TL-1TH

Always wanted a thinline tele for years, so when a mate told me about pitbull, and i saw they had a kit for it i bought it straight away.

the kit arrived over a month ago but ive been too busy with work to do anything with it until now. Overall im impressed with the quality of the kit, and from what i can tell i lucked out on a blemish free body which is awesome.

only bit that is slightly dissapointing is the pickguard, the cutouts seem pretty ropey, especially around the pickups so im not sure whether to run with it anyway or try sort a better one/cut my own.
I guess because its a non standard shape (only for this model of the tele) the tolerances arent as dialled as they would be with say a regular tele or strat which has been copied a gazillion times-maybe thats why nearly all the thinline builds ive seen on here have omitted the pickguard!

anyway not going to worry about that too much for now, still need to order my woodtone and clean out the neck cavity, plus shape the headstock before its time to sand like crazy

ok everything fits now (pickups and scratchplate). Theres a gap between the scratchplate and neck though, and a gap between the neck and body (on the top side of the neck-despite trying to show this in the pic i managed to get the angle wrong, damn), plus the holes for the pickups are still super ropey. anyone got any ideas how to sort this without getting/making a new pickguard, or am i just being too anal about this?

[Gavin1393]

A little bit of smoothing around the inner edges should improve the look and the neatness factor. I think you'll end up with a nice looking guitar.

[highace10]

Im with you Gav..

I would get everything finished and set the scratch plate in its final position, but temporarily. Mark out a uniform shape around the pickups and go easy with shaping it. Measure twice, cut once as they say.

That's just me though

Im really liking the look of these Tele's.

Alex

[dingobass]

As Gav said do some work on the corners of the neck heel and it will sit snugly against the bottom edge of the pocket.
You can neaten the edges of the 'bucker cutouts with a file, this will make it look a lot nicer.
Also you could take a little bit of timber off te neck side of the rout outs to get the whole thing sitting flush against the neck heel.

[adam]

Hey BWA, this is a common theme amongst first time customers of ours. They will do a mock build and it just doesn't look right. However, when they come to do the final assembly, in my experience, everything does come together perfectly. I can't explain why this happens, but it does. As Gav and Highce10 have said, get on with your build and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the end. And remember, we have a rock solid guarantee, so if you do have a faulty kit (which I don't think you have) you are entitled to a replacement or refund. Now, stop stressing and start sanding.

[highace10]

Start sanding, then sand some more...

ahaha yeah i was wondering about cutting the neck slot a little deeper, because theres no trem system it shouldnt affect the scale length because i can just pull the bridge back a bit.

im not complaining by the way, im stoked on the kit! great value for money, i was just wondering if there was any cheeky tricks of the trade for sorting the gaps. i was planning on going with it anyway, then if im not happy ill just make a new scratchplate somewhere down the line.

everything else is going together great, cant wait to play it already. ive wanted a thinline tele for years but never had the money til now. then i saw this kit and decided to save some money and get the chance to own something unique. anyway thanks guys, ill be back once ive made some more progress

[57strummers]

There is a fair bit of a gap there and if it were me I would attend to it as I have done on my TL-1 kit, can you move the pickups and scratch guard forward a little without hitting the front edge of the cutout with the pickup. If you can't take (very carefully) a router to the holes and route 2 or 3 mm from the front edge (make sure you mark with a pencil where you need to cut to with the router so there are no mistakes) so you can move everything forward, there are of course other bits fitted to the scratch guard on this model so you may have to route several areas to achieve this, you can do this quite successfully with a bit of care. I would only do this if the pickups are hard up against the front of the hole they sit it, if they are not you should be able to adjust the position to get a tight fit. DO NOT CUT OR ROUTE THE NECK without talking to Adam or Dingo first that could prove to be a disaster. If you have already drilled the holes for securing the scratch guard you will need to check if you can move it forward and still be able to secure the plate with the new holes correctly as re-drilling the holes so close to each other may compromise you ability to do this, if you have and drilling other holes will be too close to each other you may look at another screw that is longer so you get a bite into the body of the guitar.
Proceed with caution and you will be ok

ive drilled no holes in the body yet, and i widened the pickup holes carefully by hand using a rasp because the pickups wouldnt quite fit. i can probably file them out a little bit more, theres about a 1mm gap between the pickguard and the neck so it doesnt need to be much