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Thank you very much guys! I am having a hard time putting it down :-) sounds lovely and plays lovely. Had not time to record yet (busy weekend), but I am planning to. I am generally happy with my choices. I think it sounds like a telecaster "should".
I am glad that thread was informative to you! It really is not so complicated to do this. If I can do it, everyone can :-) (seriously, no kidding; I am not good with my hands and understand nothing about electronics). The prospect of getting a nice instrument with all the features you like at an attractive price point is quite tempting.
Cheers everybody!
Frank
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12-03-2016 01:08 PM
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Small update:
- ordered the ridiculously expensive (12€) Fender switchtip ....
.... annnnnd
..... It did not fit (groooooooooaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn)
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Ok, a day older and wiser, I went back to my old parts drawer (what I should have done in the first place :-))
.... and found a fitting switch tip.
Looks nice!
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Last item:
the original input cup was a nightmare to install and I gave up on it right away.
I needed an input cup that was routed for a switchcraft jack. Allparts in the UK had it. They shipped it right aways and it arrived a few days later with no further hiccup:
It dropped in just fine:
... all done
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now I owe you guys a few pictures of the cleaned up, polished guitar and a few sounds. Will happen soon (finally holidays are coming up and I plan to practice a lot).
Meanwhile I have landed on d'Addario pure nickel 11 roundwound strings that sound even more vintage than the one I had tried before. The guitar really sounds sweet and plays very well. I am a happy camper with this project.
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Fantastic!
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That is what I call a successful build, Frank! Looks great, plays great, sounds great. Looking forward to hearing a few clips.
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That switch tip issue is killing me too. I made my first guitar about 15 years ago as a Strat clone. I bought a 5 position switch from who knows where (was there even eBay back then?). It has a wide post like yours. I have NEVER found a tip with a wide enough slot to accept the post. Sure I could probably grind the post down with a Dremel in a few minutes and forget about it, but to this day I don't have a tip that fits.
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Super job!
Natural finish is great. Ash is a very coarse grained wood---almost like oak. Filling it, etc. is not something that I like to do--affects the resonance, I think. And ash-bodied gtrs. have more bottom---for that kick-ass telecaster sound. Besides the wood grain looks great.
For threading pu wires next time---see what your hardware store has for bendable, but fairly stiff, wire...a spool of it will solve your problems. Tape the cable to a piece of wire, snake it through.
Re: neck balance. Tie your gtr. strap to the headstock, a la Wes Montgomery...end of "neck heavy" balance problems....the balance point and suspension point is now in the middle of your body...and it's not going to move. Honestly I see no reason for drilling holes into bodies up by the neck attachment, etc. It just isn't needed, and it doesn't work as well as the tie it on the headstock approach.
Love the boat neck...I think they are more resonant...you can feel the vibrations all the way through the neck...more stable, and less tiring. (I have fairly big hands.)
As for neck fit, etc...don't sweat it. Some of my best sounding guitars have less than ideal fit. The bolt-on neck is also infinitely, and variable adjustable by the 4-screw attachment, and the use of shims (anything from matchbooks to playing cards, or cut up credit cards.)
The simplicity and functionality of the tele design is something you come to appreciate after a while. And they sound great, and can do almost anything, sound-wise.
Happy playing!
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Umm. Guys? Cut off a couple feet of an old low E or A string. We all have 'em laying around.
Originally Posted by goldenwave77
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Nice build.
I've been buying warmoth parts for building Teles for many year, always reliable in the past but the last two necks I got from them required a lot of tweaking in the form of fret leveling and crowning and in one case a tiny bit of (aggravating) reverse bow. I think I will steer clear of figured maple in the future unless I specify a double action truss rod.
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I hear you!
their stuff is great but they do typically need fret leveling, crowning etc.
since the build I had that done and a professional setup to TI bebop 12's and now I just could not be happier with that guitar. It sounds really sweet, plays effortlessly, is lightweight, doesn't feed back, is resonant. I play it all the time.
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Just came across this thread. Very informative! I feel like I need to own a tele myself and also have the bug to do a finish and assemble project. One thing that's kept me from getting a tele thus far though is I just plain don't like the body shape. Irrational bias I suppose. I wonder if the tele "magic" would hold up with similar properties on a differently shaped slab. Ibanez makes a talman that is much like a tele
I would be tempted to use a body more along these lines, assuming I could get the routing done right and the through body strings etc... At any rate, looks like a top notch job you've done there.
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A Tele with body contours and heel shaping feels quite a bit different from a regular Tele. I was never a huge fan of the original Tele shape either ... Just gave in ... and don't regret it :-)
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I, too, was at first un-moved by the noble Telecaster. It wasn't until I was offered a deal I couldn't pass up that I discovered the many virtues of the form-follows-function Exhibit A. It just... works.
