Third build - Natural Tele in Idigbo

PeteC

The bottom-bearing cutter lets you reduce the height of the cut easily - the Wealden one gives a very clean cut.

PeteC

Rookie mistake time.....

I f*****d up......

I've made my Tele neck very slightly too short. 

How ? - well I made my rosewood board and slotted it for 22 frets originally,  then decided to go with a traditional 21 fret neck - so I cut off the board at the 22nd fret slot.  

Now I see that I should have a slightly longer board after the 21st fret...and I have already routed my neck pocket to the standard fender length of 3". 

So that means that my scale length will put the bridge further back on the body by about 2mm ( as the crow flies ) 
I just remeasured the neck from the front of the nut to the end of the heel and its 465mm not the 467mm it should be. 

So - do I worry about this and place the bridge a bit further back ( might be difficult now that I have routed the bridge pick up rout) ?   ......or just have faith that the pretty generous adjustable saddles on a Tele bridge will mean I can still get it to intonate properly ?  BTW, I am using the Gotoh compensated 3 saddle bridge. 

Any help / advice much appreciated !!!!!!

MattNovak

2mm is nowt - I’d just let the saddle adjustment take care of it to avoid any major works. But that’s just me.

Roland

PeteC said:

... do I worry about this and place the bridge a bit further back ( might be difficult now that I have routed the bridge pick up rout) ?   ......or just have faith that the pretty generous adjustable saddles on a Tele bridge will mean I can still get it to intonate properly ? 

As @MattNovak says, you should be able to absorb 2mm in the saddle adjustment. If it’s tight then, before moving the plate and/or extending the pickup cavity, you could consider cutting back the springs to give an extra 1mm when fully compressed. Do a trial assembly just prior to finishing and measure it all up then.

PeteC

cheers @MattNovak and @Roland - I knew I'd get a quick and good answer here.  I could search TDPRI for hours and get multiple stateside opinions ! ( NB - some of my best friends are from the US ...) 

WezV

As Roland says, do a test fit with everything now.

Ideally that includes bridge, pickup and scratchplate as all could be affected, but it will probably be fine

PeteC

Thanks for weighing in as well @WezV.  

Neck is currently too tight in the pocket so some very light sanding passes required yet before test fit.   Done the binding in the meantime.   First time with any binding and the Cellulose/Acetone approach seems to have gone pretty well. 



 

chotu495

Very impressed with this build. Is it possible to GAS for a workshop and the skills to do this, cos i think I am. I do have an outbuilding that could be converted to something like a workshop....hmmmmm 

Roland

chotu495 said:

... Is it possible to GAS for a workshop and the skills to do this ...

Welcome to the club. 

PeteC

Go for it ...... I had the same thing - I even moved house so that I had more room for my music gear and space to make stuff.  I had always wanted to try build a guitar.   A few good tools, plenty of patience ( which I am still struggling with tbh ) and learning from others is all you need.   If I can do it anyone can. 

Mind you - this is far from finished yet and there's plenty of scope for me to balls it up yet ! 

Some absolutely great guys on the forum here who are very experienced (unlike me) if you need advice and help 

PeteC

Learnings from today.......

i) even the supposedly "right"  luthiers binding tape will leave a sticky residue on the wood if you use too much acetone , and it will be a bugger to get off completely. 

ii) for brushing on your acetone.....don't use a brush which has some residue of ink or paint in it ( or make up !) ) as it will leave stains on your Idigbo ( Damnnit ) 

PeteC

Looks like the mock up is fine - there is plenty of room on the saddles to get a good 5-6mm either side of the "double octave" scale length - even with a slightly short ( 2-3mm short ) neck. 

Corvus

Looking nice Pete, good stuff.

JGTay

PeteC said:

Learnings from today.......

ii) for brushing on your acetone.....don't use a brush which has some residue of ink or paint in it ( or make up !) ) as it will leave stains on your Idigbo ( Damnnit ) 

Leave your makeup brushes in the bathroom Pete...

Looking really nice, making very good progress. Glad you have enough room on the saddles. 

rsvmark

Epic thread. Top work. 

Genuine question- i think idigbo close to oak species wise? So it’s heavy, tough etc. Will be very interesting to hear the op once It’s all done on his opinions on resonance And overall weight.

PeteC

This mornings task was some diy clay dots for the rosewood board.  I know fenders clay dots were more probably fiberboard but I saw a good thread on TDPRI where someone made their own clay dots using craft clay and a home made aluminium die.   So I gave it a go this morning and am pleased with the results.  A little bit of aluminum oxide gets into the clay and dirties it up a bit which helps.   Pleased that the 2mm and 6mm dots came out of the mound so easily.    30 mins at 110 degrees in the oven and they were ready ! 

Next job fixing bridge position. 

PeteC

rsvmark said:

Epic thread. Top work. 

Genuine question- i think idigbo close to oak species wise? So it’s heavy, tough etc. Will be very interesting to hear the op once It’s all done on his opinions on resonance And overall weight.

Well it varies greatly - I bought a few rough sawn planks 8" x 2' and I have found that the density and weight varies greatly across the batch. It machines really easily. Some is very like Korina/LImba in appearance and other parts have slightly yellow/pale green tint to them and tend to be much lighter in weight.  The DC Junior I made with an Idigbo body is really light. 

As far as resonance goes so far I have found it be to be very resonant indeed - it definitely has a great "tap tone" - very wood-blocky if you know what I mean. I guess it will vary in resonance depending on the density and grain too. 

I really like it to work with.  I do think that for the Tele a solid maple neck would probably be better in the long run as the Idigbo can dent fairly easily in comparison - but plenty of sought after guitars have been made with Lima/Korina, and its very similar as far as I can tell ( caveat - I 'm a relative newbie to this luthiery stuff ) 

Will be interesting to see how it sounds when its finished, on a fairly bright guitar like a Tele. 

PeteC

did a bit more on the neck transition this pm.   The buried truss rod channel emerges as hoped !! 

PeteC

Clay dots are in now and I decided to make a 10” radius block to give the board a smoother finish 

used a pin to maintain a constant 10” radius to cut up some oak worktop offcuts on the new bandsaw and it worked a treat    

Also drill the string through holes and located the bridge but forgot to take pics 

PeteC

and yes - one of the dots is very slightly off centre - the drill press table moved !!   next time I'll bolt the table down properly before drilling. It's a bit of character I guess.  I could drill it out and fill with Rosewood dust and re-drill - but not sure its needed as this will only get played by me.