GTL-1 First Build

[Guerito]

So this is my first PBG build and my build of any kind. I’ve modded my old knock-off Strat to within an inch of its life, build a few stereo speaker kits and done a fair bit of soldering, so hopefully I don’t make too bad of a mess of this kit. The kit arrived at the weekend and I’ve been gathering tools and measuring everything, measuring again, and measuring again.

I had originally thought of doing a Gilmour-style flat black body, but now I think I’ll aim for something like gavinturner of these boards did with his Black Ash Tele. Only difference is I’ll wet sand the initial oil coats to fill some of the grain with the sawdust slurry. I can’t find Tru Oil here or get it shipped for a non-extortionate price, so I have some high build finishing oil and black water-based stain on the way from Crimson Guitars. That’s apparently a reverse-engineered Tru Oil copy, so we’ll see how it goes.

A few limitations (apart from my own abject lack of skill): we’re in a serviced apartment which is basically a hotel – so no windows that open and not great ventilation. Also we have a two-year old so the sawdust has to be kept to a bare minimum. And I’m only in Hong Kong for the year and I left all of my tools back home in Ireland, so the last couple of days I’ve been gathering up the essentials that I can’t borrow.

Not planning to seal or do any other grain-filling. Sprays are not an option and I want to keep the indoor sanding to a minimum. Actually, I’m going to have to go to a little square around the corner from our building to do any serious sanding. That should get some interesting looks from people…

[Guerito]

So here's a mock-up with the neck and body hardware fitted:



I'll use a coping saw to cut along one of these lines to shape the headstock:



A couple of wood-only shots:




And here's gavinturner's Black Ash Tele that I'm going to shamelessly (try to) copy:

[Guerito]

Now the kit seems generally good but there are a couple of issues with it:

You might see it from the pics above but the body centre line and the neck centre line are way off. I don't think that'll be too much of an issue provided I can line the bridge up with the neck correctly, which I think I can do. I got the Wilkinson upgrade bridge with the Tonerider Hot Classics so there isn't a whole lot of wriggle room in the pickup cavity. But I've measured it out and I can get the correct scale length along the neck centre line so hopefully the intonation doesn't end up trashed. Bit of a shame that the neck won't line up perfectly with the body though.



The neck pocket isn't shaped to the heel of the neck either:




I don't think that's going to be a huge problem. It seats in the pocket well enough and the gap will be covered by the pickguard anyway. I'll have a go at the bass-side corner with some 80 grit and see if I can shape it to the heel. If not, I reckon I'll just live with it.

I have to borrow a drill and our two-year-old goes to bed around 7, so the next part has to wait until the morning. Can't wait...

[Guerito]

I've been very remiss in updating this thread. She's drilled, screwed, soldered, strung and making noise!



Of course I made a few mistakes with the bridge placement, though. Mostly through rushing it.

You can see them here: I have to put the saddles back almost over the bridge mounting screws to get even close to proper intonation. The strings are not quite in line with the bridge either.



I wouldn't be too concerned with that latter bit, the strings go evenly over the pickup pole pieces and they are properly spaced along the neck. I think the bridge misplacement is down to the Wilkinson bridge being shorter than the stock one, and me using the Tonerider pickups (of course I didn't read the forum threads about that before drilling).

Another pic of the bridge:



Next stop will be to the hardware shops to try and find a dremel to enlarge the bridge pickup cavity and dowels to plug the existing holes. I did buy a chisel but I'm not very confident in my ability to neatly carve out more space, particularly in the rounded corners of the cavity.



I'm very happy with the Grover tuners though, they're lovely and smooth to use and they hold tune perfectly. I've marked out a rough headstock shape that I think will work, reasonably close to a "standard" tele shape. I've got some templates printed out but I think I could live with what I've sketched.

The neck is good and straight even under tension (it barely moved from its unstrung position to its strung position), it needs maybe just a little relief but it plays well and the action is surprisingly good without any adjustments. The frets will need a full setup though, they're fairly uneven the whole way up the neck. I haven't done that before so it should be interesting...

I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that I've got the factory strings on, or the unfinished fretboard, or something else, but the Tonerider bridge pickup doesn't sound good at all. It's very rough and scratchy sounding. The solder connections are all good and the bridge is grounded so I'm not sure what's causing that. Hopefully it goes away once I've finished the neck and given the pickup more room in the cavity. Has anyone seen this happen before?

