After much waiting, I finally received my TLA-1 earlier this week.
I am a complete newbie to this, but have found some of the work produced by members here to be truly inspiring. Having said that, I am not setting the bar too high for the first build. Just want to make a reasonably attractive and playable guitar. If the build goes well, the plan is to build another kit and give it to my old man.
The only modification I am making to the kit is to use a white pearloid scratch plate rather than the stock white.
My plan was to do a ceruse finish, but I was slightly disappointed with the grain on the body. I guess I will still work towards a ceruse finish, but if it doesn't pan out, I will just go with a plain colour.
As foreshadowed in the online instructions, the rout for the bridge pick up was not quite right, so I ended up having to enlarge it. I don't have a router, so I just made do with drill, chisel etc.
Whilst waiting for the kit to arrive, the thing I was most nervous about was shaping the headstock - I had visions of splitting or snapping the head and therefore ruining the neck. Therefore I decided to do the headstock first because if I was going to break it, I wanted to break it before I spent time preparing and painting the body!
I am happy to report that the shaping of the headstock has been safely negotiated. I wanted to go with a classic telecaster headstock, and for a first go, I am pretty happy with the results.
I then spent a couple of days of sanding the body. Given my plan to do a ceruse finish, I figure that I don't need to sand it to a mirror shine. I have now given the body the first coat. I have chosen a teal colour, and will (hopefully) use white highlights in the grain.
Here are my progress pics. I will keep updating as I go.
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