Guitar Building Telecaster

Sound Bites:
Neck Pickup Clean, Bridge Pickup Clean, Both Together Clean
Dirty, Floyd with Reverb, Scarborough Fair

Just your basic Tele copy body as made by EDEN guitars	Note the hole for the front pickup wire. Apparently Broadcaster's were done this way.	The other end of the pickup wire hole as seen from the bridge pickup cavity
Here's the body as it appeared immediately after unwrapping. Basic sanding has been done, no nasty sealers, a really nice place to start from.
Wire hole from bridge pickup to control cavity. Hmm looks pretty small, I may need to open it out a bit to get all of the wires through there...We'll see.	String holes are already countersunk to accept the ferules Nice Touch.	Ah, An almost finished vintage neck.

Very pleasing grain and the holes all appear to be lined up.	I'll be installing a set of vintage style tuners, I'm glad mounting screw holes aren't pre-drilled.	Simply beautiful. Ok, I'm a bit excited but this means less work for yours truly!

I couldn't resist a rough mockup	Hmm, a bit of refinement may be needed in the neck socket.	"Got a hank of hair and a piece of bone..." well, maybe we'll skip the hair at this point. I'm using a piece of Bison femur that the dog had been gnawing on.

To make the nut I started with a piece of Bison bone that happened to be under foot. I liberated about2 inches or so from the main shank and gave the rest back to the dog. Next I cut several strips using the old band saw. I have to get a new blade 'cause a dull blade makes the bone burn and it's a smell that's beyond description! At any rate the small piece on the right is ready for some sanding and shaping.
Using 150 grit sand paper I gradually fit the piece into the pre-existing nut slot. I used my micrometer constantly to make sure there wasn't any taper or twist to the piece as I worked it. Slow and steady wins the race.	After about 15 minutes of careful work, it fits right in.	The nut pocket is curved on the bottom so there's just a bit of a gap inder each end of the nut.

A small drum sander from my dremel kit and the slow setting on the drill press allow me to shape the bottom until it fits perfectly.	There we are, I've trimmed the ends to match the neck	The fit is snug requiring firm hand pressure to make it "snap" in. Once it's finally shaped I'll only need a small drop of yellow glue to make sure it doesn't move during play.

That's about as far as I can go for today. Once the hardware arrives, I can mount the neck and tighten up the neck pocket. In the mean time I'll set my sites on the finish line.

The hardware finally started arriving but not everything was going according to plan!
Well, This sure was fun! The neck was pre-drilled for modern tuners, but I like the look of the vintage. I discovered that the holes were about 1mm too close together to fit these tuners. I used a fine metal file to "refine" the tuners until they "played" nicely.	Stewmac came to the rescue with their adapter bushings, which allowed the vintage tuners to fit the 10mm pre-drilled holes.	Wiring of the controls is complete. I kind of enjoyed being able to do this outside of the control cavity. Makes for a nice clean wiring job. Click for wiring diagram.
Several weeks have passed since I last updated. Most of that time was spent applying a finish to the body. Monday Dec. 24 I was finally ready to put a shine to the finish, then one thing led to another and I... Well I'll let the following pictures do the talking!
The body is now finished, polished, and ready for assembly. It's 10:30 Dec. 24, 2007 (This will be important later)	String Ferules are inserted, I used a small hammer and the handle of a screwdriver to press fit them	Similar to a Fender Broadcaster, the pickup wiring is fed from the neck pickup through the bridge pickup route.
The rest of the wiring path for the bridge pickup	The Journey is complete, now for the bridge pickup.	The mystery is solved, how does the neck pickup mount. Fender uses rubber gromets, GFS supplies springs instead which are not subject to drying out like their rubber counterparts
I'll let you in on a little secret. Unbeknownst to me, just here at this point while I was photographing the neck pickup installation, electrical gremlins were messing with my wiring. They chose this moment to have a sharp piece of solder pierce the hot lead right where it passes through the pickup base. I didn't detect this little gift until about 3 hours later when I plugged in for the first time. Expecting twang I was instead presented with the sound of silence.
Mounting it to the body.	This looks like a good starting height.	Ok, now for the bridge pickup.
This is an important wire, connecting the bridge to the electrical ground!	The home stretch, the pickups are now wired to the controls which were already prepared.	The last thing is to install the jack mount, then plug in and play!
The white pick guard is temporary, I didn't have many options at 2:15 Christmas Eve with the music store closing at 2:30!
		Back side is as nice as the front.
Well Here's the finished product. So what was important about Dec. 24 at 10:30 a.m.? I was to be playing at church at 5:00. At 4:00 p.m. I was ready for first twang and discovered the little surprise that the gremlins had left me. I spent the next 45 minutes going over the electrics with a multi meter. Problem was traced to a small outcropping of solder on the ground post of the pickup which had pierced the hot lead. I smoothed it out and got her all back together with 15 minutes to spare. The guitar was finally ready and performed flawlessly!

The white pick guard is gone, after a visit to Exotic Woods in Burlington I found a piece of Ziricote that fit the bill perfectly.
	This is a nice representation of the actual colour of the pick guard. I used the plastic guard as a template but cut it slightly oversized so that I could match the contours better. With the flash on you can see the grain in this beautiful dark wood.