Welcome to Carlton Guitars

The last hurrah for 2010 and onwards into 2011
Quite a bit happening and some new guitars coming up

I've always liked to do things in batches and I guess that goes back to the many years spent as a pro potter producing masses of thrown ornamental and table ware. It took an awfull lot of pots per day to make enough cash to, pay the bills and it was my habit to make large batches of work.

I have five new builds underway.and a long way from being a large batch of guitars it is enough to keep my thirst for building well quenched.

To start I built 5 bodies all thinline flat top style with bolt on necks

From Top to bottom
A couple new Hotrods with lightweight mahogany cores. The first has a smart looking well figured big leaf maple top, the second a walnut with some pretty figuring also.

Number 3 is a single cut which will sport a florentine cutaway. Has a walnut top with a blackwood core.

Number 4 is also a single cut, slightly different shape with a 3 piece mahogany core and a substantial Alpine Ash top showing a real nice curl. I will carve this one back a bit and also use a florentine cut away

Number 5 is an offset Vic ash body, Qld maple top with knockout figuring. I am planning a Vic ash neck with indian rosewood board

All but the single cut / Alpine ash have very thin tops, They will be very lively. The alpine ash will have great sustain and a thick meaty tone.

And now for a few shots of the body building

Below:Single cut 2 piece mahogany showing the chambering. All the bodies are done in a similar way with breather holes to enhance body resonance

Below: The top for the above single cut being held down with weights to ensure it dires nice and flat

Below : This is one of the hotrods showing how I postion the top for glueup. The last thing you want is for it to start sliding around whem you start applying pressure with the first few clamps. The wowels are where the pickup cavities will be cut. They protrude into thre core about 8 to 10mm. Nothing moves during clamping. The dowels are cut off with a zero kerf Japanese style saw that gets right down of the top and leaves no marks

Below the above blank glued and clamped

Below: Thre single cut Blackwood / Walnut top showing top and core before glueup.

Below: The above core and top glued and clamped. Dont ask why this was cut out on the bandsaw before glueup. There was no particular reason why I did it this way. It is actually easier to do the glueup with a square blank and a top matched in size.

Joining a top
Below: This is the Qld maple top showing the method of joining the pair of bookmatched tops. Note the two cleats holding up the two pieces. Also the clamped edge supports and the piece of 12mm ply on the other side resting against the bench edge. There is no way this is going anywhere but down.

Prior to setting up like this the edges are carefully jointed on a jointing machine so the edges are dead square and dead straight. I dont want an ugly ragged join. In fact the join will be so good that it will be tricky [with my eyes at any rate] to see the actual join. The figure will show roughly where it is but to put a pencil right on the join to make the centre line will require me to magnify it. The alpine ash join on the the single cut really melted togther well and I had a devil of a job to get a center line I could work to.

Step one
The edges are coated in glue and mated to match the figure as well as possible.

Step two Below:
The two cleats are removed

Step 3 Below:
The boards are smartly pushed down onto the surface of the bench and the glued edge is pounded down with mallett and a piece of board to ensure they match in hieght. They are sanded down in a sanding machine to ensure uniformity. One other small point is to ensure there is a membrane of some type under the job so that it doesn't end up glued to the benchtop. I used ally foil here and I have also used gladwrap which actually is a bit of a pain in the arse to use at sticks to everything you don't want it to.weights are added as per the pick above to keep the jpb nice and flat. Highly figured boards tend to move about quite a lot when unsupported, especially on a hot day, Big leaf maple is a real pain and tends to to twist and warp if you fart, look at it the wrong way
or let go with a decent burst of colourful language. This of course never happens in my workshop. 0:-)

Below: Heres the first one to be completed and is currently travelling around with me as a demo model more pics and specs here

Building 3 necks

Below:
Shown are 3 blanks carefully cut and slotted for the truss rods. The template sits on top, the plan is seen behind and in front are the tools I use to mark things out. What isn't in the picture is the 1.2 meter straight edge used to draw the centerlines. Believe it ir not the 600mm stainless steel ruler is not dead straight, even though I paid $50 odd dollars for it. The straight edge cost me considerably more than the rule even though it is only made of aluminium. It does however have one edge machined square and straight.

Below: The blanks ready for the headstock rough thickness cut.

