GlennGPs Tele #2 ("Tanias Red Menace")

[GlennGP]

A close up of the body, to show some of the feature grain on the front.

[GlennGP]

And here's the back of the body. You can see those deeper grain features near the top that I was talking about. They look like scratches here, but they're not.

[WeirdBits]

Now, the first step in plugging your wormholes is... oh, never mind.

<----Jealous

Looks good, Glenn, that grain will really begin to show once you start sanding.

[Brendan]

Glenn, the lego going to be part of the build?

Looks like a nice piece of wood you've got there for Tania. Hope the build goes well...

[GlennGP]

Quote from Brendan on April 30, 2013, 20:05
Glenn, the lego going to be part of the build?

Looks like a nice piece of wood you've got there for Tania. Hope the build goes well...

No Lego in my build, but my youngest minion is pretty keen. Here's his blog: http://xanderlego.tumblr.com/

Looking forward to the build. I've learnt a lot since the Yellow Peril, hopefully I can apply it here.

[adam]

Hey Glenn, I'm happy to see thee pictures, because you'll remember what dramas we had with the first lot of TL-1A's. It actually looks like they listened to us. I'll be interested to hear if anyone gets a kit with some dings that haven't been filled, which is what we asked for.

[GlennGP]

No worries Adam.

[pablopepper]

Love those wilkinson bridges, BUT check you can get the proper intonation measurement. As I found out with the Davocaster, there are two different styles of telecaster bridge; vintage and modern. The difference is the spacing between the pickup hole and where the saddles sit. The Wilkinson ashtray style is vintage, while the TL-1, at least, is modern.

With the Davocaster, I couldn't get the wilkinson bridge to sit far enough back to get the right intonation and the hole for the pickup and the rout to match. Try laying the wilkinson on top of the kit bridge, line up the pickup slot and see if the back of the plates match. I got around this by using the brass saddles on the standard bridge plate.

[GlennGP]

Thanks Pablo, sage advice from experience!

I dropped the bridge pickup into the rout and positioned the bridge by lining up the holes in the bridge for fixing the pickup over the screws in the pickup. Then I measured from 12th to saddle, and I got a result within 1mm of the length from nut to 12th, so I'm happy that it's OK.

That said, in the process I noticed that the bridge pickup rout is pretty tight - when I get the Bill Lawrence pickups I'll have to check whether it needs widening.

[WeirdBits]

Quote from GlennGP on May 1, 2013, 08:33
[...] I noticed that the bridge pickup rout is pretty tight [...]

I had the same thing on my TL-1A, the stock bridge pup would fit (just) but neither of my aftermarket pickups would squeeze into the rout. I ended up having to shave a bit out of the rout before I could get the other pups to fit and sit nicely when mounted in the bridge. A word of warning though... there is very little material between the edge of the rout and the sides of the bridge, so be very careful how much you take away otherwise you'll see the sides of the rout peeking out from under the mounted bridge. One option is to make the sides of the rout slightly concave to accommodate the pickup without actually enlarging the 'mouth' of the rout. In the end I had to remove far less material than I thought to get the pup to fit (discovered after the fact).

So, my advice is to mark where you want the bridge, then mark where the pickup needs to sit, then measure exactly how much (if any) needs to be shaved from the rout, check again, then start by removing a fraction of that and testing the fit. Advice I wish I'd followed