Number Two

Roland

Roland is pleased to announce the birth of Number Two, weighing in at 7lb 10oz, and a sibling for the HB challenge Telecaster.

Of course it's all @TTony 's fault in turning me on to the delights of guitar building.  There are a few others, name checked below, who contributed ideas and materials.  For my second build I wanted to use a router to make the body, rather than buy a ready made one.  The neck I thought would be a step too far, so I bought one from @GSPBasses.  Of course this means that I needed to use cheapish wood to practice with the router, rather than waste a nice block of ash or mahogany.  Enter the cheapest of the cheap, a sheet of B&Q Furniture Board, which is made of glued spruce strips.  Even glueing two sheets of board together only makes it 36mm thick, so I opted for a ferrule block rather than separate ferrules to add strength.

There were also a number of design ideas I wanted to try out: cutaway neck joint, perspex neck pickup mount, severe forearm and rib contours, and a tapped Tele bridge pickup.  So thanks @TheGuitarWeasel for the Wapping Wharf and Californian.  This allows six way switching: untapped bridge, tapped bridge, bridge and neck in parallel, neck, neck and bridge in series, both untapped and tapped.  The only six way I could get, without buying a very expensive superswitch, was a rotary which I've had lurking in the parts box for ages.

I also wanted to try out a few manufacturing techniques.  First of which was to resurrect the interest metalwork which I picked up at school, and make as many parts as tools and skills allow.  Hence the brass neck plate, bridge, ferrule block, control plate and oversize knobs.  

Having read so much written about Tru-Oil, particularly @WezV 's thread, I wanted to try it out for myself, and see whether it could be made to work over wood stain.  @impmann suggested recessing the neck plate, which I will do when I next dismantle the guitar.

What now?  Fine tune the set-up, try it at rehearsal on Monday, gig it at the end of the month.  Then think about shaving the neck a bit thinner when I take it apart to inset the neck plate.  Thank you all for your encouragement.

Andyjr1515

Looks great, @Roland. I actually do the final tweaking of the neck in situ, fully strung and all...I find I can check the feel of it until it's just right

Moss

Looks amazing

Deijavoo

This section of the forum is getting busier, and with good reason. Nice work mate.

axisus

Looks great! Not keen on rotary switches at all, but I see it serves a purpose. Nice job

Roland

Progress update. I'm getting used to the neck. The profile is 1/8" deeper than the HB Telecaster, and I'm not used to rolled edges either, so I'm finding it much harder to play.  Hopefully this is a period of adjustment, if not then I'll be carving the back of the neck.  Playing was suddenly made easier from a surprising direction.  The top E broke (metal fatigue from taking it on and off repeatedly whilst adjusting the nut). What I thought was a replacement 10 turn out to be an 11. Harder to bend, but strangely easier to play with the rolled edge. You live and learn. Maybe I'll go back to 11-52s at the next string change.

and so to that nut .... Ron Kirn says that everyone files their first nut too deep.  I'm no exception.  I thought that I'd be clever, and shave plastic off the bottom rather than deepen the slots.  It is now the right height, thanks to a shim underneath.  A new nut was needed anyway because the one I bought, although the widest I could see, is not quite as wide as the neck.  

The Oil City pickups are wonderful, thanks Ash, and give all the sound combinations I expected through the six way switch.  Only time will tell whether I will use all of them, or resort to a five way lever.

axisus said:

Looks great! Not keen on rotary switches at all, but I see it serves a purpose. Nice job

Me neither.  Harder to change, and harder to see what's currently selected, so not sure whether it will stay or go ... and thanks for the compliments.

Andyjr1515

If you do want to slim the neck down a touch in the future, use a standard cabinet scraper - much more controllable in terms of easing the neck down to your ideal size or shape and then will just need a quick final smoothing sand.

Roland

So I'd got a rehearsal on Monday night, so what should I not do that morning? Rather than waiting patiently for the cabinet scraper which is "out for delivery" I got the spoke shave out, and followed it up with wet and dry, and then three thin wipes of Tru Oil to seal the surface.

In rehearsal the guitar was brilliant!  I'd expected to use it for just one number, and then put it away pending adjustment.  However It proved resonant, strong in the upper mids with sufficient lower mids to keep it warm.  Just what I've been wanting.  The band thought it better sounding than my other guitars, so I played it all evening.  It will be my main guitar for Saturday's gig, where pics will ensue.