Below: The blanks have been roughed out on the bandsaw and tidied up on the spindle sander. I like to leave as little as possible for the router to take off as the it will mash the neck and fingers too if it grabs. If you have just a smidgin for the router to take, the chances are nearly zero of it grabbing. You can minimise the chance of grabbing and tearout even further by using a sharp spiral upshear bit. BTW you can see the thickness cuts at the headstock end.

Below: Routing complete with a nice smooth finish. I paid over $100 dollars for that spiral upshear bit and since its purchase I have not wasted a body or neck blank due to tearout. This is pretty important to me as I use only expensive premium timbers.

Below: The blanks with the template stripped off showing the block at the end of the truss rod slot. This will be drilled out so the adjuster nut can be accessed Fender style from the heel. You can see a couple of router grabs in the slots of the centre and right neck. I have used a piece of sapele to fill the voids even though they were only a couple mm deep. No-one would ever see it except the guy who one day in the future might pull off the finger board for repairs. I just can't leave stuff like that

Below: The blanks are beginning to look like necks after all that work. The headstock cutout has been cut awayon the bandsaw. These are the first necks using this headstock shape. It is tricky to come up with an original design and will always look similar to some other headstock. This one is my own and apologies to anyone else who uses similar.

Now it's time to flatten the inconsistencies out of the headstocks left by the bandsaw This little gem.is called a Wagner Safe T-Planer. It is a great little addition to the drill press for leveling and thicknessing small jobs like this .

Below: truss rods installed with a little silicon so they don't move

Below: You can see how I have glued in and drilled a small block to allow access to the truss rod adjuster.
Next job is laying them out on the fretboards which have already been slotted and radiused. Glueing down a fretboard has a few tricks to it. I haven't done a lot of them so far so each one teaches me more things to avoid.

Below: Ready for the fretboards

Below: Studs in to stop fretboard slippage when clamping - i use 3

Below: Fretboard glueup

Below:Out of the clamps and a bit of a trim up on the band saw

Below:Trim up the edges with handplanes

Below: Trim the board back to 22 frets

Below: Trim up flush with the table mounted router

Below: Setting up for rounding off the fretboard end at the headstock

Below: Using the spindle sander to make the transitional cut

Below: Finished stage 1 - next job is to add the the side dots and fret markers

#16 The 51 Blackguard

A bit of background to begin with - What is a Blackguard?
The name refers to the guitars built in the early era at Leo Fender's Fullerton factory in the period 1950 to 1954.
The Blackguard models included the Esquire, Broadcaster, No-caster and eventually in late 1951 the first true Telecasters. More on the "nocaster" name later. The single pickup Esquire was the first production "electric spanish" guitar at the Fender Fullerton plant. First produced in pine and painted black, trimmed with a white pickguard. These earliest of Fender "electric spanish" guitars had all the hallmarks of the now famous telecaster design, the body shape, the headstock and the pickup / bridge design were all present.

The back / white design was superceded in 1950 by the familiar ash body in a blonde finish, trimmed with a black pickguard, hence the name Blackguard. Esquire and Telecaster guitars were produced from '54 with a white pickguard and a slightly more opaque blonde finish. They were called "Whiteguards".The finish itself was used on furniture at that time and was wildly popular. Leo always used what was cheap and readily available. He was the consumate industrialist. The Henry Ford of electric guitars.

The Broadcaster / Nocaster
Added to the line of Esquire "spanish electric" guitars in late 1950 was the Broadcaster. Essentially the same guitar but with a 2nd pickup designed to produce a warm bassy tone the player could use to play bass lines. The Broadcaster importantly also had a trussrod installed in the neck and had all the elements of the design that was to be produced by Fender for the next 60 years and still counting. Less than 100 Broadcasters were sold when the Gretsch company signalled they were going to take Leo Fender to court citing a copyright violation of the Broadkaster name which referred to a Gretsch line of drums.

Leo quickly decided to drop the name Broadcaster rather than engage in a costly legal battle with the huge Gretsch organisation. He had a stock of "Fender Broadcaster" labels, and not being a wasteful man, simply clipped off the broadcaster leaving just the Fender logo. What was left of the batch of labels were used on the next few hundred dual pickup guitars. They were eventually to be called Nocasters by collectors. In late 1951 the first guitars with Telecaster on the headstock made their way into the marketplace and rest is history. It is little wonder today that these few hundred somewhat crudely made guitars today are so highly sought after. The fact is that guitarists of the day loved them and they sold like hotcakes right from the first ones to roll out the factory door.

