H's TL-1Q, first build.

[UpperCaseH]

I held the white up against it, didn't look too bad. Decided to stick with that for now and change or stain it later on if I didn't like it.

So anyway, the finish ended up being a fairly smooth semi-gloss, felt OK today, so I assembled everything.

Looks OK. Plays very nicely. Action's a tad high but I'm sure I can correct it after everything settles. Not as pleased overall with this as I was with the fretless bass, but as I keep reminding myself, this was the first try even though it's taken a lot longer (4 months, wow) so the initial work I did wasn't as good and I don't think there's a way past that without sanding it all the way back to nothing and starting again. Which isn't happening.

That said, the bits I would do differently are all in the finish. It plays fine. I'm a big fan of the sound from the neck pickup. The bridge is OK I guess and both together are fine but nothing special. Overall, I'd be perfectly happy if I'd bought this guitar completed for the price I paid for the kit and materials.







And here's a demo. Drums are one of the demo tracks from Addictive Drums 2 (I'm no good at programming drums, but I've had a go altering stuff so it's not totally generic), bass is the fretless kit, and the guitar is this one. Neck pickup only, run into a Komplete 6 interface and Guitar Rig because I don't own a guitar amp that's worth recording. Playing's just some somewhat uninspired messing around over a simple blues bassline. I'm sure it'll be obvious that I'm not primarily a guitar player. But anyway: https://soundcloud.com/furtivedog/diy-blues

[Dedman]

You gotta be happy with that pair!

[Andy40]

Quilt looks great now everything is on!

[UpperCaseH]

Thanks guys. Yep, pretty happy with the two of them!

Couldn't have done either without the advice here. Probably wouldn't have even got up the courage to try.

I thought the tele sounded super thin and weak through my DIY 1w amp, but having just been mucking around with action and intonation, I got the idea to replace the amp battery and... yeah, it actually sounds as good as anything else through a shoddily soldered 1w solid state amp with a 2" jaycar speaker in a plastic box. I'll try to get a recording of it tomorrow.

Oh, and I got the 12th fret action down to about 2-3mm with no buzzing, so... it's OK. Maybe a little high on the lighter strings, but OK. Also it intonated 95% perfectly, so that's nice. I think the tiny bit a couple of strings are off by is a) unnoticeable and b) unfixable with this 2-to-a-saddle bridge setup.

The amp in question:


I'm gonna pull it apart this week and put a switched power socket on the back so I don't go through a 9v battery every couple of hours. And also put the speaker on a switch with an output jack so I can use a proper cab if there happens to be one around. Best part of very cheaply done DIY stuff is never worrying about wrecking it

[wokkaboy]

well done H the tele came up a treat. Nice pair as Dedman says (I think he was talking about your builds haha)

cruisey blues track you recorded

[wazkelly]

Good to see you have finally finished. The Tele looks great and neck PUP sounds good too.

Any more build plans in the pipeline?

[UpperCaseH]

I'm hoping to get started on sanding my LPA-1 this week. No further plans until after Christmas.

I've agreed to do a build for my brother, too. Don't know exactly what he wants or when he wants it done, but I'm guessing an LP of some kind will be his thing.

[Fretworn]

Well done H

[wazkelly]

Ash is a nice bit of timber to work with.

[nitroburner1000]

congrats mate on a pair of nice axes, sound track was cool too