Good day my fellow guitar lovers ?

So basically I have decided to build a telecaster pretty much from scratch. I looked through the forums and found that plenty people here have done it before, so this is probably the best place to get advice right.

My plan at the moment is to not go specifically vintage or 10000% accurate, but to gain some experience. I started with a 3-piece mahogany blank that I got from Maple street timbers in Jo'burg. I then cut it out based on the standard tele-template and then routed with a flush trim bit. I also did a round over on the back. Not sure if I was meant to go all the way around by the neck at the back if I wanted to use a neck plate, but the radius isn't huge, so it doesn't look like it'll be a problem.
Here is what it currently looks like in a rough state:

I had a small bit of router tear-out at the end-grain. Lesson learned ?
and here is the template:

Now onto the first sort-of problem. I want to put a white binding on the top, but I have no idea where to get the actual binding or where to get a router bit for this. Any ideas? Not to keen to order internationally for just a piece of binding..

Next, I also haven't routed the neck-pocket yet. I am a bit afraid that things won't line up properly, so should I first make the neck and then rout the pocket according to that or vice versa?

Now getting back to not being all vintage and stuff, I want to use a hardtail bridge, like the hipshot or something similar. Now I don't really just want to go ahead and drill holes in the body if I'm not sure of them, but the string-through holes, would they still be exactly the same regardless of what bridge I am going to use?

Eujean

Yeah! The world can't have enough Teles!!

Eujean wrote: Now onto the first sort-of problem. I want to put a white binding on the top, but I have no idea where to get the actual binding or where to get a router bit for this. Any ideas? Not to keen to order internationally for just a piece of binding..

I wasn't able to find anything locally... I got the bit, bearings and bindings from Stewmac...

Eujean wrote: Next, I also haven't routed the neck-pocket yet. I am a bit afraid that things won't line up properly, so should I first make the neck and then rout the pocket according to that or vice versa?

This! You can have a look at how I did it for some ideas...


http://www.guitarforum.co.za/setup-mods-and-repair/la-cabronita-build-it-starts!/msg223338/#msg223338

Also a lot of good advice on tdpri.

Eujean wrote: Now getting back to not being all vintage and stuff, I want to use a hardtail bridge, like the hipshot or something similar. Now I don't really just want to go ahead and drill holes in the body if I'm not sure of them, but the string-through holes, would they still be exactly the same regardless of what bridge I am going to use?

Not quite... there are some differences in traditional ashtray three saddle bridges vs the more modern ones... if you're not keen on drilling string throughs, have a look at "toploader" tele bridges... same look, but you feed the strings from the back of the ashtray bridge... lots of opinions online about toploader vs stringthrough bridges though. Not sure I'm good enough to be able to tell the difference between them though in a real world context.

Thanks Rikus!
I basically spent the last 2 hours reading through your entire thread and drooling all the way haha. I'm curious as to how you actually ordered from Stewmac. My body shivers every time I think of a parcel or something entering our SA Postal Services. It would be sooooooooooooooooo much easier just being able to order from them, but I don't really want to take the risk of something getting lost in the mail or whatever.

Check out www.terryd.co.za for binding and parts.

Check out www.terryd.co.za for binding and parts locally. Also Music Connection is an Allparts distributor and will pretty much order anything from Allparts for you.

So tomorrow I am going to get the wood for the neck. I will be using maple with an ebony fretboard I think. I have decided that I am going to have a go at doing it myself. Now the question I have, is about the truss-rod. If I use a standard single-action truss rod, is it necessary to route a curved channel? I was looking at the one from Allparts here. Does it really matter if I use a single-action as opposed to the double action one? Any input?

It sounds to me like you're the type of guy who jumps in the river to learn how to swim. The first few guitars you'd do well to ignore the jumping urge and first plan, get parts and then build. You do not round over and put bindings or vice versa, it is either/or. You can make a pocket and then fit the neck or vice versa, whichever you prefer, but the most attractive is to rout the pocket according to a Fender neck and then make your own neck to fit that pocket.
Go to www.tdpri.com and read for a few days or weeks; this will help faster than asking questions here. When in doubt after reading tdpri, please come back and ask some more. Finally, photos or it did not happen!

I will admit, I still have a ton of planning to do.. You might have misunderstood, I intend on only putting binding on the top, hence the back was rounded. Re the neck, I'm just afraid that if I rout the pocket first, the neck might not fit perfectly when it's done. I have been scouring www.tdpri.com for quite some time now, but there never seems to be a clear cut solution, rather just plenty of possible attempts at solutions. Thanks for all the advice so far. Will post pictures as I progress ?

Hi,
Good luck with the build.