It is the spec of these guitars that is to be broadly applied to this particular build. There are a few basic differences between these guitars and the Telecaster produced from late 1951. The main one being the inroduction of the tighter 7.25" radius fingerboard in 1952. This is the essential design that is still being produced in vast quantities today. Out of all the different guitars designed and produced by Fender the Telecaster has sold the most.

Here's a real Blackguard - this one is a Broadcaster.

My take on the 51 blackguard

The specification
This project is not going to be a fake relic. I intend to get the vibe of the blackguard look, feel and tone while using modern methods, materials and hardware. The finished guiitar will look new and will age gracefully as the years go by.

Where possible I will use the of fittings of the type that were used on the originals such as slotted screws, bone nut, pressed steel bridge etc etc. If I can use a component that will improve shortcomings of the original design I will. This guitar will be a player first and foremost and I see no point in using a flawed component in the quest to be historically correct.

The finish is not to be nitro as I don't have a registered spray booth. I will however achieve a similar butterscotch colour. The finish sprayed on the originals is not available today and those extolling the virtues of nitro finish should realise that the nitro of today bears little similarity to that used in California in the 50's. Prior to spraying the shaders and topcoats the bodies were grain filled with "Fullerplast" a mix of fine sand, naptha and a binding agent so the surface could be "levelled" and a glass like shine could be attained. In this build I will be attempting to reveal the true nature of the look and feel of the natural grain. In the case of ash it does have a very seductive feel when polished to a high gloss and minimal finish is applied. As years roll by the the harder growth rings will accentuate as the softer tissue in between is ever so slightly worn down by the body and clothes of the player. A final intimate shaping of the wood over years and years of playing.

Body - 1 piece southern swamp ash - typical T style - lacking the crudely chopped out control rout, various plugged and unplugged holes in the body and cavities. The projecting neck pocket underside edge and the router hump.
Bridge - .048" cold pressed plated mild steel as per original design. [lapped and screwed at the front]
Saddles - Callaham enhanced vintage compensated 3 barrel brass.
Neck - One piece maple, 9.5" fingerboard radius C shape back, vintage frets.
Fittings - Callaham stainless steel vintage style fittings and slotted screws
Tuners - Gotoh locking Kluson style
Electronics - Dimarzio and CTS - modern wiring with treble bleed Waxed cloth covered hookup wire. [sheilding? maybe]
Pickups - My favourite pickups for this type of guitar are the Duncan STL1B bridge and Mick Brierley's medium warm neck pickup which is a little more powerful than the vintage type but for me the bell like chime of it is a real heartbreaker. both wax potted

Now for some pics of the build in progress

A very nice 1 piece blank ex USACG - Decent swamp ash is becoming a rarity especially 1 piece superlight and resonant examples such as this.
Few Blackguards came in 1 piece bodies as most stock purchased for production were standard 8x4's. Its nice to use this one though:)

Body rough cut on the bandsaw - you can see how i nibble out the tricky bits - the other side of the pocket is done in a similar fashion.

theres a look at the grain

The she is with the body edges trued up

Close up of the spiral upcutter used for this job. Damn expensive they are.

The neck is a 1 piece maple by Allparts built to 1951 spec - 9.5" radius, med C profile as it later became known - A little more meat than the 60's classics

The cavity template - won't be using the f-hole bit on this one

The body - ready for cutting the cavities

Chopped out some of the waste with a 3/4" forstner leaving less work for the router

Cavities cut - sorry for the crappy pic

here the wiring holes are cut as they were in 50-51 - notice no slot from the rhythm pickup rout direct to the control rout - a hole is cut for the wire to run to the control rout via the lead pickup rout. The routs on the originals were quite roughly made especially the control rout which was enlarged by hand with a chisel, usually in a hurry with little regard for a clean striaght cut.

here is the jig used to get the ferrule holes in a straight line. Another feature if the 50 / 51's was a wiggly line of ferrule holes. These will be in a straight line

The pin is located into the string through hole on the face of the guitar so the ferrule hole has to be right on top of it. If your string through holes are in a straight line the ferrules holes have to be as well.

Cut the socket hole which is pretty much it for this part of the job. It's time for sandpaper and finishing.

