The Cedar bodied Telecaster saga

notanon

Awesome thread! You have some images on page one that do not show and is probably down to permission restrictions. Can you make those available please I'd like to see those and sure others would too.

Two years waiting for a project to come to fruition, what's next, start a vineyard for a wine company? Got the pear trees going?  They take a while to mature too :-) good to see people enjoy retirement.

Roland

Pictures are a big problem, as is Google Pictures.

Choosing the wood. I cut two blanks from the plank, and rejected the first because it had an internal crack.


Cutting the rough outline with a fretsaw. This is where the end grain becomes enticing.


Levelling off with the router sledge. It's at this point that you can begin to see what the grain looks like on the front of the guitar. Don't those circular saw cuts look rough.


The router marks look rough too, but in reality they are only a fraction of a millimetre deep, and will sand out easily.

Roland

notanon said:

Two years waiting for a project to come to fruition, what's next, start a vineyard for a wine company? Got the pear trees going?  They take a while to mature too :-) good to see people enjoy retirement.

We've been making wine for many years.

Roland

notanon said:

You have some images on page one that do not show and is probably down to permission restrictions. Can you make those available please I'd like to see those and sure others would too.

The images are in shared google album, so I'm not sure what's going on. Here's a direct link to the google image collection which holds the pictures from earlier this year. 
https://goo.gl/photos/SQ3AS1em54Z9XjLZA

Roland

Today was dedicated to gardening, but it got cold this afternoon, and I retreated to the workshop. Nothing special. I wanted to update my Telecaster body template. I've got separate sub-templates for the pickup cavities, and for the controls, but lining them up is tedious, so I wanted to add them to the main body template. Measuring and cutting took two hours. Not something I'd be comfortable with if I were doing this as a business, but part of the fun for a hobby.

You may notice that there are no holes for the bridge. That's because I've been experimenting with different type of bridge, and they all have different holes.



I always use a mask when cutting mdf. To reduce dust even more I tried using the scroll saw instead of jig saw or router. The scroll saw is not very good at cutting straight lines in wood, but no problem with mdf, which shows how much effect grain and varying densities have on the blade.

Roland

After two days of routing, carving and sanding, headstock reprofiling and fret levelling, I'm able to do a mock up. The bridge hasn't arrived yet, without which I won't drill holes for the neck and bridge screws, nor make the string retaining block which I'm going to use instead of ferrules.

I had a hiccup last night when the secondhand neck turned out to be bowed, even with the truss rod fully released. This I presumed was a one-way truss rod. Clamping to a 3" x 3" beam overnight sorted that out, and will save me buying or making a new neck.

Roland

The bridge arrived yesterday, which allowed me to check the neck/pickup/bridge line-up, and drill holes for neck screws, bridge screws, and string-through holes. The body is slightly wedge shaped, which means checking that the top is horizontal before drilling for the neck screws. 


Whereas the bridge screw holes need the drill stand positioned over the body. (I really should get a pillar drill).

Soldering up the controls in situ is fiddly because of the depth of the cavity, so I use a simple jig, and a tray to keep the components organised

I'm using a Les Paul selector switch, which is a tight fit in the cavity, AND the terminals are very close, all at one end so I took it apart and reassembled it.

Roland

WezV said: (in this thread: http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/102120/strat-body-with-a-close-eye-on-weight)

Most non trem guitars can easily afford to lose 1/4" from the thickness.  

A 1.5" Telecaster works well, apart from the depth of the selector switch. This build is 1.75" at the bottom edge, down to slightly less than 1.5" at the top edge. It would be thinner, but for two things:
1. The controls are body mounted, and the access panel is inset.
2. The pickups are body mounted into 7/8" holes, and need a bit of depth behind that for the mounting bolts to protrude into.

Roland

Finishing takes a while, even Tru Oil. The finish is now thick enough, and hard enough, for assembly. Here's the body, with copper shielding tape in the cavities, and also to provide good contact for the bridge:


Here's the finished assembled guitar:


Regular readers will remember that I was having problems with resin weeping out of the wood on my previous build, where the body slab was taken from just above the stump of the tree. This body is taken from the trunk, and is currently stable and dry. 

