Lyn #17 - Bret's Red Tele

[Brendan]

Great to see you back on deck Robin! Looking forward to the build immensely.

[robin]

@Frankie
Thanks mate, but nothing special with this build. Just a standard TL.

@Mark
Thanks Mark. Won't be much of a diary. I hope your Nylon String build goes ok. Hey we might even start a trend. lol.

@Sonic
It's not human error, it's embellishing it with character.

@Fretty and Brendan
Thanks guys, good to be back.

[robin]

Next job is the headstock and neck.

Bret knows that I don’t usually do “F” style headstocks but he specifically asked for one, so I obliged.

Hopefully it is in keeping the vintage he was aiming at, but hey, its too late now.



Rough it out with my (t)rusty old coping saw


Then tart it up a bit and its done.

Then onto the fretboard.

Before working on the frets you have to make sure that the neck is straight. For this you’ll need a notched straight edge. You can buy one from a Luthier supply store for about $100 …….

OR…….

Go to the Big Green Shed and pick up their most expensive 1m spirit level (about $100), then take it to where they sell aluminium bars and use it to pick out a straight piece of 50 x 3mm x 1m Aluminium Flat Bar. Then return the $100 spirit level to its shelf and walk out with $15 worth of aluminium.





Carefully measure the frets and use a rat-tail file to notch them out, and for $15 you can make 2 double sided straight edges. (One side for your F's and t'other for your G's).

Using the straight edge and the truss rod adjustments you can now accurately straighten the neck.

Then onto the the frets.

rob

[robin]

The Frets.


Once the neck is straight tape it up and highlight the crown of each fret with a felt marker pen


Then out with the radius sanding block


Start sanding away the black marker with long slow sweeps of the sanding block. In this shot I am only about halfway done. When finished I try and remove the ink from the crown of each fret, leaving a little of the marker down the sides.


Once you have leveled the frets you now have to re-crown them, so out with the fret file. I use a similar method with the felt pen but this time you are tying to leave the faintest of lines at the crown of the fret and remove the marker from the sides.


One last check with the Fret Rocker and its out with the 400, 600, 800 wet and dry and a final polish with 000 and then 0000 steel wool, and the frets should be finished.

[robin]

This guitar is my first attempt at painting, and it has not been all clear sailing. But as all my build diaries are "warts and all" we will see how I go.

Finding the correct technique for spraying with rattle cans was more difficult than I thought.

If you hold the can too close you get runs, too far away and the paint tends to splatter, combine this with 30+ temps and high humidity (the directions on the can recommend not to paint in these conditions!!) and spray painting in the open in Brisbane can be a bit of a challenge.

My first 2 efforts were so bad I sanded them back to the primer, bought another can of paint, and started again. Third attempt was OK’ish so I sanded it back to a smooth flat finish before applying the clear coat.



That’s the best I could do. That’s 8 coats of paint, but I will be sanding a few of those away to prep for the clear coat.



A fair bit of orange peel going on here



But I was able to sand it back with 600 grit to get a smooth flat finish ready for the clear coats.



That’s 12 coats of clear, now just got to wait for it to cure.



I’m hoping that I can sand through enough coats of the clear to get rid of the orange peel. Time will tell

[Sonic Mountain]

Looks good Robin. That is an acceptable amount of orange peel for a rattle can job and with 12 coats should cut back absolutely fine. Give it plenty of time to go hard before you cut it back. You've done well to avoid any clouding with that heat and humidity.

I would recommend taping on any edges when you start cutting back as these get knocked back the quickest and you can easily break through. If you tape them and then concentrate on the flat areas they will take care of themselves during the final buffing stages.

[Dikkybee007]

If you go to the same green shed you can get a Craftright stainless steel 600mm and 300mm rule for $4.98 and there is less walking involved. Just use a fine round file and you know it is straight, that's how I made mine.

[robin]

@Sonic,
Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks also for the tip about taping the edges, I would never have thought of that. And cutting through the edges was a major concern.

When you say give it time to harden before cutting back, how long are we talking? Its been just over a week but I was thinking about 2 weeks? With my nose right up against it I can just smell the paint.

Thanks mate

@Dikkybee,
Good call on the straight edge, its a better solution than mine. But either way we both saved the best part of $100 by not buying a special Luthiers Tool, but we get the same results.

Cheers
rob

[Sonic Mountain]

@Sonic,
Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks also for the tip about taping the edges, I would never have thought of that. And cutting through the edges was a major concern.

When you say give it time to harden before cutting back, how long are we talking? Its been just over a week but I was thinking about 2 weeks? With my nose right up against it I can just smell the paint.

Thanks mate

With the current weather I think 2 weeks should do it. You are on the right track, if you can't smell any solvent it should be fine. It's always a bit of a battle with patience for me, but the longer you can leave it the better. It can also help to put a fan on it to speed things up a bit. It's going to look great all buffed up.

[robin]

Thanks again Sonic. Good to know I'm in the ballpark. These days I hang it on the clothes line, bit of sun, bit of breeze.

Patience, not my strong suit either. lol.

Thanks mate