TLA-1 twang-o-matic

G'day all,
Thought I would park myself here after taking the plunge and ordering the TLA-1 kit with the gold hardware upgrade. A little introduction to myself, I'm new to the guitar world, having only taken my first guitar lesson last week. I was inspired after being dragged along to see some live music and thought to myself "I'd love to try that!".
I'm an electronic engineer by trade and a woodworker by hobby, and until now I've never thought I could combine the two! I enjoy tinkering and have already began making adjustments to my acoustic guitar along with installing a pickup.

I'm a big fan o' country music, which explains my choice of the iconic tele! Hope you guys enjoy my journey and thanks for having me.

Hi Brett,
welcome to the forum and your choice of kit sounds great, especially if you are a country music fan.
Please post some pics of the kit when it arrives, we all love to see these ash kits see what sort of grain you scored.
Ask lots of questions there's plenty of help on the forum but by the sounds of it with your background it should be straight forward.
Let us know your stain plans and look forward to seeing this axe come together. Gold hardware should look stunning on an ash body.
Best of luck

Welcome Brett, sounds like you have found the perfect hobby!
We all love a good Tele

B-bender!

Welcome along Brett - many a tele has been done here so you're in good company. Also a nice guitar to start with - for learning how to make one and also playing. Wiring should be a doddle though for you... though you're in good company there with a couple of other guys with a bit of an electrical background as well.
Don't stress about asking lots of questions - there are quite a few who can offer a lot of help here and we've all done our first guitar and know how daunting it can be in getting things just right :) .

Welcome! Tele you say....Popular choice....lovely 4-way switch upgrade I can recommend!

Gav, I couldn't help but read that in Yoda's voice. Lol.

Thanks for the warm welcome fellas! I have my tracking slip from the postman and I'm eagerly awaiting my door step for its arrival! (Thanks Adam for the super-fast service)

As for the finish I have on order some wudtone! I will be finishing the body in surfer-girl green and natural clear maple neck.

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Quote from Nickosaurus on July 30, 2014, 12:46
B-bender!

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Quote from Gavin1393 on July 31, 2014, 00:18
Welcome! Tele you say....Popular choice....lovely 4-way switch upgrade I can recommend!

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This guitar is going to be a precedent to all my trials and tribulations, so who knows? It might see one in the future! In the mean time as soon as I have the kit it my hot hands I'll share with y'all the grain I've been gifted with.

G'day all,
Well the postman delivered and here she is!
-The grain....


Body looks good and so far I haven't noticed any fillers or wood defects. I noticed the holes drilled for the tuning machines are a bit out. But I'm sure once it's all together, you wont notice it too much and that it wont affect the playability of the guitar.


And here it is mocked up together.


I have checked the measurement for intonation and from the center of the third saddle (High E) to the twelfth fret is 325mm and from the inside edge of the nut to the twelfth fret is also 325mm! I have been notified that my Wudtone finish is about another 1-2 weeks away so in the meantime I will be prepping everything for the finish and shaping the headstock (of which I am yet to settle on a design).

Nice looking kit!

Wow. You really did score well with the grain, Brett, and surfer girl always goes well with these surf machines. Looking forward to watching your build.

G'day all,
Well after much procrastination and scrapped A4 pages I finally settled on a headstock design, I wanted to keep the traditional tele shape but somehow make it my own. Here it is just after the rasp treatment.

Love your headstock design brett! Promises to be one killer tele.

cheers,
Gav.

G'day all,
A tad slow progress update; I've been quite busy at work so this weekend I've managed to escape and work on the neck. I built a guitar workbench with some scrap MDF, pine and auto carpet, which turned out quite well for what I had lying around. Below, I removed the plastic nut and reshaped a bone replacement:


After sanding to 240 grit, on goes the first coat of Wudtone neck finish (colourless):

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/<\\/p>[]<\\/p>/Quote from gavinturner on August 10, 2014, 06:11
Love your headstock design brett! Promises to be one killer tele.

cheers,
Gav.

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I love the 'stock too, it's fairly subtle but distinctive.
Do you plan to customise the body in some way as well?

Thanks Max,
I won't go too crazy on the body; I'm not going to touch the classic Tele shape. I'm toying with the idea of binding the body, top and bottom in white, to frame the surf-green Wudtone finish. The other changes (which hopefully arrive tomorrow) will be a 3 ply (white/black/white) pick-guard, classic Tele jack

G'day all,
Most of the aforementioned parts have arrived, including the white binding that I was previously contemplating about. Now I'm just waiting on the right size bearing for my rabbeting bit to rebate the right depth for the binding. I'll also have to reroute the bridge pickup cavity as the tonerider did not fit, as well as the control panel route to fit the larger vintage CTS solid shaft pots. Since I'm installing the classic Tele jack cup, I'll need to enlarge the current jack hole. I have completed three coats of the clear colourless wudtone base, and positioned my decal.