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Originally Posted by pants
I am about to swap out the body on my recently completed Tele build. Currently I am running with a 1 piece swamp ash 4lb. body with the neck heel shaping. I don't get much out of the neck heel shaping because the upper registers are already very accessible on this type of guitar for me. I will be swapping it out for a 1 piece swamp ash 3lb. 5oz. body with a back contour only. (Actually with the back material gone it may even weigh less.) Like I said, I haven't gotten anything out of the heel contour, so I am opting not to do that with this one. I also don't like Teles that aren't true slabs on the top that have the forearm contour, so I am opting not to do that one either. Originally Posted by FrankLearns
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I agree, after weeks of trying to make playability as good as on my Les Paul, tweaking the truss rod for relief vs adjusting the saddles height, I realized as great and straight is my Warmoth neck, it will need some leveling. Originally Posted by FrankLearns
I brought it to my reputable luthier yesterday (Lutherie MF for our fellow Montrealers here) and he saw immediately a slight bump I could not see (why I am just a tinkerer and not a luthier) causing the buzzing I could not avoid.
He told me a little leveling and crowning and he can bring the action lower than I could ever so far, can't wait to get it back.
Like my wife told me yesterday, you spent a little more to get quality parts and took your time to build it to your taste, don't hesitate to have it serviced by a pro...gotta love a supporting wife
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Exactly - one should just factor it into the cost of the build and not be upset about it. The net result will be a really nice sounding and playing instrument with features adjusted to ones own taste that would never become available in any off the shelf fashion
... experience taught me though to not stray away too far from the classic designs. They work so well and stayed iconic throughout the decades for a reason! However, nothing wrong with a nice nut or a tremolo unit that stays in tune, nice sounding pickups that don't hum or necks with ones preferred radius.
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Dear all,
I put together a little video on the build and recorded a few snippets to show how it sounds.
I am having a lot of fun with that guitar.
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Very well done video, Frank - thank you!
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Thank you very much! Much appreciated
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Frank - great thread, which I have just read for the first time, and a great looking guitar.
I've just received an unfinished swamp ash body to start my own build. I'm also intending to do an oil finish. I note that you didn't use any grain filler before the oil. Did you have any problems with uneven coverage ? Other threads I have read (mainly TDPRI) nearly always recommend grain filler to reduce oil soak into the more porous dark grain, but I'd like to avoid filling in case I mess up ! I'd rather apply 10 coats of oil than do a poor job of grain filling and half a dozen fewer coats of oil.
What do you think ?
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newsense, please forgive me butting in, but could I, in all seriousness, recommend considering Birchwood Casey Tru Oil as a great finish option? I've done a couple of swamp ash bodies using it, (also a walnut one) and without any grain filler, and got what I consider to be very nice results indeed. Originally Posted by newsense
I generally did about 11 or so coats - the first applying fairly liberally as the bare wood will soak in the finish somewhat, and then just really thin smeared on coats after that - really thin coats is one key to success. I was able to just wipe on the finish simply using paper kitchen towels - it's really easy to do at home without prior experience. Despite it being termed an oil, the finish does cure, and when each coat was dry enough, I would generally just lightly smooth down with some very fine sandpaper (1200 grit) working in the same direction as the grain, and clean with naphtha (Zippo lighter fuel), before applying the next coat. You end up with a thin semi-gloss finish, and the grain and texture of the wood being preserved in a nice, tactile way. Also with swamp ash, the finish give things a bit of a honey/amber warm tint, which I like. Make sure the bare wood is sanded properly smooth first, sanding with the grain, before starting the finishing process - I would generally do this sanding with something like 400 grit. Each coat of Tru Oil needs about a day before going on to the next, and at the end maybe best to wait a couple of weeks for things to cure more properly before doing any assembly of the guitar.
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Forgive me! - I did impetuously butt in above, and without due consideration for what the OP had done, which looks extremely nice I must say. I just read the last post and wanted to help, so sorry about my insensitivity really. Anyhow, I'd be very interested to know what kind of oil finish that was you used Frank?
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Dear Newsense and Meggy,
thank you very much for your thoughts. Meggy is more competent than me - so take this with a grain of salt.
First of all, I don't really know what I am doing since I have no woodworking experience or really any experience with working with actual tools. So I did not really know about grain filling or I might have read about it and did not think it was necessary. I did use sandpaper on the body with finer and finer grain until it felt really smooth to me. Then I did exactly what Meggy described - apply one coat of oil a day followed by more sandpaper work with the finest grain. I used the same oil we use for our wood counters in the kitchen. I knew that I like the feel of that and I had experimented beforehand with a couple of oils on leftover wood pieces. At the end of the day, the surface feels really really smooth to me and it is pleasant to touch. It will nick of course, since the oil does not provide the same amount of protection that an actual finish would - I am ok with that - I feel a guitar like this "needs" a few battlescars to be authentic :-) and the feel of the wood is a whole lot nicer than a poly finish.
I am really really happy with this guitar, how it plays, how it feels and how it sounds. It did very much profit from a fret leveling and a professional setup though - Warmoth is open about that and I am ok with it.
Thanks again for reading and good luck with your build!
cheers,
Frank
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