The six way rotary switch was a lot easier to use than I expected, and all of the settings useful.  Having a grub screw on the side meant that I could see and feel which setting I was using at any point.

I have to say that I'm even more pleased than I expected to be

usedtobe

Stonking! What's this furniture board stuff??

Roland

This is what I used. http://www.diy.com/departments/diall-spruce-furniture-board-l850mm-w400mm-t18mm/270897_BQ.prd They do larger sheets, and also thicker ones. You have to select the sheets carefully to pick the best grain patterns, and avoid knots and warped boards.

I cut two body outlines, and then joined them with white glue to give a 36mm thick body.  That's still a bit thin for a Telecaster, which really needs 1.75 inches to allow a control cavity which is 1.5 deep to take a 3 or 5 way switch.  That's why I ended up with a rotary switch.

usedtobe

Thanks for that!

Roland

16:00 pm Saturday afternoon. I've got to eat, wash, change, load the car, and leave at 18:00 for tonight's gig. It's at this precise point that I decide to replace the plastic nut. This week I received a bone nut for an acoustic guitar. It's thicker and wider than 43mm plastic one, which is not quite wide enough for Graham's neck. Using a router I managed to trim the acoustic nut down to thickness and height, and fitted it with a dab of super glue.

Number 2 performed beautifully all night.  The Strat-like tones are exactly what I've been wanting to add to my arsenal.  At this point I don't actually need another guitar, although that won't stop me making another, and then another. Damn you @TTony for starting me down this road

Synopsis of changes needed to this one:

1. The back of the neck still needs a bit more shaving.  The cabinet scrapers have now arrived to do this.

2. The neck pickup needs raising a half turn or so.

3. The neck plate needs recessing.

4. The bridge screws need a little more countersinking so that they don't obstruct the saddle height screws.

TTony

Roland said:

Damn you @TTony for starting me down this road

:-SS

It's probably fair to say that I've been cursed for worse things!

Once you've got the bug, once you know that you *can*, then guitar building can become very time-consuming, very frustrating, and very satisfying.

But, mainly, very - incredibly - satisfying!

It doesn't seem to save any GAS-type money as self builds can still be pretty expensive (and resale values are generally poor). but MrsTT seems to be a lot more accepting of another guitar that I've built as opposed to another guitar that I've bought.  Plus you can build whatever you want rather than being restricted to having to buy what someone else thought you might/should want.

#2 looks like a nice piece of work, and if it's good enough to gig all night, then it's clearly as good as it looks.  Congrats.

TTony

[PS]

What's #3 going to be??

Roland

Blue, possibly with white edge trim.  I want to repeat the design of #2, and try out staining the body with blue ink before the Tru-Oil finish. 

There will also be a different set of pickups, I'm very happy with what I've used so far, but I want to keep ringing the changes.  Maybe I'll seek a few minutes of @TheGuitarWeasel 's valuable time to chew through the options.  Changing the bridge is another possibility.  The Tele bridge is ease to make, but palm muting doesn't sound the same as a tunematic.  I'm also thinking about making my own neck, which will mean building a few jigs and gadgets.  Mark Bailey's compound radius profile sander is on the list.

I'm also toying with the idea of a veneer top, to cover the B&Q wood blocks, or even a 1 cm slice so that I can get the body thick enough to take a Fender style selector switch ... It doesn't stop does it?

Jalapeno

Nice job @Roland !

Roland

As always there's a bit of tinkering. This week it's been adding a treble bleed on the volume. 

Some people like the the sound to lose its treble as they turn down so that it sits low it the mix. Some like it to get brighter so that they can still be heard, but not dominate the sound. I like the sound to stay neutral as the volume changes, and use the tone control. A 0.001 capacitor on its own was much too bright, and I'm currently trying it in parallel with a 120k resistor. If that is still too bright in the band mix, which I won't know until Monday's rehearsal, then I'll add a second resistor in series. 

Talking of volume and tone changes, the brass knobs are a bit slippery to grab in a hurry.  I don't have a lathe or any knurling tools, so I'm considering fixing a strip of wet and dry around each knob with double sided tape.

I've also been playing with pickup and saddle heights.

Number 2 now has a set of 11-52s fitted and, apart from the 11 on top, the strings don't seem any harder to bend, so that's probably what I'll stick with.

Roland

Final pic

usedtobe

Seriously, that looks fantastic!

Gru

Great looking guitar and a good read. Glad it worked out really well.

Reading this thread has got me thinking. Hmm