Before I drag out the sandpaper and sanders I better check it all lines up good. You can see the red laser light that I use. it looks a bit out in the pic but actually it lines up pretty nice. I've skipped the sanding, finishing, asssembly and setup and following are a couple of pics of the finished guitar.
I used some pretty high end hardware on this one. See more pics and the full specs here

The RB Special #5
The project began as a rockabilly style guitar back in 2007. I left it under a pile of boards and forgot about. Why? I can't really remember but I dragged it out again in March 2010 and on inspection I found a few minor problems that may have put me off taking it any further at that time. Seeing that the hardware was already there in a box beside the body and neck I decided that it was worth finishing off. In the box was a pair of Dimarzio Eric Johnson Specials, a Gotoh 1 piece bridge and a set of TOL Gotoh tuners.

The idea for this project goes back to the mid 90's when i discussed a similar flat top jazz/thinline project with the well known local Luthier Stewie Male. In those days Stewie was the leading repairer on this side of town and was building some very special guitars. He told me the idea wouldn't work and to forget about it. A few years later when I started building guitars myself I decided to see if he was right.

I have had this one out on a couple of gigs and found that I really like this guitar. It works very well. A bright slicing tone on the bridge and a big warm tone on the neck. The middle setting is a fab honky tonk tone great for rythm or riffs. It would be equally at home in a Rock, Country. Rockabilly, Blues, Punk or whatever setting. It has nice chime and cut without being brittle. The tone is definitely of the vintage variety.

I used a heavy duty recessed SS neckplate which allows a lot of compression to be applied to the neck body joint. This gives a lively feel with plenty of sustain up high and plenty of push in the mids and the lower registers. It sounds great in drop tunings.

The oil and wax finish is real nice to the touch especially the neck. It feels like a well polished piece of wood which of course it is. The fingers glide over it with no resistance at all. A high gloss finish can often become sticky and needs constant attention to keep it slick. A rub over with a quality furniture oil is all that is required once or twice year to keep the surface looking its best.

The guitar is built almost entirely of Australian timbers. It is routed from the back thinline style from figured myrtle with a Vic ash back. The back stripes are of myrtle as well but a different type to the main body. The same timber is used in the stripes where the ears were glued to the headstock. The neck is of quartered Vic ash with an Indian rosewood fretboard. The headstock face plate is of figured alpine ash.

For its size it is quite light. It measures 36cm [14 1/4"] across.

Doesnt look too bad either - kind of gretschesqe - I really like the oil and wax finish which feels real natural.
You really get the feel of polished wood and not the glassy kind of feel that comes with a high gloss lacquer.

After a sanding down the body and assembling the various parts, I finally get to play it.
I have to say it surprised me more than a little, how much I liked this guitar.

Yeah that looks pretty nice to me

Back to the neck - glueing some real nice figured alpine ash to set off the neck

One more job, glue in some matching binding around the F holes.

Back from oblivion march 2010. I laid out and cut the control holes, routed the pickup cavities, cut the jack hole -
Thats pretty much the last hole to be cut. Now its ready for the final prep stage.

the Back with the double WB binding - First time I used black outside binding - last shot 2007

Thers a look at the real nice figure in the main body wood. Nice grain around the edges as well.

The 1/4 sawn ash neck showing the rosewood board and hotrod trussrod in place. I used some fillets of myrtle to set off the joins of the headstock ears. You can see the scarf join just back from the where the nut will sit. I like scarfs because it is a stronger sctock than the gibson style which is cut out of a single plank. With a steep angle of 15 - 17 degrees on em its no wonder the headstocks snap through on gibson guitars. [ouch] The angle on this one is 12 deg and I'm planning a 25 1/2" scale length

Theres the neck with most of the shaping done and the board glued down. Its almost ready for the frets. Just got to true up the edges of the board and tidy up the carving.

It's a 14" body and that neck is pretty snug in the pocket

#13 Telstar
This one features a profiled Telstar body with Bill Lawrence Keystone pickups,
USACG US1 24.75" scale neck and a standard tele hardware set. At this stage the hardware
set including the case is already in. The 4 way switch is ordered and on its way.

The rough sawn southern myrtle board before cutting the pieces fior the blank.

The boards have been machined and sanded to size. Two edges have been carefully
end grain matched and jointed ready for glue up. Even tough this body is destined for a
solid colour I like to do the job properly. One day the body might get stripped and
whoever does it will find the tiimber properly grain matched but a little plain looking.
For a clear finish i would use a droptop of figured maple or similar to set the job off.

This isn't the body blank but this pic illustrates how the boards are glued and joined in a set of cramps.

The body is shown after coming off the bandsaw. You can see the texta outline of the
template I cut to. I leave very little work for the router its just a tidy up really.

