First build - offset Tele

[juz]

The neck has been sitting for a bit over a week curing so I gave it an oil. On close inspection the rosewood has a couple of issues. I will change the nut anyway so I hope a light sand will sort the scratches out there. The crack in the fretboard at the other end I am not sure about. Is there anything I should do to stop it getting worse? Honestly I will never get there the way I play but it is a good lesson to have a really good look at the kit when it arrives (or any guitar bits). I did a practice fret level, crown and polish on an old beat up neck I had. It was a great learning experience and gives me more confidence going forwards with this neck (and others I have from 2nd hand guitars that need work).

I used a cheap fret crowning file. I think in the future I would get a better quality one or use some of the wood and sandpaper designs I have seen online. Also getting a fingernail buffing block was a great. It worked really well at the end stages to polish the frets.

I am really enjoying the learning experience.



Nearly ready to start the next build for one of my boys. Lime green dye ash strat with black hardware. Will post a link when I get it going. Again thanks the the community for the great advice and support.

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Juz,
with the crack in the neck it may be worth adding a touch of thin CA glue. It should hopefully flow into the gap and stop the split from getting worse, and level the gap. Any excess on the top of the fretboard could be cleaned with a scraper, scalpel or one sided razor blade. Hopefully it will not show with the oil used on the fretboard.

[phrozin]

You’re certainly getting stuck in to the build.

Several people here would advise against using steel wool if possible. As well as shedding all those metal fragments on the surface that you’ve picked up, you’ll find that some of the fragments can embed themselves in the finish. Hard to see now, but they will oxidise over time and become visible small dots. So I’d recommend investing in some 3M Scotch Brite pads. I use the dark red/maroon ones, the dark grey ones and the white ones. These are equivalent to 0, 00 and 0000 steel wool. These may leave a very fine powder behind, but it doesn't poke itself into the finish. The pads also last for a very long time and can be washed out and used wet or dry.

One issue with black hardware is that if the finish is painted on or an epoxy one, then it’s normally insulating, so getting electrical continuity from the bridge ground wire to the strings involves scraping off the finish in relevant areas until you get continuity between ground and each string. It can be done, but it’s a bit more work.

Definitely enlarge the neck mounting holes in the body so a screw can just pass through without catching the wood. It allows the screw to pull the neck flat to the wood. Having to screw into both the body and neck means that you can end up with the screw tight against the body without having fully pulled the neck down to the pocket floor. This can mess with the neck angle and it’s obviously not the best neck joint.

If you’ve got two makes of pickup available, be aware that if you mix them up and fit a bridge pup from make A and a neck pup from make B, there is no guarantee that by using the manufacturers recommended wiring colours as to ground and hot outputs, that the outputs will have the same signal polarity. So in the middle position, you may find the sound thin and nasal-sounding. This can be cured by swapping the ‘hot’ and ‘ground’ wires round on one of the pickups. However, with Tele pickups, the neck pickup cover needs to be grounded and if the bridge pickup has a metal base plate, then this also needs to be grounded. So on whichever pickup you decide to swap the connections over, either the cover or plate needs to be connected to the other output wire otherwise you’ll have a very noisy pickup.

Some manufacturers (including Tonerider) either provide as standard or have an option for a separate ground wire for the bridge base plate or neck cover. A separate ground wire for one or other (or both) of the pickups is also necessary if you go for a four position selector switch with a both pickups in series position (a useful extra sound).

If you ever need to mod a pickup like this, then I think the bridge is the easier one to modify as the link from the base plate to the ground wire output is directly accessible and you can just cut the existing one and either solder a new link to the other output solder pad, or solder on a separate ground wire and run that back to the control cavity.

Don't know about that Simon every piece of stained furniture is refinished by manufacturers use steel wool you get a softer look, it is how i was tort in my apprenticeship can't say ive ever seen a stained table that was rusting i guess those finishes lock in any issue with oxidizing i use it just about every time i do a stained finish's use a tack rag and no problem at all, scotch bright i like aswell thats an old wives tale mate, there is so much miss information with refinishing no wonder folks get into trouble. im about to get back into it as all my medical issues are fixed now just waiting for my new compressor to show up

[Simon Barden]

Glad to know you're a lot better. Good news.

I never believed the steel wool stories until it happened to me (required rubbing right back and refinishing) and I know McCreed has experienced the same thing. The 3M pads are far less messy and last a lot longer, so I don't regret getting and using them.

It may be that some makes of steel wool are more prone to this than others, depending on the composition of the steel.

[juz]

Finally had a chance to get back to some building. The good news is that some of the delay may have been caused by the Candy Apple Tele that was too good a deal to ignore.

The bad news is that it is safe to say that if nobody ever mentions the offline drilling through the body or the broken screw fitting the bridge then that will be fine. All good learning experiences. Some patient work with a dremel means working solutions to both problems. Sadly not perfect solutions.


Since I have sanded the body and neck with P2000. Started to do it wet but had mixed results. Tried again dry and got better results. I don't want to get a flat finish but I am not sure how the end result will look.

Next step is I got some polishing sponges and buffers that attach to the drill. Will try with some car polish/wax. Have heard different advice on this so will see what happens.

I have some Carnauba polish that a furniture maker friend is trying to talk me into using. He thinks it will go over the car polish in any case. Will take some pics when I try.

[Simon Barden]

Just avoid any wax with silicone in it. Carnauba is fine.

You'll want to use a cutting/scratch removal compound before any polishing or wax compound. And you should find that there's no need for polish or wax if you've sanded enough and used the cutting compound properly. Meguiar's Scratch X2 is a very good final buffing compound.

The problem with dry sanding is that you get beads of finish building up on it that can scratch the finish. Which is why wet sanding is better and gives a finer result. Always use a drop of detergent in the water to reduce the surface tension and dip the paper often to clean it.

[juz]

So I got some time to get back building this week. I managed to get to the playable stage and I could not be happier. So many problems and issues with the build and finishes but I could not get the grin off my face when I got to play it.

I put the Fender Yosemite Pups that I had in. I had all the gear to change all of the electrics but decided to use the Pit Bull control plate for now and change over in the future. This proved wise as I realise my soldering skills could use a lot of improvement. Doing the pups and jack was plenty for now. I have just done a rough fit and set up with the plastic nut loose as I am waiting on a set of nut files from Japan. I can't remember the forum member that suggested Plaza Japan for files but thankyou I took the advice. I then need to fit string trees and strap buttons but it plays great.

I have a set of tonerider vintage pups but I think after today I an happy with the Yosemite.