I'm planning to have the first coat of neck topcoat applied, all rerouting work and drilling the string through holes in the body completed tomorrow.

-Brett

G'day all,
I have been somewhat productive over the past few days. The neck now has two coats of top coat and is already looking very glossy. I will finish it off with its last coat tomorrow, however I don't think that the three coats of top coat will hide the decal edges, so I might do a few more coats restricted to the headstock face, although I'm not sure if this will have any affect on the final finish?

The body has been seeing some attention as of late. I have drilled all the pilot holes for the pickguard, control plate, bridge & strap buttons. I have also enlarged the hole and flattened the area for the jack cup. After I had finished the jack cup hole enlarging, it occurred to me that it had ruined the chance for me to route the rebate for the binding as now the guide bearing will divot when going past the jack hole, causing a horrible mess. I have decided to save the binding for the next build and carry on.

I have installed the jack cup retaining clip using this neat little tool I made with a few bits and pieces, saving myself from purchasing the Stew Mac tool.


And here it is doing its job:


The clip installed:


The jack and cup all mocked up:


I have enlarged the control plate cavity to fit the new CTS pots and bring the control plate back to square with the centre line of the guitar. I have also enlarged the bridge pup cavity to fit the new tonerider pup.

some great progress, Brett.

Love the headstock - original and still distinctively Tele. Nice work getting the body how you want it.

And everyone love homemade tools, nice

nice work Brett, love the headstock touch and all the mods you have done before the staining. The ferrule holes look straight enough free hand you have done a top job. Nice upgrades this tele will be an awesome looking and sounding beast. Lucky you don't still live in Perth otherwise Adam would have a spare hanger at HQ for it already !

G'day all,
Long time since the last update, I have been literally watching paint dry, so of course nothing worthy of an update during that process. But here it is after its final third coat of top coat extra gloss, for reference I have applied 4 coats of a 1:1 mix surfer-girl and white colour coat.

well done Brett this build is coming along very well. Why won't the Kluson tuners work ? looked great in the photo. What a bugger snapping a tuner screw. Nice recovery. Are they gold tuners that came with the kit ? Mine are chrome from memory

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/<\\/p>[]<\\/p>/Quote from wokkaboy on September 11, 2014, 13:28
Why won't the Kluson tuners work ?

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They need to sit right up next to each other because one screw overlaps and holds down two sides. Bit of a bugger that.

ah ok cheers Pablo, now I see, I've never seen these tuners in the flesh. Can you use a larger screw head to hold down the inner 4 tuners Brett ?

You sure about this being your first build? Everything is looking just right. And that figure on the body, that's about as good as they come I reckon... especially draped in surfer girl, simply beautiful!

very impressive, particularly the string through body drilling. i wanted to do this but didnt dare without a drillpress haha

The surfer girl looks spectacular in that Ash grain. Superb job dude! This is going to be one awesome looking Tele.

cheers,
Gav.

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Quote from wokkaboy on September 11, 2014, 13:28
Why won't the Kluson tuners work ?

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Hi Wokka,
Pablo is correct, they need to sit flush together so a single retaining screw will hold the two like below. The peg holes in my headstock are spaced to far away to achieve this, and yes, I guess I could use a larger head screw or washer, but I thought I would save the klusons for the next build which will

nice work Brett, it's looking good!

looking forward to seeing pics Brett. With the gold hardware this axe will be a stunner

G'day all,
As promised here are the photos and probably the last post on the build diary.
The neck is screwed to the body:

Very, very nice.

Oh yeah, super classy. The gold and green are a great combo.

Great looking guitar. Congratulations.

well done Brett, that looks awesome, azure goes really well with the gold hardware, really classy build

G'day all,
Thanks everyone. I had a blast building my first guitar thanks to the team at Pitbull.

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Quote from wokkaboy on September 15, 2014, 13:22
well done Brett, that looks awesome, azure goes really well with the gold hardware, really classy build

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Correction Wokka, its Surfergirl :)

thanks for correcting me Brett, azure and surfer girl can look very similar.
Sounds like some cool projects happening with the amp and new scratch build

Looks brilliant, Brett. It just exudes class. You going to post a sound clip?