That's stage one finished. The body outline is machined and the next step will be to cut the
body cavities. I like to do that when the neck is ready so I can get a good fit to the neck
pocket. The neck is due in any day and there is a pick up slip in the mail today for a package
from the states, most probably the neck.

Heres the neck that arrived from USACG today. As usual its perfect in every detail. That
fingerboard sure has plenty of the wow factor.

getting ready for the cavity template. Cut some of the waste with a 20mm forstner.
The less work for the router the less mess there will be. The blue squares are double stick
carpet tape. Sticks real tight.

Got the template on and its ready to rock n roll.

So there we have 2 telstars. I cut a second body out of white mahogany. Very light and
the big thing with this guitar is weight. Its built for a petite young lady and she wants it
as light as possible so we will choose the body that feels the best to her.

Ok it's now got its colour. very very white and I think we are going to knock that back a
shade or two in the direction of cream.

Headstock logo stuck down and sprayed in

All done bar the assembly and set up.

So there she is. Lucky #13 very cool looking with a bit of a retro vibe. The colours
were chosen by Mandy, the owner. Mandy also designed the spec for the neck amd
chose her pickups and guard shape. She chose well as not only is it a fine sounding
guitar it looks very smart.

Shot from the rear showing the forearm contour. I also sports a tummy cut

Theres a closeup of the body. The Bill Lawrence Keystone pickups in this guitar sound real good. A big warm punchy sound.

Hotrod Mk2 -
Just started a pair of Hotrods which will be a little different to the last one. Keep following
the build for more info. I aint gonna give it all away in the first 5 minutes :)

There's the rough blanks ready for machining. Using northern mahogany for the core of these two
It is a fairly dense heavy timber with a bright tap tone so will be expecting a ringing sustain.

There's one of the boards getting a facelift. :) Very simple but effective jig for machining
a flat face on roughsawn boards.

There they are all layed ready for matching, jointing and then the glueup.

There's one of the blanks glued up. Man what a colour. Pity its gonna be the back.
But wait till you see whats going on the front.

So I've traced the chambers template on the blank and hogged out most of the waste. Its a
boring job especia;;y with a hard timber like this as you have to push through slowly to
stop the 20mm forstner bit from burning

Next job is to screw on the chamber template and cut the edges. The template then comes
off and you can then Clean up the floor and rout to depth, which in this case is 5mm. Quite
thin as generally its more like 7 to 8mm for a guitar of this type.

Got the 2 tops cut, bookmatched and glued. Both necks have arrived and ready for final fret
level, pollish and finish prep. The one on the left needs a bit of fret work, the one on the
right is perfect. the walnut looks a bit plain at this point but will really come alive when the
lacquer hits it.

Theres the finished blank marked out reaady for the bandsaw

Cut out as close as I can go to the line - 1/16" and under

Got the template screwed down nice and tight now its ready for machining the body shape.

Theres the first of the two with a wipe of metho over it to pick up the colour of that walnut.

In fact I did two bodies. I like doing two at a time because once you set up one of the
machines for any cut during the process, its only a few more minutes to make a second cut.

The coulour looks a little weird in this one but you get the idea. I have run around the body
with a rabetting bit set up in the router table and taken it around the whole body
to take some cream binding.

Theres a closeup showing off the nice grain in the walnut top.

There's the binding glued down with piles of masking tape holding it in place. Its a tricky
procedure getting started and then you gotta try hard not to get glue all over the freshly
sealed body and at the same time make sure its sitting tight onto the body so there's
no gaps between the binding and the body. I like to seal the body first because the glue.
when it hits the raw wood, stains it real bad and its a royal PIA to get it off without
wrecking the nice neat binding job

Starting to look like a guitar now so I took this snap to give an idea of the finished effect.
I got the control rout and the F hole done. At first I was very sus on using gold hardware
but mam o man it looks real nice on the walnut with the cream binding. Its a hybrid Thinline
which I think the big "F" released a very few of initially before they bought out the texas
[huge] pickguard style that adorned Thinlines and Customs till the present day.
I will be using a guard on this one but not sure of the shape just yet.

There's the body almost complete - just need to drill the wiring holes. output socket recess
and route the pickup cavities. You can see the back binding chanel routed.

There we are, all setup to cut those pickup cavities

Pretty much ready now for prep and spray.

Fitted the neck to the pocket and you can start to get a feel for the finished guitar.
Had a lot of trouble with the binding mainly due to fiddling a bit too much with it here and there.
Actually had to redo it twice and strip the guitars edge back to bare wood 3 times.

