My love for guitar has never gone away but fade in and out of priority. I've had a MIM Strat since I was 16, and thought I could play any styles on it. Last year, I got a bargain Ibanez Artcore AF-85 but my wife made me wait 4 months until Christmas for it. In hindsight, the anticipation was worth it (thanks wifey) - I started looking at various videos and forums all about guitar - I actually started to pay attention to gear.
Earlier in the year I read a review on "Solo Music Gear" which is an American guitar kit supplier. I got interested building a guitar and eventually found Pit Bull Guitars.
So after much deliberation, I ordered my first kit this morning. Very very excited!
Next thread will start to detail my decision making along the way.
TL-1TB: Sucker for the thinline. I did consider the 1TH, but the back order until April was deal breaker. I feel the standard controls panel also offer a little more flexibility.
Other considerations:
The basswood gave me some concerns, and I considered ordering a custom shop TL-1TB made from Ash or Alder. In the end, my eagerness to have it by early December and the ease of working with the finish prompted me to order the standard basswood body.
I also considered leaving the bridge pick up as single coil. When I tried a MIM Tele in a shop the shiny sound grabbed me. However, this will require custom shop order. Keep it simple Old Tooth!
Thanks to Adam for his helpfulness.
Colouring of Body:
I really liked the natural oil/dingotoned guitars on the forum which has prominent popped wood grain. Despite notable degree of challenge, I decided for a tobacco sunburst finish. I would probably go with straight Outback Sunset, but going back to "degree of difficulty" and demonstratable coolness for teaching students, sunburst is too hard to resist. So I am down to two choices:
DingoTone Black Stump to Outback Sunset: I like the whole natural idea, and Stain sounds better than paint. However, Adam and DingoBass advised against for its level of challenge. I did see several successful bursts on this forum but I don't think I could pull this off. Besides, (sorry DB), if I am not going to use this on another kit, buying 3 lots of DingoTone is a bit expensive.
Spray Paint: I have access to spray paint guns and have a colleague who will assist me in this. I was initially concerned about losing some tonality through paint, but this has been disproved; The internet seems to have some more straight forward instructions on how to spray paint bursts which seem to be easier than stains.
On Adam's recommendation, I will procure two lots of spray paint from Supercheap auto, as well as a glossy finish, or from paint shop.
Pickguard: Pearloid doesn't really appeal to me, so it's down to black and white. I think white is a better one to show off the aesthetics of a burst.
Neck: I admit this was mostly an aesthetic choice, as I couldn't discern that much difference in the youtube sound test . In considering this, I've also considered means of colouring it.
Rosewood: my two existing guitars are both rosewood. Rosewood is easy to maintain and I already have the lemon oil.
Maple: The one piece maple feels nice. I have no other guitar necks which is maple.
Stain/Paint considerations: I considered all 4 Dingotone Neck Stains. It takes very deep dig to find any examples of each of them. I started by looking at colourless when I was leaning towards using the same stain of the body, but as I went away from the staining option of the body, I started looking at the other three. In the end, Acacia seems to be the most natural against sunburst body. I also want to stain the fretboard similarly, and in a post by DB he said it can be done but don't apply the top coat. On a separate post, Fretworn warned that it may wear quickly. Obviously, with rosewood it probably doesn't need staining.
Ok - Maple it is. just to be different and a chance to apply a colour to the whole neck. I don't like a pale neck with a darkened headstock.
Out of all of this it looks like the closest example is Andy Summer's Signature Deluxe, apart from the semi hollow body and bigby.
Next post will be on the hardware and electronics.
Last edited by Old Tooth Hopkins; 14-11-2017 at 04:09 PM.
Good thing about the hardware and electronics, for the most part, is that they are actually reversible - I can always change out the pups or lock in tuners later down the track.
I have not a lot of woodwork experience, but I am competent with soldering and wiring.
As mentioned on the previous post, I will be going for the standard to Humbucker config. This being a tele, having an option to have single-coil like sound have some appeal.
I found this wiring from Seymour Duncan website which uses a standard 5 way switch to enable single coil options out of both the bridge and neck humbuckers. I am yet to look into this in detail but this is looking like what I am after.
There is an option of using a super-5 way which allow other configs, but as WeirdBits mentioned, the standard tele cavity will require adjustments to fit a super 5 way, also it will cost a significant amount more.
Lastly, I saw on a facebook market page of 2 stock epiphone ES339 pickups for sale for $30 (total). Part of me is tempted.
Is it worth an experiment? Swapping out the stock PBG Tele hums for 2 stock Epi ES339 pups?
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