Crane fabric top TL-1

[Kac]

Greetings everyone,

It's day 4 since I have received my TL-1 kit, is time to document what I have done so far. It's my first build so any suggestion and comment are greatly appreciated. Long story short, had a 5 years break with guitar and had this fascination with fabric top guitar for a while and almost order a black paisley Harley Benton Tele, but because of the long waiting time, I have cancelled the order and decided to build one for myself.

Instead of using the paisley, I have chosen the the following Japanese fabric.




Day 1: Didn't do much on day 1 other than dry fitting the neck, pick guard and control plate and sketching where I should have position the bridge.

Day 2: Install the neck and more measurement on bridge position.


Day 3: Installed the machine head , can't resisted anymore, and decided to bite the bullet and drill the body and installed the bridge. I could have place it further back to the body for better intonation, but decided to place in the current position so that the bridge won't block the crane pattern and to minimise the routing required for the bridge pick up. (The kit only come with 3 screw, and I need 4 for this Wilkinson bridge ) Put the string on and thanks god I managed to get intonation right.





Decided to build this string through so, but because I don't have a drill press, I need to find way to drill as straight as I can, and eventually build a jig or guide for the drill with some scrap timber from home.

Day 4: Practice using the drill guide on scarp timber and this is the result. This block is thicker than the Tele body, so I think it will work.

[I’ll give it a go]

Great start so far. On king Casey’s TL-1 build, if you can try to find that he posted a video of a home made jig he found on you tube to get perfect straight through drilling on the body.
Good luck, looking forward to your build, I really like the pattern you’ve chosen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DarkMark]

I love that pattern! Come on over if you still would like to use a drill press.

[Kac]

Great start so far. On king Casey’s TL-1 build, if you can try to find that he posted a video of a home made jig he found on you tube to get perfect straight through drilling on the body.
Good luck, looking forward to your build, I really like the pattern you’ve chosen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Haha just saw that video, that is actually very similar to how I have design my first jig, but since then I have build a different one.

[Kac]

I love that pattern! Come on over if you still would like to use a drill press.

Thanks for the offer, that is very kind of you. I think I will be fine with the jig.

[Fretworn]

That will look special.

[Kac]

It is time for Day 6 update
Drilling string through hole

Mark the position of the bridge and where all the holes are.


Double check that the string holes in the template are aligned with the bridge.


Create indentation of the string hole with the pin. Start drilling shallow hole with small drill bit, then the full size drill bit.


This is the back of the guitar, only 1st and 6th string hole should be drill through, 2-5 should be drilled to half the depth of the guitar. Reuse the template to mark position for string 2-5. and finish off all the hole.


This is the finish product.


Looks pretty straight at the back too. Should have put some masking tape on the body before I start drilling the string ferrule hole, there are some small tear, but I think is acceptable.


Done the belly cut today too. Don't see a lot of people doing belly cut with this method, finish cutting and sanding in 1hr 15 min. It's is quite a bit of work and I sure will treat belly cut guitar with lot more respect. The body felt so much better with the belly cut.


Mask and mark section to cut out.


Create all the vertical cut with hand saw to the dept required, this is the most time consuming and tiring part.


Time to take the chisel out.


Finish the rest with sander. Notice some small glue mark towards the tail, not sure how to fix it yet.

[Fretworn]

Great job getting the ferrule holes so aligned.

[McCreed]

Nice work. I did a similar procedure for my first string through. I did need to do a bit of cosmetic surgery afterwards, but it finished up looking good. Yours turned out well.

For belly cuts, I use a drum sander attachment either in my drill press (which I know you don't have) or with a corded hand drill.
The attachment kits can be had for around 30 bucks and are very handy for lots of jobs. I reckon you could have done that cut in under 15 minutes start to finish. Nice job with a chisel though!

keep us posted.

[dave.king1]

When I smoothed the belly and forearm cuts on The Count ( ST-1A ) I used a flap disk in a 100mm angle grinder and the finished by hand, worked a treat