New Tele

[tewiq]

What better way to figure out how to build guitars than to start with a kit ! I chose a tobacoburst Tele with a white pearloid pickgard, maple neck and wilkinson tuners. Assembly was very strait forward as per instructions. The hardest part for me was getting a finish on the neck as i dont have a proper workshop (had to beg and borrow). After multiple coats of lacquer (never spray Lacquer without proper ventilation). I sanded with 600, 1500,2500 and then did a hand rub finish with Colgate toothpaste. And yes it turns out a beautifull shine and you will have enough in the tube to do at least 20 necks for a couple of bucks . Bet most of you didnt know you were brushing your teeth with mint flavoured rubbing compound every morning . Sounds pretty good considering the stock pickups ,it's not a Fender but it's not bad at all.


Finaly got my name on something

next project is now underway from scratch

[skylark41]

Nice job, it looks good .....and toothpaste?...interesting.

[tewiq]

yep. Plain old ordinary colgate toothpaste , just add a touch of water on your cloth and it works like a charm, just make sure that you have a clean dust free cloth to work with . Any fabric that is cottony and soft works well.

[AJ6stringsting]

What better way to figure out how to build guitars than to start with a kit ! I chose a tobacoburst Tele with a white pearloid pickgard, maple neck and wilkinson tuners. Assembly was very strait forward as per instructions. The hardest part for me was getting a finish on the neck as i dont have a proper workshop (had to beg and borrow). After multiple coats of lacquer (never spray Lacquer without proper ventilation). I sanded with 600, 1500,2500 and then did a hand rub finish with Colgate toothpaste. And yes it turns out a beautifull shine and you will have enough in the tube to do at least 20 necks for a couple of bucks . Bet most of you didnt know you were brushing your teeth with mint flavoured rubbing compound every morning . Sounds pretty good considering the stock pickups ,it's not a Fender but it's not bad at all.


Finaly got my name on something

next project is now underway from scratch

I'm in love with that Tele...
Thanks for the tip on the Colgate Tooth paste !!!!

[CB160]

Hey TJ,
How does one get a nice 'decal' made like that for the headstock? The Tele looks great, by the way!
Thks,
GT

[tewiq]

Credits go to the person who owns this site

Code: Select all

http://www.guitarbuild.com

which at the moment seems to be partialy down so.... this is what i saved from my visit there a few months ago :

Heres a method Ive worked out which makes great decals without having to go to a printing house to get it made.

All you need is access to a Laser Printer, some Self adhesive label backing paper (the waxed paper stuff that is left over once you have removed the labels, stiffie disk labels work great) and some clear adhesive tape (scotch tape, sello tape etc). The following is basically a minor modification to using the label backing to make printed circuit boards.

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1) Design your logo and print it out onto paper on the laser printer. Before printing mark a corner of the page you will be printing on so that you can reinsert the page into the printer with the same orientation.

2) Cut a piece of label backing big enough to cover the printed logo on the paper. Allow a decent margin around the edge.

3) Using one of the paper labels, cut a strip and stick the label backing onto your printed paper page making sure that the waxy part is up and the paper label doesnt cover any part of the logo. DO NOT use the clear cellophane tape it WILL jam your printer. The paper labels and glue are designed to go through laser printers. Make sure the end of the label backing you have stuck down is the leading edge as it moves through the printer.

4) Place the page. with the stuck on label backing back into the printer making sure it is orientated as per your original mark you made before the first print.

5) Print your logo again. This time it will be printed onto the waxy surface of the label backing.

6) Take a piece of the clear self adhesive tape and stick it down over the newly printed logo. Rub it down with a blunt object ,like the back of a pencil, making sure all the all the printing is covered.

7) Carefully pull the tape off the backing and you should have one neatly printed logo on the tape which you can now stick wherever you like, preferably on your guitar, and then finish over the top of it. I find it is best to do one or two coats of finish, make sure the label area is nice and flat (no bumps, etc), stick down the decal and then finish the rest of the clear coats. This way the label is nicely embedded in the finish and can be wet sanded over without ripping up the nicely printed decal.

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Just be aware that the solvents in your finish might disolve the ink or the the clear film you have used, so try it first on your test piece you used before starting on your guitar. This will only work with a LASER printer. Dont bother trying it with an ink jet. Laser printer toner is basically plastic powder which is melted onto the paper by heat rollers. Ink jet is just that, ink which is sprayed on and absorbed by the paper, it will not print properly on to the peice of label backing paper.

Note: Stiffie disks = he means Floppie disks for computers
I followed theses instuctions to the letter and you can see the results were pretty darned good . I still havent got to do this with a Colour Lazer printer but it WILL happen .

[tewiq]

Here's a follow up from that neck project from scratch in the first post .Its taken forever and I had to fix a few things along the way like a chipped edge, I forgot the router rotation , What a mess that was but it really was pretty easy to fix (Krazy glue and fine sawdust makes the repair almost invisible) .Then there was the radius edges that i sanded cause it wasnt smooth enough,It leaft the neck with sightly rounder edges than the intended radius (found this out as i was installing the frets, so out comes all the frets that I had put in,lots of chipping in that process,more Krazy glue and sawdust.To make it right I had to re-radius the whole neck again and sand smooth then deeppen the fret slots because of the re -radiusing and sanding .....

Perspective : This is the first neck that I build (from scratch)
I dont have my own wood working shop (Yet)
It's all done in my spare time and someone else's shop
I expect this to be a learning process as it is the first one
It doesnt matter if it's not absolutely perfect
Time factor increases with the amount of jigs that need to be built (12 inch radiusing blocks,neck radiusing jig)
It's all cool unless it ends up as firewood !!!

Edit: New Pics including the jigs,(found the pics on the web and made my own,sorry there were no plans just pictures)
One is to radius the fretboard and the other to make radius blocks.

[terry]

Lost my password ..so new account. Here's the follow up the neck from scratch
http://i47.tinypic.com/j81995.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/xbfq7c.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/2hd5kpt.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2nqw1a0.jpg
All and all it was worth the headaches . Now my Fender has a Better sound than it had
before and it has MY logo,
With that I decided to build a complete guitar from scratch and the best place I've found to get the hardware
is here http://www.guitarpartsonline.com
I'd like to send a BIG thank you to Ken Aguiar for giving us a place to get parts and this forum to share our experiences.

[skylark41]

Well done man...that looks amazing! What pickups & electronics are in it? (looks like their Dragonfire actives)

[terry]

Well done man...that looks amazing! What pickups & electronics are in it? (looks like their Dragonfire actives)

Thank you ,Sorry about the fuzzy pics , found out the lense had a fingerprint on it . The pickups are stock gold lace fenders (93 edition) I was never satisfied with the string height at the metal nut (no way to adjust individual string height) and that model had a specific neck curve that there was no way to change short of major surgery (was easier to make a new neck than to fix the old one).. besides it gave me an excuse to do it
I enjoyed making it so much that I started 2 more necks and a couple of bodies, one that is well on it's way to final shape .

Be aware that this is a very time consuming process to build anything like a guitar (Yes even a solid body electric, hollow body even more) .Family ,work, commitments, life in general and Murphy's Law will intefear with your resolve to get your project finished in the amount of time that YOU think it should take. In the end the best parts are self accomplishment knowing that that awsome sound is coming from something that you built with your own hands and having your friends ask if you can make one for them