Tony’s fourth scratchy

So have been building another guitar concurrently with my third (5th,6th and countless half finished other guitar related projects)
Building a thin line Tele with Qld maple body mango top and flame maple neck (originally Blackwood but will be used for a future headless project after an unfortunate routing accident)
Routed out the body and cut the top before gluing together.
Routed and fitted wooden string retaining block into the back of guitar
Original Blackwood neck that was injured will be recycled for a headless project down the track.

Routed out the top of the body and started to make the new maple neck. (Number 5 sneak peak).
Did a quick mock up of how it will look with hardware and fitted Fretboard to neck.
Will be Dimarzio pickups and trying a freeway 6way blade switch to give standard 1 bridge 2 bridge and neck 3 neck and then the drop to 4 in parallel out of phase 5 in series out of phase 6 in series in phase.
Interested to see how it sounds once assembled.

Did a full assembly before finishing to make sure everything is fitting correctly and got two coats of oil on the body.
Have a little work to complete on neck and will start the neck finish shortly.

That's some nice work there Tony. And nice looking timber.
Look forward to seeing them with clear on there.

Quote:

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(originally Blackwood but will be used for a future headless project after an unfortunate routing accident)

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Sorry, but that made me laugh!

Looks great. The mango top looks amazing, and goes great with the gold hardware.

Yes, looks really nice.

Any reason for going with a wooden string retaining block? Or are you still fitting metal ferrules into it?

Hi Simon, in two minds as to adding ferrules. Its Wenge so I was thinking to CA the bottom to get a touch more hardness than it already has, as aesthetically it would look good as plain wood. But also thinking of the potential longevity and can always add later if it becomes an issue or potentially fit some small brass washers in bottom of hole.

Given that Wenge is quite brittle and prone to cracking, I’d be tempted to add something in the holes to spread the load sooner rather than later.

So was just looking at ferrules and to maintain the look i might use top mount ferrules inside the block so that the bottom of hole is supported by the top of the ferrule. Just need to check the dimensions of the current holes but should be fine without too much modification other that deepening and drilling out the string through diameter. I think that the ferrule length may also then enable it to go a touch into the maple body and if careful can get it to bottom out in or on the maple.

Bit of oil on now starting to bring out the flame.
Another five or six coats and neck should be done.
About ten more on the body and should be ready to start assembling.

Oh that's nice!

+1 for the nice flame maple neck.

A little more progress over last few days. Put a ding in the headstock and couldn’t find a matching filler so used a pendant that the missus donated and inset into headstock. Needs a bit more to tidy up but it will get there. Got a Cricut for Christmas so made up and fitted logo and had a play with the pen function on the test card for a dummy info sheet as well.
Polished up the neck and body and started assembling still have a little wiring to do and then start setup and levelling the frets etc..

Love it. The logo looks great, and the gold goes well with the colour scheme.

Shaping up nicely.

Struggling to find the time to do any building but did get around to wiring the Tele and finishing the fretwork off as was a bit rough on a couple of the edges. had it strung and playing but the string alignment is a bit off with low E too close to the edge of fretboard (wasn’t when I originally setup before finishing ) and high e a good gap to edge so a little bit of tweaking on the neck position may be required or repositioning the bridge a touch to get it completed.

This looks fantastic! Love the flame maple neck and the mango top.