Good on you Andrew. Join the club of cautious first time scratch builders. Cheap pine takes away a lot of the stress of a first build. If it all goes belly up you've still got the neck and hardware to start again.
Im sure you'll do a great job, and there is a certain feeling of pride in saying you did it yourself.
I've just come home from Hawaii and while I was there I played a Fender Telecaster Special Edition FMT HH, quite an interesting guitar with split Seymour Duncan's so had a good spread of sounds.
It was never going to follow me home because the management had said don't even think of it and I wish to retain the meat and spuds.
Having said that it had to be the worst setup I have played in a very long time, the nut was way too high so pulled sharp when any string was fretted pretty much anywhere on the neck and the action was worse.
For ~$800 US I would want something that required no work at all.
There was a beautiful spalted Ibanez super Strat on Maui that really did speak to me but as mentioned above it was a no go, I wasn't game to touch that one because it really was that good and I may have been buried over there
Sorry, rambled too much in the previous post.
I'll watch this build with interest and suggest if you are going down the HH route you have a look at clips and specs of the FMT Tele.
I am having my humbuckers on one of my Teles rewound so I can split the coils and get more out of it
Ha no worries Dave this is actually a good reminder for me to start dropping hints at home for the holiday trip to the US I'm trying to influence...
That humbucker tele looks interesting. Very similar to what I have planned except it is carved top. Thanks for pointing me to this, I'll investigate it some more
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Ponch as you have plans for a standard tele with 2 single pups you might as well make your templates for that. When you get around to the next scratchy maybe you can experiment with humbucker templates. Once you get a collection of templates then you can mix and match pickup options !
A good tip is route your neck pocket pretty early in the build, this way you have more meat for the router template to sit on and if it moves a bit from where you planned to route you can re-draw the body shape to suit.
If you haven't had much experience using a router I suggest you have a practice on some pine offcuts first. Make sure everything is clamped down tight and the router bit collar is tight. Hold on for the ride !
Also pre-drilling holes in the routed area will mean less routing, check out Simon's scratch builds to see some pics
Last edited by wokkaboy; 29-05-2016 at 10:39 AM.
Current Builds and status
scratch end grain pine tele - first clear coat on !
JBA-4 - assembled - final tweaks
Telemonster double scale tele - finish tobacco burst on body and sand neck
Completed builds
scratch oak.rose gum Jazzmaster - assembled needs setup
MK-2 Mosrite - assembled - play in
Ash tele with Baritone neck - neck pup wiring tweaks and play in
Thanks Wokks, as always good advice
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Yes definitely make a template with neck pocket and pickup cavities. Also the centre line is very, very important!
good tip Simon, centreline should be clearly marked on the body and templates, and always wear safety boots approved by Simon !
Current Builds and status
scratch end grain pine tele - first clear coat on !
JBA-4 - assembled - final tweaks
Telemonster double scale tele - finish tobacco burst on body and sand neck
Completed builds
scratch oak.rose gum Jazzmaster - assembled needs setup
MK-2 Mosrite - assembled - play in
Ash tele with Baritone neck - neck pup wiring tweaks and play in
Haha who cares about safety? :OOriginally Posted by wokkaboy
Ah yes safety and the centre line. Steel toe capped thongs are in order. I'll use the centre join as the centre line for now
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Current Projects
#Planning 5 String Bass
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