Heres another shot. Shes had a fair few filler coats by now, The walnut and mahogany have
deep grain lines and take a lot of sanding sealer [filler coats]. Nearly ready to start on the finish coats.
The camera flash has really made the label under the F hole jump out.

Final coats are on and while it cures i will work on the guards. Heres idea 1 pretty much a
direct ripoff of the stewmac thinline guard. I like it but its up to the client to choose

This is another idea and this one shows a bit more of the wood at that time I was hoping
he would choose the other. The guards will be done in mother of toilet seat. I know how I
am doing the hardtail guard so will save that till the end :)

You can see here a bit of a run on this side. This and all the other imperfections will be
filled and levelled out as i get into the sanding.

The tele shape has a couple of challenging areas when sanding and the worst is the recurve
down to the neck pocket on the upper bout followed by the area the sandpaper is in.
You can see the high tech sanding cauls I use. Note the mask out of the pocket. I got
that pocket fit real snug and i dont want to make life hard by making it smaller with lacquer.?
All up including sanding sealer around 20 coats went on these bodies. I will get a mirror
finish on these guitars.

You can get mighty finicky in this area as every lil dimple. pinhole, discoloration needs attention.
It depends a lot on how good you are with the gun and how clean the spray area and the
lacquer itself is. I tend to do a lot of the surface prep when in the initial stages of grain filling
and sand/sealer. If you got it right there the final sand and buff is a snack and a real pleasure
as you watch the finish come alive with that "knock yer eyes out" mirror gloss

I will start the final sandout with around 600 and go to around 1500. After that i will use a
medium cut meguires followed by swirl remover which will bring a pretty high gloss. Finish is
with a high quality car polish which will bring up the final shine and show all the boo boos.
I use a little 1/4 sheet makita OS which saves me arms quite
a lot of work.

Once we got the go ahead on the guard i will cut it but meanwhile theres plenty to do and
usually about now I will wire up the control plate, sand and buff the necks and fit off the tuners.

Mext jpb is to get the neck holes cut. As there usuually is a little wiggle factor I always line
things up pretty good with a laser to ensure the holes in the neck match the holes in the body.

Clamp it up so nothing moves

Punch a set of marks on the neck.

Everything looks good to go so I can pull the neck and go over to the drill prees and cut the
screw holes.

T here's the punch marks. I always use a screw that goes almost to the fretboard and
cut the holes accordingly. The first tighten down is done carefully as you dont want that
stainless screw breaking off as it will be a real pain to remove. Once these holes is cut
the neck is ready for sand, buff and polish.

There we go #11 all done ready to rock

Heres #10

#10 rear view

#10 tailpiece

#10 controls

Close up of #11

#10 again
Both these guitars are stunning players. Very light and responsive to play with a very comfy
feel on the 7.25" radius board. The light build has contributed a lot towards the "alive" feel of
these guitars. I got to keep #11 and #10 went to Brent who said a couple of days after he
got the guitar:
"mate, my fingers are red raw from playing this beauty - I can't put it down - simply awesome"

The Telstar - ex workshop end of march 08
This one started life as a standard tele body but i kind of like an offset body.
I was working on 3 tele bodies at the time and decided to get a bit experimental on one.
I got stuck into it with the bandsaw and and tidied it up with the old robo sander. The
offset body and modded lower horn looked kind of cool to me. Got a nice pair of OC Duff
vintage wound tele pickups and the usual gotoh hardware set.

This one will be a twang machine but with a back to basic approach to the finish, look and feel
I want the player to be able to feel the texture of the wood and not a hard glassy finish
that belongs more on a car than a musical instrument

Above - body cut to shape ready for routing

Smoothing in the belly cut after blowing off the roughout with a flap sander
This one is a featherweight - weighs just 1.6 kgs or 3.5lbs - ideal for a tele
I am going to finish this one in danish oil and carnauba wax - I must admit i am a bit over
all the fuss and fadoodle with a high gloss and am going for a more natural look with this one.
The neck is in poly and will keep that gloss but i want to be able to feel the body wood when i play this one

Laid out and find issues with the neck pocket fit. More work but it will come out
pretty good in the end. Also the fret hieghts are all over the place so a good solid
dressing is required. You can see the laser light i use to line her all up.

1st coat of Danish and I like it a lot. 1 or 2 to go and finish off with carnauba wax polish.
Way more sympathetic to the wood than poly which sits on the surface and can chip off.
The finish is part of the wood and it feels like wood to the touch.

