TL-1TB 1st Build

[A.D.]

Thanks very much for the advice, used calipers on the pocket and the neck end is 2mm lower than the body end. I ll look into making a shim and at sanding before I decide which way to go. Thanks again, Alex

[A.D.]

Its been a while since I posted and thought I would update my progress.

I routed the neck socket (after a bit of practice) so it is now flat and the neck sits in there much better, there is still a slight gap at the front but I think after finish this may go.

I thought I would have a go at changing the inlays and I hoped it would be as easy with these triangle inlays as the dots seemed to be, but almost as soon as I drilled into the first one I regretted it! I drilled holes first then went in the dremel to get all the resin (or whatever it was) out. Seeing as I am going to have a copper theme, I bought some of the copper powder from Crimson Guitars for the inlays, filled the holes until they were level with the fretboard and then put some thin CA glue over the top. This gave me two problems, first where the glue hit the powder it pushed it down below the fretboard level and secondly the glue really dulls the copper and it lost that nice shine. After a week of scraping and a bit of sanding I had another go and over filled the inlays and put a little more glue down, this worked well and after another week of scraping they looked quite good.

I can see why the engineered Rosewood fretboards get a bad rap, lots of gaps on mine and I had planned to soak with thin CA glue as suggested on some other threads here but I also had an idea of filling the gaps with the rest of my copper powder first and so did not want to use the glue to dull the copper. Instead of glue I used the waterbased poly I bought for the body. This worked to a point but it did move most of the powder out of the cracks, I sanded back lightly and scraped of any clumps of the powder and sprayed a few more times while sanding back with 400 grit in between sprays. Its turned out quite well in that it is now super smooth and I am leaving to dry thoroughly before I sand/polish them up. I have adjusted the trust rod to get the board level using the notched straight edge but I am waiting for the poly to cure before I do the frets. Its no guitar of the month but I think it will be definitely playable.

So moving onto the body, I had thought about using P90s but they were still out of stock and I decided to go with the overwound steel foundry iron gear pickups I have. I filled in some gaps in the PUP cavities and had to route out a tiny bit in the bridge slot to make them fit, unfortunately only now I realise that the pots in the kit are 500 and I will need to get 250s and presumably route the control cavity for them to fit, at least I getting lots of practise! I drilled the through body string holes with a combination of a drill press (clamped backwards - gleamed from another thread on here) and a drill guide, they have come out well, 1 hole slightly out of place but when I go back in to put the ferrules in, I ll be able to even it out.

I have sanded down the body to 320g and sprayed primer with some blue dye on the front, sanded back and repeated a few times and I think I am almost there. Its come out paler than I was thinking of originally and may add some dye to the poly for a coat or two as that looked good in my tests. A couple of pics below, I am just waiting for my last coat of blue to dry before I sand and see if it is good enough for the clear. I have some british racing green dye for the back and sides and if it looks terrible I can always paint over it.

[OliSam]

Neck looks great!


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[A.D.]

Thanks Oli, neck hasn't turned out quite as I had hoped but still quite pleased with it.

Bit of advice needed please, electronic kit arrived yesterday and I routed the control cavity slightly to fit the bigger pots. They fit in but only just, will this do or should I go a little bigger? Also, as I am using a standard tele bridge can I just put the bridge ground up through the bridge pick up cavity or is best to drill another hole?

Thanks
Alex

[Simon Barden]

You are limited by the width of the control plate, so just wide enough is the key here. But as long as the control plate covers the cavity, you're OK. The important thing is being able to get the wires in once they've been soldered on. So those wires will need to pass under the pots as there is almost no room at the sides to do so. I'd advise against sticking a large-bodied capacitor on top of the tone pot as this can take up almost all of the available gap. As long as there is enough depth there, you're fine, but if the gap is a bit narrow, you night want to take a bit off the bottom of the cavity to help. You've got more wires passing underneath the pots with the reversed control plate arrangement you've shown than with the standard arrangement.

Bridge ground options are:

1) Drill separate hole so ground wire comes up underneath the bridge base
2) Run a ground from the bridge pickup rout to stick under the bridge base from the rear edge of the rout
3) Solder a small washer or eyelet tag to a ground wire and use a pickup mounting spring to hold it against the bridge base
4) Don't run any ground wire and use the ground path formed by the metal baseplate of the bridge pickup (if it has one - most Tele bridge pups do but there are some without), the contact of height adjustment screws which screw through the pickup baseplate and also touch the bridge baseplate.
5) Don't run any ground wire for the bridge but use copper shielding tape sitting under the bridge that's run up from the bridge pickup rout to ground it - providing that you've run a separate ground wire for the bridge rout shielding from the main control cavity. The alternative here for grounding the bridge pickup cavity copper tape is for the bridge to be grounded and for that to touch and ground the copper tape.

Personally I prefer option 3, as it's neat and I like to know that there's a good solid ground contact for the bridge. With options 1 and 2, there's always a small risk danger that the ground wire could always pull out from under the bridge during assembly or any dis-assembly.

[A.D.]

Thanks Simon, I didn't think about the capacitor. I ve got some 3mm copper to make a new control plate but I d like to able to revert back to the original if I struggle with it. I ll do a dry run with all the wires tonight and see if there is room, I am pretty sure its deep enough already to get everything underneath but will see. Happy to swap the switch back around if needed but would prefer it at the back.

I won't drill an extra hole for the ground under the bridge you ve given me plenty of other options to try instead. Thanks again

Alex