so you can either use the kit humbuckers routs as a guide or use one of the many templates available off the web.

Copper pickup rings and control plate won't be an issue as long as it's thick enough. I'd suggest 2mm minimum as it's quite soft. But I'd definitely solder the rear of the pots together with wire for grounding, rather than rely on the copper. Unlike a chromed control plate, copper will oxidise over time, and the oxide isn't conductive. So although it may start out clean and shiny on the underside (or maybe not if you are going to age it first), you'll probably find that the controls become intermittent with time without the hardwired ground connections.

Thanks Simon, the copper sheet I have is only .9mm so glad you said that - won't need it for a while so that's not a problem.

I got 2 necks, the maple fretboard one I was going to use is rounded at the end and is a tiny bit too wide for the socket and the rosewood fretboard is straight and seems to fit well. If I am going to use the maple one, is it fine to sand down the end of the neck flat to fit and for the width do I sand the pocket sides as opposed to the neck.

Ok, so figure this is a strat neck not a tele neck and is going to change the scale length if I shorten it. Guess I am going with the rosewood.

Probably a wise move. If you had a standard Tele bridge, then you could just move it backwards a bit to compensate, but with the TOM-style bridge with the pre-drilled post holes, 2-3 mm of neck movement could well make intonation difficult.

Some progress this weekend, I ve filled in the pre drilled bridge holes using some 12mm dowels that i sanded down to fit. Going to put a Wilkinson tele style bridge in and borrowed a drill press but going to have to get some practice before I am let loose on the body.

Cut the headstock with a coping saw and have made some progress sanding but boy that maple is hard!

Hello, I could with a bit of advice please.

I am measuring up for the bridge position, happy with the scale length and have put on the 2 e strings to see how they fit on the neck which again seems ok and no danger of them slipping of the side, but around the 10th/12th fret to the end of the fretboard (bridge side) the strings are both sat on the frets. I haven't screwed the bridge in yet so I am pulling it tight myself.

I haven't screwed in the neck either but it seems a decent fit, there is a slight gap at the end you can see in the picture. I wondered is it because I have change the bridge from the kit tune o matic to the wilkinson in the picture? Saddles are pretty much as raised they will go. I have used a straight edge on the fretboard and there is a slight gap at the end but not much (see picture), I read that when it is all put together and the strings are on this might be corrected due to the tension?

What is the best plan of action, I am guessing I don't want to start sanding either the bottom of the neck or the pocket. Do I need to worry about this at the moment and/or could I mount the bridge on something at the end to raise it a little if there is still an issue?

Thanks
Alex

Realise I was a bit foolish filling those holes in. Measured the bridges with the callipers and I think the Wilkinson bridge saddles are 3.6mm lower than than the tune o matic. Thought about putting a sheet under bridge to raise it and could use same material I am using for the pick up rings but might just look really strange given how thick it would have to be. Does anyone know of any alternatives or is going to be drilling the holes for the tune o matic back out!

It does look like the neck is angled up slightly in order to get the strings to work on a TOM bridge. Normal Teles have the neck flat. TOM bridge is typically about 15mm high when fully lowered and had a good 15mm of height adjustment above that. A Fender-style bridge is probably 10mm high and has less height adjustment above that, maybe 4mm. So the strings need extra height above the body to fit a TOM, and rather than fit a neck with a flat heel that's 5mm higher than normal above the body, they have used a neck with an angled heel. It's not a common thing.

So you could try and flatten the neck heel a bit. You'll only need to take about 1mm off, no more. Mark 1mm up at the body end of the heel, draw a line to the neck end of the heel and that small wedge of wood is what you need to sand down. It's not easy and you'll definitely need to use a really flat sanding block, but you can do it with a bit of care.

The angle may also be the reason there's a gap at the rear of the neck, if the end of the neck heel is perpendicular to the top of the neck, but the heel is slightly angled, then the top of the heel will be slightly further away from the end of the pocket than the bottom.

The easy alternative is to put a 1mm shim under the very neck end of the heel, but you'll see a gap.

The screws in the Wilkinson saddle will happily go down to 1/2 way through the saddles, so can go higher than in the photos

But you could certainly mount the bridge on a suitable wooden block of the same size as the bridge. I'd fix it down with glue and a couple of screws (though put them where they won't clash with the bridge fixing screw locations). Or if you are any good with metal, you could make a steel or brass block for it to sit on.

Personally I'd just sand the neck heel down.

What about putting in a neck shim?
Thatll flatten out the neck angle quick smart.
Ive done it on my mosrite style guitar. I used business cards cut to shape and slotted at one end of the neck.
Then when i got the right angle i coloured the edge of the card so it wasnt obvious.
Alternatively you could buy a shim from a luthier place. But i havnt any recommendations on that.

This is my shim: https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...089e712aa5.jpg


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Thanks very much for the advice, used calipers on the pocket and the neck end is 2mm lower than the body end. I ll look into making a shim and at sanding before I decide which way to go. Thanks again, Alex

Its been a while since I posted and thought I would update my progress.