Lastly, my black stain and finishing oil arrived this morning. Took a while to get here from the UK but I guess that's to be expected. Once I've got the bridge positioning sorted I'll get started on the finish. It's gotten very warm and very humid here in Hong Kong lately so I think the finishing may take even longer than I had expected.



Edit: looks like my phone camera pictures didn't rotate like I wanted them to. I can't seem to remove the uploaded photos in order t ore-upload them. Any ideas how to do that?

[Simon Barden]

I wouldn't worry about any pickup rout enlargement being too neat. Just make sure that any existing holes are covered by the bridge plate when you move the bridge back.

The bridge pickup looks a long way from the strings. Raising it so that it's about 2mm away on the treble side and 3mm on the bass side should add in a lot more mids and bass, and increase the output.

[Guerito]

The bridge pickup looks a long way from the strings. Raising it so that it's about 2mm away on the treble side and 3mm on the bass side should add in a lot more mids and bass, and increase the output.

[Facepalm] thanks for the tip, Simon. I raised it like you said and now it sounds much better. I'll have a crack at doing the bridge and cavity in the next day or two when time permits.

[Simon Barden]

Also, if those are a set of 9s, I'd think about changing up to 10s. Teles always sound a lot 'thinner' to me with 9s, and I feel they need 10s as minimum. But then James Burton always puts 8s on his, so YMMV. Still, it's a fairly cheap and easy change to try out.

[Guerito]

It turns out that I don't have the clearance to make a meaningful difference to the intonation - I've only got a mm or two from the edge of the pickup cavity to the front edge of the pickup cover. I might still remove some material and move the bridge. But I'm going to see if I can mix the stock cover with the Wilkinson compensated saddles to make a Frankenbridge of sorts, and see if I can position that to achieve proper scale length and intonation. Will mess around with that over the weekend.

I have however been playing with the colour. I have some black water-based stain from Crimson Guitars. It went on quite easily but it turned out a very matte black. The grain still shows up in certain light and at the correct angle but I wasn't sold on the overall effect, even though I know it would change with the oil finish over it.


So I took a baby wipe and pulled out some of the colour. Not the best photo below, but the contrast between the grain and non-grain(?) sections showed through a little better and gave a warmer effect overall. Reasonably happy with that.


But after I did this I noticed some sanding scratches which I hadn't gotten rid of as I went up to 320 grit during the finish sanding, so I went back down to 220 and worked up to 400. That's when I had a happy little accident:




The black dye is a very deep indigo. Sanding it back lightened it up enough to create a sort of faded denim effect. The scratches I wanted to remove were mostly in the centre so removing them gave a sort of burst effect, completely by accident. I love this though, so I've changed the plan for the final colour and I'm going to go with this. The sanding removed almost all of the colour around the edges, so I'll have to go back over them with the black stain and I'll try to fade the edges in to create a proper burst.

I think the small, very light patches are high spots. I'll probably strip all of the colour and go over the body again starting at 80 and working my way up to 400, to avoid the same happening when I redo the colour.

Before I do that though, I have some very deep scratches to remove from the sides. I didn't spot these at all when sanding, they only showed up after the colour was applied. Could also be that I just missed them because I'm working under artificial light. I don't know if I made these when I started sanding at 180 grit or if they were made by the factory, but either way I'll take the sides back to 80 grit, then go up through the grits to 600.

Also, if those are a set of 9s, I'd think about changing up to 10s. Teles always sound a lot 'thinner' to me with 9s, and I feel they need 10s as minimum. But then James Burton always puts 8s on his, so YMMV. Still, it's a fairly cheap and easy change to try out.

Yeah I've got a set of Ernie Ball 10s in the cupboard, I'll throw those on next time I string her up. I've actually been using 9s on a Grote LP style guitar I bought a little while ago. It's been a looong time since I played regularly and my fingers needed to get used to strings again. I'll change those out too.

[Sonic Mountain]

9's work pretty well on the LP scale length, you won't find the 10's that much heavier on the fender scale length. I used 9's a lot for a long time, but I've been using 10's and 11's a lot more recently and found I like them a more. There's more control or something. Does hurt your fingers for a bit though :P

I ALWAYS find scratches and things I've missed after the first stain (or undercoat) application. I just expect that as par for the course these days.

The faded effect is cool. I had an SG style project that I stained red, then Feast Watson black over the top. It ended up looking black inside and a deep cherry in full sun.

[FrankenWashie]

My TLA is sporting 11’s, most of my herd are 10s.
My Eastman Archtop is wearing. .013” x .056” just for contrast. 🤣