TLA-1 twang-o-matic

[lawry]

Wow. You really did score well with the grain, Brett, and surfer girl always goes well with these surf machines. Looking forward to watching your build.

[megawaly]

G'day all,
Well after much procrastination and scrapped A4 pages I finally settled on a headstock design, I wanted to keep the traditional tele shape but somehow make it my own. Here it is just after the rasp treatment.

[gavinturner]

Love your headstock design brett! Promises to be one killer tele.

cheers,
Gav.

[megawaly]

G'day all,
A tad slow progress update; I've been quite busy at work so this weekend I've managed to escape and work on the neck. I built a guitar workbench with some scrap MDF, pine and auto carpet, which turned out quite well for what I had lying around. Below, I removed the plastic nut and reshaped a bone replacement:


After sanding to 240 grit, on goes the first coat of Wudtone neck finish (colourless):

[maxaxe]

/<\\/p>[]<\\/p>/Quote from gavinturner on August 10, 2014, 06:11
Love your headstock design brett! Promises to be one killer tele.

cheers,
Gav.

I love the 'stock too, it's fairly subtle but distinctive.
Do you plan to customise the body in some way as well?

[megawaly]

Thanks Max,
I won't go too crazy on the body; I'm not going to touch the classic Tele shape. I'm toying with the idea of binding the body, top and bottom in white, to frame the surf-green Wudtone finish. The other changes (which hopefully arrive tomorrow) will be a 3 ply (white/black/white) pick-guard, classic Tele jack

[megawaly]

G'day all,
Most of the aforementioned parts have arrived, including the white binding that I was previously contemplating about. Now I'm just waiting on the right size bearing for my rabbeting bit to rebate the right depth for the binding. I'll also have to reroute the bridge pickup cavity as the tonerider did not fit, as well as the control panel route to fit the larger vintage CTS solid shaft pots. Since I'm installing the classic Tele jack cup, I'll need to enlarge the current jack hole. I have completed three coats of the clear colourless wudtone base, and positioned my decal.


I'm planning to have the first coat of neck topcoat applied, all rerouting work and drilling the string through holes in the body completed tomorrow.

-Brett

[megawaly]

G'day all,
I have been somewhat productive over the past few days. The neck now has two coats of top coat and is already looking very glossy. I will finish it off with its last coat tomorrow, however I don't think that the three coats of top coat will hide the decal edges, so I might do a few more coats restricted to the headstock face, although I'm not sure if this will have any affect on the final finish?

The body has been seeing some attention as of late. I have drilled all the pilot holes for the pickguard, control plate, bridge & strap buttons. I have also enlarged the hole and flattened the area for the jack cup. After I had finished the jack cup hole enlarging, it occurred to me that it had ruined the chance for me to route the rebate for the binding as now the guide bearing will divot when going past the jack hole, causing a horrible mess. I have decided to save the binding for the next build and carry on.

I have installed the jack cup retaining clip using this neat little tool I made with a few bits and pieces, saving myself from purchasing the Stew Mac tool.


And here it is doing its job:


The clip installed:


The jack and cup all mocked up:


I have enlarged the control plate cavity to fit the new CTS pots and bring the control plate back to square with the centre line of the guitar. I have also enlarged the bridge pup cavity to fit the new tonerider pup.

[stan]

some great progress, Brett.

Love the headstock - original and still distinctively Tele. Nice work getting the body how you want it.

And everyone love homemade tools, nice

[wokkaboy]

nice work Brett, love the headstock touch and all the mods you have done before the staining. The ferrule holes look straight enough free hand you have done a top job. Nice upgrades this tele will be an awesome looking and sounding beast. Lucky you don't still live in Perth otherwise Adam would have a spare hanger at HQ for it already !