Here you can see the profiles and the soft warm sheen of the oil finish starting to
develop afte just 1 quick coat. I have sanded it up to 1500 grit and may sand to 2500
after the final coat and before the wax. Or I may just hit it with swirl remover and buff
that out before the wax polish. I have kept the roundover radius to a traditional 1/8"
radius so the profiles are clearly defined

The texture of the wood is quite evident in this shot. I am trying get a much more
woody kind of feel. Even though the neck is a high gloss poly I reckon its a nice
contrast. I've taken a less is more approach with this one and the matte black guard will
set it off nice.

Side shot of the profile cuts

Cavities ar carefully shielded with copper foil and earth wires are soldered from each to a
central point in the control cavity. The controls and pickups will be soldered into a loop
that termintes there as well. [star grounding]

Using an Electro socket on this build

Setting up the control plate components for wiring.

Control plate wired up ready to go into the body.

mmm dunno whether i like that black guard - Its a cut down standard 50's style guard
[5 screws instead of the usual 8] I am thinking I might go for a different colour.

Roughed out a blank in 12mm MDF and stuck the guard on with DS tape and blocks of 9mm
ply to give a bit of claerance for the router

Taken most of the waste now to tidy up the corners and rythm rout with a 1/4" bit.

There is the freshly cut master template.
You can see the ply blocks still stuck to the old guard.

Ok I had a pice of laminated guard material in "aged" white. I would like mother of toilet seat
but don't have any so "aged" white will do. It will look pretty nice I reckon.

Roughed out the blank on the bandsaw stuck it down to the master with DS tape and here
you can see I have just cut the bevel which shows the laminates up pretty good

Poke through some 1/8" holes

Viola! nice "aged" white guard.

There she is in place and everything seems to line up pretty nice.
Next job is to buff out the headstock and clean up the overspray. I will fit the graphtec nut,
drill the screw holes and bolt the neck on next. After that I can string up and get the neck relief
right. I am used to a headstock trussrod adjuster so doing it with a heel adjuster is new to me.
Can't really load the rhythm pickup until the neck is right. I could mount the rhythm pickup to
the body trad style. That way I can finalise the electronics and set up at the same time.
Doing it that way I can slide the guard in last. Doing it that way I gotta get the rythm pickup position
lined up perfect with the guard before I screw it down. I usually have the rhythm pickup mounted
onto the guard with 3mm adjusting screws so you can change it any time.

Theres a pic of the finished guitar. Plays very nice actually and the body is so comfortable.
Its very light to carry. The OC Duff hand wound pickups sure sound sweet. It's a real players
guitar this one. Its plain looks bely its beautiful sweet tone. Sounds great through the 5E3 and
really sparkles through the 5F4

Twin Teles
The story of Fatman and Myrtle - Due ex workshop Jan 08
I sold my main tele in September 07 and the guy who bought it has a twin brother who wanted a tele as well .
So i began two new projects. A tele for the twin brother and one for me to replace the one I just sold.

Heres the blank for the southern myrtle tele

Template on Fatman blank for markout

The blank all glued up and marked out ready for the bandsaw

The Myrtle bandsawn

Body shaped routed and ready for cavities

Cavities cut and hardware laid out and everything measures up pretty good

Cutting the profiles is almost done - next step roundovers - always a PIA - in some ways I would rather
bind a body

Theres the neck with its shader coats

One coat of sealer down and the neck masked and ready for the gun
At this stage I always wonder about spraying colour over the grain. It's not a eyeball knockout job
but would be a very nice understated look if left natural - oh well

There they are with the last coat of vintage white applied - The clear will be shot in about 2-3 days

Myrtle laid out with basic hardware in place - The gloss has been shot and curing now for 12 days
I will look at buffing it out in about a week or ten days. - as usual there is a bit of fine tuning the fit here and there.
The body looks offset but thats just parralax from the camera angle. All in all a smart looking tele. I am glad
I did one for me in this colour. A mate of mine though is starting to nag me for it already.
Looks like I will need to build another one straight up. I usually dont use solid colour so for me these two are a bit
unusual. Solid colour is more challenging for me tryning to get that dead right over 100% of the body.

Myrtle body buffed out, shielded and the control unit ready go in. Waiting for the Seymour Duncan
Broadcaster & Vintage Rhythm pickups to arrive. This one will be a TWANG monster.