Throughout the build I've kept a record of the weight. The body has been thinned a little, and chamfered, but there's no weight relief. To avoid adding weight there are no Bridge and control plates, and the tuners are non-locking.
- Body blank, cut to rough profile, but before carving: 2.36Kg (5lb 3oz)
- Finished body, thinned, carved, sanded, and oiled:  1.70Kg (3lb 12oz)
- Completed guitar, (add neck, metal and electrics):   3.02Kg (6lb 10oz)

First thoughts.
1. It's light. If the body were any lighter I would be worried about balance.
2. The sound isn't as bright as I expected. That's down to one or both of the tone control and the alloy saddles. I'll play around with the capacitor, test a treble bleed, and try swapping the black saddles for bright steel.
3. The secondhand neck is still settling. So far It hasn't bowed under the string tension, despite a completely relaxed truss rod, which means there's no relief. Does this mean that the rod has been overstressed and bent in a previous life? Also worrying is that either the fretboard is not square with the heel, or the neck pocket floor is nor quite level. Once this had a chance to settle I'll take the neck off and measure. This 

Paul_L

That looks particularly super! Really nice to see it from a plank to a finished guitar.  How easy is it to get the neck alignment right. Do you have to be very precise in making sure that the body and neck mating faces are exactly on the same plane as the guitar top?

Roland

The neck pocket is cut with a router. A template is clamped on top of the body, and guides the router bit. So the floor of the pocket will be level with the template. I used clamps on either side of the body, so there a chance that I didn't get the template quite level. 

My template has a centre line drawn down it, and I can align this with the centre line of the guitar. "Measure twice and cut once" so I also cross check against the pickup cavities. Once the neck pocket is cut I do a dry assembly of body, neck and pickups, and check that the bridge position before drilling for bridge screws and string through holes.

Roland

Back tracking a bit. The first of these two guitars originally had an Oil City Hardman in the neck position. Having gigged it for a couple of months I've switched to a Californian. This has a more acoustic, Strat-like tone and is more suitable for my style and the sort of music the band is playing.

usedtobe

Love it!

Roland

This time last year I rejected a body blank because it had a crack. Rather than cut a new body I thought I’d try wood dust and thin cyano acrylic glue.

Roland

The neck for this one will be maple on maple, and comes from @GSPBASSES recent sell off. Second one down in Graham’s picture http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1822339/#Comment_1822339. Fretboard glued and slotted, but needed frets, markers, and shaping. Here it is marked up ready for carving.

This was an opportunity to try out old and new tools.

From the bottom: Wood rasp, Japanese (actually Czech) toothed rasp, wire brush to keep rasps clear, surform, spokeshave, templates and micrometer. Conclusions: Surform is best at removing wood; spokeshave gives the best finish; only the rasp can handle the volutes at each end of the neck. For finishing I prefer a cabinet scraper, particularly over the volutes where sandpaper can leave the surface smooth but bumpy. The problem with this neck was that it’s three piece, with grain running in both directions, which meant frequent direction changes for the spokeshave and scraper.

Roland

Decisions, decisions. This guitar has the same heavily chamfered shape which I’ve used before, except that the upper horn has been extended as far as the blank would allow.

It is going to be bound in black, and clear finished. It should be a little less Amber than last years’ which was finished with Tru Oil. This is what it is going to look like:



Question is, how do I mount the five way superswitch?

Options:
1. Make a control plate, either gold or black.
2. Make a mini plate, just for the switch. Probably the easiest solution.
3. Mount it on the wood. Cedar is soft. Routed down to 5mm it’s going to need strengthening with cyano acrylic, or an internal metal plate.
4. Use rotary switch instead.

Decisions, decisions. 

Roland

I went with option 3. The wood seems strong enough, but once the exterior is finished I might soak cyano acrylic into the under surface of the wood which supports the pots and switch.

Moving on. I want to body mount the pickups, but this time without affecting their magnetic fields by using steel. The cedar is a bit soft to take hex nuts. If the body were thinner, and the front and back were parallel, then I might try Tee nuts through the back. For this one I’ll use plywood.


The nuts are tapped in with a hammer, and secured with glue.

Roland

My main gigging guitar is the first one in this thread. I want another which is similar but lighter, and has the strap button further forward. Think PRS position, but not as far forward as a Strat.

To reduce weight the body will be thinner. It’s a one piece body blank, with no cap, so no chambering. The metal bridge and control cavity plates are going. Instead it will have a short bridge, and the controls will be body mounted. The metal mounting plates under the pickups are also going, but might come back if the sound changes too much.

Some things won’t change. Same pickups: Oil City Californian and Wapping Wharf. Same five way superswitch.

Using the superswitch means that the body has to be full depth at the control cavity, but can be thinner away from that. I’ve settled on a wedge shape.



The wedge provides an extra challenge. Every time I drill or route I have to think whether the hole should be aligned to the front or the back.

WezV

I love the wedge idea.   

BigMonka

That body shape looks very cool and interesting, how does it feel to play?