Check out these guys for parts:
http://www.eyguitarmusic.com/

They're very good with shipping and packing. The prices are also very good. As for the shipping, you'll have to choose but make sure you have at least a tracking number. I've ordered several times from them and received everything (a friend of mine as well), although, it took a while with economy shipping (mostly because of our Post Office!).

Here is a bunch of books about building, assembling, painting, electronics etc. guitars. Also some blueprints. It's 390mb:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19619471/Knjige%20-%20gitara.zip

Cheeers.

Thanks for the links Zoran, I have read through almost all those books already!

Also thank you Average Joe, I really appreciate your input, cleared quite a few things up for me.

I got my hands on a beautiful piece of maple as well as a nice piece of ebony for a fretboard. Now I was wondering if anyone has a spare double-action truss-rod laying around before I order internationally. I have decided to go for the double action, as the loss in tone, from what I could hear was negligible, and it is much easier to rout a straight channel, as opposed to the curved channels required for the single action compression rods.

On another note, the ebony fretboard, got quite a few white-ish marks after planing, any ideas on how to darken it up, not entirely pitch black, but definitely not brown? I was thinking to just stain it with a regular dark wood-stain?

Eujean wrote: I'm just afraid that if I rout the pocket first, the neck might not fit perfectly when it's done.

As the boy said to his woodwork teacher (do they still teach woodwork?)

"But Sir, I cut the plank twice and its STILL too short!"

Measure 3 times cut once

I've got to this approach:
- get / make neck
- make neck pocket to fit neck perfectly
- mark lines down body from edges of neck
- place bridge in middle of lines at correct distance. Middle adjustment point of saddles = 2 x 12th fret
- drill holes from actual bridge
- rout for pickups etc relative to neck position
- then cut shape of guitar body

By leaving the guitar shape until last, you're working with a rectangular piece of wood which is easy to clamp; and even screw jigs down into parts that will be cut away.

This approach builds the guitar around the actual neck position

I found a guy close to me who has a few extra truss rods, but they are a bit shorter than I expected. They are an overall length of 39.37 cm (15.5") as opposed to the 45.72cm (18") to be expected for an electric. Will this truss rod still work? I think I'm gonna go for a headstock adjust, and it would seem pointless to me at least to put the rod in the heel where it will be bolted to the body in anyway? Any thoughts?

I have several 2x action truss rods I will not be using if u interested. They are the hex nut type from Stew Mac.
Problem with them is I couldn't find a way to use them adjusting from the headstock.
On a gibson style angled head it would be fine. On a tele it would mean digging out a massive chunk to fit in an adusting key.
Maybe someone else knows how... or they could adjust from the body side.
I thought of installing upside down - but then the rod would bend forward when tightening.

So we rather routed a curve with a single rod. But thats also no walk in the park.
Wouldn't do that for a once off build.
Double action would be much easier I think - if u figure out how.

Average Joe wrote: I have several 2x action truss rods I will not be using if u interested. They are the hex nut type from Stew Mac.
Problem with them is I couldn't find a way to use them adjusting from the headstock.
On a gibson style angled head it would be fine. On a tele it would mean digging out a massive chunk to fit in an adusting key.
Maybe someone else knows how... or they could adjust from the body side.
I thought of installing upside down - but then the rod would bend forward when tightening.

So we rather routed a curve with a single rod. But thats also no walk in the park.
Wouldn't do that for a once off build.
Double action would be much easier I think - if u figure out how.

Make a funky headstock that is semi cutaway inside so you can access the nut?


The other option is to drill holes through the actual nut so you can adjust it with a thin allen key.. then you can adjust at the base of the neck:


Won't be standard tele anymore though... but it's an option...

Wizard wrote: I've got to this approach:
- get / make neck
- make neck pocket to fit neck perfectly

etc

Somehow I'd feel more comfortable routing out the pocket first, then carefully sanding or shaving down the body-end of the neck to fit the pocket. Its easier to work on the "male" part (if you know what I mean)

I've been thinking about which approach to follow, and I can definitely see the merits of both methods. I think I am going to make the neck first, then probably using mdf or something will make a template for the pocket. Might stick a few layers of masking tape or something inside the pocket to make it ever so slightly smaller for routing, and then just sand down until the neck fits snuggly.

As far as the truss rod rout goes, I have never actually set up my own guitar, but I can imagine it's quite a hassle to take of the neck just to adjust the truss rod. That's why I opted for the headstock-adjust method. When I actually get my truss rod, I'll see what will be easier. I saw a few posts on tdpri where people routed for the double-action rods, and just sort of cut a slot in the headstock as follows:


I suppose then it wouldn't be necessary to flip the rod around. Any thoughts?

Leo got it right the second time, adjustment can be done from the headstock with a single rod in a curved rout. It's just a bit of a schlepp making the routing jig, that's all.