I built a tele

[JCH]

The body is built from some poplar that was leftover from a job that I did a few months ago. The top is mahogany veneer. The sides and back are black. The neck is a mystery neck that I bought on ebay. It turned out to be pretty nice. 12" rad 1-5/8ths nut Strat style rout. The tuners, neck plate, output jack, control cover, and the alnico tele neck pickup are all MM. Noname humbucker bridge, with a noname paf spec pu. Tortoise pickguard. This is my first build so I tried to keep it simple and use it as a learning experience. So far so good.

I fit it together last night for the first time so I could drill all of the holes before completing the finish, shielding, wiring etc.. I'm having trouble making myself take it apart.

[punkin]

Awesome work! I take it you've not gotten to play it yet? I'm wondering how the intonation will be.

Way to go!

[JCH]

Originally Posted by punkin

Awesome work! I take it you've not gotten to play it yet? I'm wondering how the intonation will be.

Thanks man. After it got the fresh set of walmart 10's. I wired up the humbucker, and plugged in through my volume pedal. Crude but effective.

I was anxious to see how well my layout worked. I wanted to get the best angle from the back of the intonation blocks to the holes through the bridge. Everything worked out fine. The neck height is right where I want it. I didn't have to touch the truss rod. Intonation was easy.

[punkin]

That's amazing. When you mentione "mystery neck" I figured you'd be fooling with the angle and depth till the cows came home.

Good for you!

[travelin travis]

Cool man. How's it play/sound? I wish I had the motivation do build a guitar. But, I'm lazy.......and that's that.

[Anfontan]

If you have a 4 conductor Humbucker in there you might get a push/pull tone or volume pot and try either coil tapping for the single coil/humbucking sounds or series/parallel wiring. Also a 4 way switch adds variety to the sounds as well. I modded a couple Teles I built and I think the series/parallel sounds are my favorites. The Tele in my signature has the coil tap setup for now-its got some kool tones.

PS-that tortiseshell pickguard looks killer on there-really cool!!!

[JCH]

Originally Posted by Anfontan

If you have a 4 conductor Humbucker in there you might get a push/pull tone or volume pot and try either coil tapping for the single coil/humbucking sounds or series/parallel wiring. Also a 4 way switch adds variety to the sounds as well. I modded a couple Teles I built and I think the series/parallel sounds are my favorites. The Tele in my signature has the coil tap setup for now-its got some kool tones.

PS-that tortiseshell pickguard looks killer on there-really cool!!!

I'm not sure how I'll wire it yet It's a two wire pickup that I have in it now, but that could always change. I ordered concentric pots so I could have separate volume, and tone controls. If I wanted to split the pup I don't know where I'd put the switch.

From what I can tell it's going to sound great. It plays dreamy.

[Anfontan]

Originally Posted by JCH

I'm not sure how I'll wire it yet It's a two wire pickup that I have in it now, but that could always change. I ordered concentric pots so I could have separate volume, and tone controls. If I wanted to split the pup I don't know where I'd put the switch.

From what I can tell it's going to sound great. It plays dreamy.

The Push/pull pots are in the tone or vol. pots-there is a double pole/double throw switch in there that lets you wire it up without any extra swithes or holes drilled in the control plate. See my link for the push/pull pots~

Push/pull pots

[JCH]

Originally Posted by Anfontan

The Push/pull pots are in the tone or vol. pots-there is a double pole/double throw switch in there that lets you wire it up without any extra swithes or holes drilled in the control plate.

Thanks man. I'm familiar With push pull pots, but they're not an option with concentric pots. I bought stuff to wire it up in a few different configs. I've definatly given thought to a split coil setup. I guess I could always drill another hole in the control cover.

[flamin-gitaur]

Looks good, can't wait to hear some clips.

[apl]

Does Noname rhyme with Mogami? I couldn't find a link to their stuff.

[nukeitout]

Looks professional, good work! I'm looking forward to hearing some clips

[apl]

Originally Posted by nukeitout

Looks professional, good work! I'm looking forward to hearing some clips

I saw what you typed the first time!!!

[nukeitout]

Originally Posted by apl

I saw what you typed the first time!!!

I'm tired... Sometimes I think my hands have minds of their own while typing, too...

Did you ever make any guitars?

I made a guitar once. I was in basic training, friendless, guitarless, and miserable. I HAD to play. It occupied my thoughts constantly. I decided I would figure out how to make a guitar of some kind with what I had available to me. After much speculation (there was plenty of time to think while waiting in line, doing pushups, etc) I decided what to do.

For the strings, I braided my dental floss into three strings, each three strands thick. I then wrapped the strings around my metal drawer, and used pieces of metal from the end of a spiral bound notebook looped once in the string to tighten and tune them. A small hook in the end of the piece of wire allowed it to stay put on the string on the side of the drawer. I tuned it to an open 5th chord and used a metal belt buckle as a slide to play, using my black marker to mark with harmonics the 12th, 7th, and 5th fret on a piece of cardboard I had partially covering the top opening of the drawer.

It wasn't the best guitar in the world, but it was my mint-flavored, three-stringed, belt-buckle-slide, lap drawer, and I loved it. It was easy to play three chord bangers at a modest volume (quite enough to escape detection by the instructors...). Plus everyone though i was totally insane but genius. At least noone ratted me out; they liked to hear me play .

[apl]

Originally Posted by nukeitout

Did you ever make any guitars?

Very cool story!

I've not built anything from scratch, but I've done a lot of mods.

[nukeitout]

Anything with dual humbuckers? I have an imitation flying V that I'm considering tearing apart and 'improving' just to have somethin extra to play with.

[HateMail]

nice nice tele.

Its so good I smell a lawsuit from fender.

[JCH]

Thanks everyone. I've got it taken apart now for the shielding, finish etc. I hope to have it back together this weekend. Here's a picture with the templates that I made. I started gathering parts for it about a month ago, but only started on the build last week.

[Thurgood]

Awesome! I have always wanted to build a guitar build I am Wood unfriendly.

[Dogbreath]

Originally Posted by Thurgood

I am Wood unfriendly.

I'm not gay either.



Nice guitfiddle man. You have way more patience than I do. I', lookin forward to some clips too. Nice work!