First build: lefty TL-1L telecaster

[ElleBrooke]

This will be a collaborative effort- my son is building the electronics, I'm just here for the art! This is his first guitar build, and my first time wood burning an electric guitar. We hoped to kind of start off easy with the telecaster.

Regarding the kit, it is far better quality than I had expected for the price. And it arrived super fast. The day after it hit customs, it was being delivered to my door! Color me impressed all around. All parts appear to be accounted for, the wiring diagram seems to make sense, read through all the manuals, so now it's time for the fun parts, right?

Obligatory pre-build photo:


And because I am excited, first session wood burning:

[fender3x]

That is going to be tremendous. It will be tremendous to have an instrument that is itself a work of art!

[ElleBrooke]

That is going to be tremendous. It will be tremendous to have an instrument that is itself a work of art!

Thank you so much!

[McCreed]

Impressive artwork there.
Two suggestions I would make are: do a mock build and confirm the bridge pickup route location is correct before going any further.
This determines the placement of the bridge itself and will effect how well it will intonate. TL kits have regularly had issues with the bridge being set too far away from the nut. It can be easily remedied by extending the pickup route a few millimetres.

Second, given the lovely artwork you're doing (and there are no pre-drilled holes) consider not using the full pickguard. You can cut the provided pickguard to make a much smaller mounting plate just for the neck pickup. This would allow much more area on the front of the body for the artwork.

[Trevor Davies]

+ 1 for the impressive and lovely artwork.

[colin2121]

Looking good. I always like seeing another lefty kit assembled.
Cutting the pick guard is easy and can be done with a saw and tidied up with a file and sand paper. This was how I trimmed mine.

[ElleBrooke]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong this morning, but I've written out a lengthy reply to everyone twice, tried to post a photo, have the photo not show, so I go in to adjust it and the whole post gets deleted.

So I'll just say thank you for all the advice and suggestions. My son did go back and remeasure the bridge and he says it all works out. I'll try again to upload more pictures later.

[ElleBrooke]

I'll see if i can get the photos to work. Here is the back after today's burning. It's starting to shape up.



And here is my front drafted out, might be a little hard to see. It has the roses cascading over the side and a few feathers to tie into the wings on the back. The brambles wrap around the sides front to back. Planning to do the roses in bright red, the leaves a deep green with gold vines, and the background a dark purple sunburst.



Currently, the design is set around a full telecaster pickguard, but i could wrap the art up over the lower arm.

[colin2121]

Looks great.
A question for the gurus - I noticed that the design on the back covers all the back and there are no string thru holes. Is there any difference to the guitar of the strings go through the bridge (a bit like a Gibson) compared to Leo Fender's concept of stringing through the body?

[Trevor Davies]

Looking good. The black pearloid pickguard goes well.