I routed the neck socket (after a bit of practice) so it is now flat and the neck sits in there much better, there is still a slight gap at the front but I think after finish this may go.

I thought I would have a go at changing the inlays and I hoped it would be as easy with these triangle inlays as the dots seemed to be, but almost as soon as I drilled into the first one I regretted it! I drilled holes first then went in the dremel to get all the resin (or whatever it was) out. Seeing as I am going to have a copper theme, I bought some of the copper powder from Crimson Guitars for the inlays, filled the holes until they were level with the fretboard and then put some thin CA glue over the top. This gave me two problems, first where the glue hit the powder it pushed it down below the fretboard level and secondly the glue really dulls the copper and it lost that nice shine. After a week of scraping and a bit of sanding I had another go and over filled the inlays and put a little more glue down, this worked well and after another week of scraping they looked quite good.

I can see why the engineered Rosewood fretboards get a bad rap, lots of gaps on mine and I had planned to soak with thin CA glue as suggested on some other threads here but I also had an idea of filling the gaps with the rest of my copper powder first and so did not want to use the glue to dull the copper. Instead of glue I used the waterbased poly I bought for the body. This worked to a point but it did move most of the powder out of the cracks, I sanded back lightly and scraped of any clumps of the powder and sprayed a few more times while sanding back with 400 grit in between sprays. Its turned out quite well in that it is now super smooth and I am leaving to dry thoroughly before I sand/polish them up. I have adjusted the trust rod to get the board level using the notched straight edge but I am waiting for the poly to cure before I do the frets. Its no guitar of the month but I think it will be definitely playable.

So moving onto the body, I had thought about using P90s but they were still out of stock and I decided to go with the overwound steel foundry iron gear pickups I have. I filled in some gaps in the PUP cavities and had to route out a tiny bit in the bridge slot to make them fit, unfortunately only now I realise that the pots in the kit are 500 and I will need to get 250s and presumably route the control cavity for them to fit, at least I getting lots of practise! I drilled the through body string holes with a combination of a drill press (clamped backwards - gleamed from another thread on here) and a drill guide, they have come out well, 1 hole slightly out of place but when I go back in to put the ferrules in, I ll be able to even it out.

I have sanded down the body to 320g and sprayed primer with some blue dye on the front, sanded back and repeated a few times and I think I am almost there. Its come out paler than I was thinking of originally and may add some dye to the poly for a coat or two as that looked good in my tests. A couple of pics below, I am just waiting for my last coat of blue to dry before I sand and see if it is good enough for the clear. I have some british racing green dye for the back and sides and if it looks terrible I can always paint over it.

Neck looks great!


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Thanks Oli, neck hasn't turned out quite as I had hoped but still quite pleased with it.

Bit of advice needed please, electronic kit arrived yesterday and I routed the control cavity slightly to fit the bigger pots. They fit in but only just, will this do or should I go a little bigger? Also, as I am using a standard tele bridge can I just put the bridge ground up through the bridge pick up cavity or is best to drill another hole?

Thanks
Alex

You are limited by the width of the control plate, so just wide enough is the key here. But as long as the control plate covers the cavity, you're OK. The important thing is being able to get the wires in once they've been soldered on. So those wires will need to pass under the pots as there is almost no room at the sides to do so. I'd advise against sticking a large-bodied capacitor on top of the tone pot as this can take up almost all of the available gap. As long as there is enough depth there, you're fine, but if the gap is a bit narrow, you night want to take a bit off the bottom of the cavity to help. You've got more wires passing underneath the pots with the reversed control plate arrangement you've shown than with the standard arrangement.

Bridge ground options are:

1) Drill separate hole so ground wire comes up underneath the bridge base
2) Run a ground from the bridge pickup rout to stick under the bridge base from the rear edge of the rout
3) Solder a small washer or eyelet tag to a ground wire and use a pickup mounting spring to hold it against the bridge base
4) Don't run any ground wire and use the ground path formed by the metal baseplate of the bridge pickup (if it has one - most Tele bridge pups do but there are some without), the contact of height adjustment screws which screw through the pickup baseplate and also touch the bridge baseplate.
5) Don't run any ground wire for the bridge but use copper shielding tape sitting under the bridge that's run up from the bridge pickup rout to ground it - providing that you've run a separate ground wire for the bridge rout shielding from the main control cavity. The alternative here for grounding the bridge pickup cavity copper tape is for the bridge to be grounded and for that to touch and ground the copper tape.

Personally I prefer option 3, as it's neat and I like to know that there's a good solid ground contact for the bridge. With options 1 and 2, there's always a small risk danger that the ground wire could always pull out from under the bridge during assembly or any dis-assembly.

Thanks Simon, I didn't think about the capacitor. I ve got some 3mm copper to make a new control plate but I d like to able to revert back to the original if I struggle with it. I ll do a dry run with all the wires tonight and see if there is room, I am pretty sure its deep enough already to get everything underneath but will see. Happy to swap the switch back around if needed but would prefer it at the back.

I won't drill an extra hole for the ground under the bridge you ve given me plenty of other options to try instead. Thanks again

Alex