TL-1 first kit build

[Diggydude]

Hello all,

I’ve been playing electric guitar for about 2 years now and finally decided to put a kit together. My teacher at school (yes I’m still at school so limited time for me to work on it, yay) says he did one and it sounded great. This is probably what pushed me to doing it as it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

I received a Telecaster kit for my birthday last week and am so excited to build it. My plan, like many others, is to document it here. Any bits of help or if you notice anything, please let me know.

Here is a mockup of my guitar, looking really nice so far and I have no complaints with anything other than a few marks of the control panel (which I’ll just get some Brasso out). I plan to paint the body white.






Dylan

[I’ll give it a go]

Hello all,

I’ve been playing electric guitar for about 2 years now and finally decided to put a kit together. My teacher at school (yes I’m still at school so limited time for me to work on it, yay) says he did one and it sounded great. This is probably what pushed me to doing it as it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

I received a Telecaster kit for my birthday last week and am so excited to build it. My plan, like many others, is to document it here. Any bits of help or if you notice anything, please let me know.

Here is a mockup of my guitar, looking really nice so far and I have no complaints with anything other than a few marks of the control panel (which I’ll just get some Brasso out). I plan to paint the body white.






Dylan

Welcome to the group Dylan,

I’m also putting together a Tele kit. This group has so many knowledgeable people so you’ll be fine,
Looking forward to your build mate.


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[Fretworn]

Welcome Dylan

[G-Axe]

Welcome aboard Dylan, and good luck with the build!

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[robin]

Hiya Dylan,

Welcome, and good luck with the build. Plenty of helpful people here if you need a hand.

rob

[Andyxlh]

Hi Dylan, we run a club at the school I work at and do these with the students. They come out really well, hope you continue to enjoy your build

[Sonic Mountain]

Looks like it'll be a nice guitar, agree with the others TL kits are great fun and satisfying to build. Just go easy with the brasso as the electroplating isn't very thick on some of the kit items. Should be fine if you go slow and gentle.

[Diggydude]

As it was the last day of the school holidays, I worked on the guitar for a while. First off I installed the bridge by getting it centred and at the end of the scale length. After doing this, it was screwed in.

Moving up the neck, I replaced the plastic nut with the bone one I got. This didn’t go so well. When I pulled the plastic nut out, a tiny piece of wood from the headstock side came out with it. Luckily I had some wood glue nearby so I put a bit on and set it in a clamp for a bit.

Next up I drilled holes to install the Grover machine heads I ordered. This went well (thankfully). The only tricky bit was that the low E string tuner wouldn’t sit flat on the headstock as it was on the bottom of the slope from the fretboard. I fixed this with a bit of sanding and now I’m happy with it. To find out where to drill the pilot holes, I put the tuners in and using a ruler lined them up. This gave me exactly where I needed to screw.

Once these were in, I clamped the neck into the body to check the spacing of the two E strings. Both were parallel to the neck and had decent action, about what I’m used to (I believe that this will change once it is all put together though). While it was clamped, I drilled the holes to mount the neck onto the body. All of the pilot holes I drilled I used masking tape on the drill bit so I don’t go to far.

The final bit I did today was start thinking about the headstock shape. I haven’t done any cutting yet as I want to give it a bit of thought. I am considering a telecaster style shape (wow imagine that, a tele shape on a tele kit) but I drew it on free hand. This gave me a slightly different, slightly stratocaster style shape.

Unfortunately the forum doesn’t like any of the pictures I took so no pictures today. I’ll try to fix that but I probably won’t get to do much work on it until the weekend. I’m in year 11 so no easing into work in a new term.

Until next time,
Dylan

[I’ll give it a go]

Good on ya Dylan, looks like you have had a productive day.


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[FrankenWashie]

Welcome aboard Dylan, if you need any help just sing out, if you do strike and issues, just post photos and one of the gang can lend assistance.

Enjoy!