Fatman body all done bridge in we just gotta fit the neck. Its called Fatman because it has a big fat neck and
A pair of Duncan Hot Tele pickups for a FAT tone, Just right for a fat old dude like me LOL.
This one's gonna be mine. HOPES!!

Getting a final fret dress and polish.

Heres Fatman ready for the road - shes very light with a real kickarse tone - spot on for
blues, rock whatever - the boat neck profile is kind of like a 59 roundback, 1" thick at the heel
and the nut. If you like a big sound and a big neck get one of these. I am going to keep this
one as a demo for a few months then it will probably go up for sale.

This is the Myrtle ready for sale. Peter is picking it up in a few days

And thats the end or the beginning of the story depending on who's looking at it.

Ex workshop workshop in late August 07
Tele style Thinline
It started off with this bookmatched maple imported from Vedder Mountain in Chilliwack Canada

Thinline Tele
Mahogany with Big Leaf maple cap.
The chambers have been cut, 1/4" Big Leaf maple cap glued down tight, body shape routed and sanded pretty fine. It's now ready for the neck pocket, pickup and control routs to be cut. Then comes the binding and the "F" hole also needs to be cut. See below for a mock up layout.

That maple cap looks pretty cool. It should give quite a beefy sound with the Duncan 1/4 pound lead and STR-2 or 3 rhythm pickup. I have a chambered maple tele I use quite a bit that has a P90 in the rythm position and it sounds killer. I might do the same with this one. Tossing up whether to go the whole hog and put a modern Tele bridge instead of the cheesy trad pressed steel number shown in the mockup below.

Not sure whether to rear cut the control rout or use the normal steel plate with a stewmac thinline guard. These look cool and a bit different to the acres of plastic used in a standard thinline guard.

There she is, all laid out ready for marking up the body routs bridge holes etc. That neck by the way, is a Warmoth compound radius, Rosewood on birdseye maple. It's a standard thin profile with a single action vintage truss rod adjusted from the peghead. The Gotoh kluson copy tuners are already installed. It is finished in polyurethane. The body gets a tinted colortone guitar lacquer finish. I will probably use the Vintage Amber I put on the swamp ash tele in thefor sale area. I will probably use a bit more red on this one to warm the colour up a bit.

Put some strings on to test the intonation and string relief. It sounds pretty nice accoustically. Bright with plenty of ring and sustain. I think this one will be a great guitar when finished. I got some Seymour Duncan Hots STL[R]-2 so she will be a sweet little arse kicker. Now for the final routs, purfling and binding. I put the bigsbyon there to see what it looked like. It is a little too big with that long brass Gotoh bridge. I will save the Bigsby for another project. So as not to hide too much of that flame I will use a cut down guard, maybe even a clear one.

Just trimmed out the cavities and next step is the binding channels

Just gone past the router to cut the binding chanels. I used to do this with a hand held dremel [shudder]

You can see we got a bit of burning on the end grain. This bigleaf maple is damn hard. It will clean up good with some paper and will be just fine

Lookin like a refugee from casualty, shes got the binding in place and all taped down to set up real good for a day or two

Binding in and I have shot the shaders onto the back and sides now for tape up and shoot the top.

The mahogany back has come up a real treat. You can see the neck all taped down ready for the gun just behind the body
.
I have thought a lot abot the pickups and will use Seymour vintage stacks. I got a gotoh hd steel and brass bridge and will use a set of Kluson tuners.

Wow!! that honey blonde shader really makes that top come alive . This is gonna be one real pretty looking tele. Couple more coats of clear then its into the drying room for month before I buff the finish.
The neck below has been signed and I will put the final clear coats on that today as well. In the meantime I got to finally decide on the pickups and get in the hardware. I decided on duncan hot stack lead and vintage rhythm stack

The neck all done

Neck bolted down and caivities are well sheilded with copper foil. Time to set up the hardware and electronics

There she is ready for the road - actually it is a pretty hot guitar this one - really in your face with the Duncan Hot Stack bridge and a sound as big as the Tanami dersert on the Duncan Vintage Stack neck.

Top

Seafoam Tele

Heres how she finished up . I used Duncan Broadcaster lead and vintage rythm pickups. During a build I think a lot how a guitar will end up and sometimes its different to what I imagined. Sometimes I go back over the notes and think "Oh yeah I was gonna do that" or "mm I'm glad I didn't do that". Sometimes I will use the discarded ideas on the next build. This one turned out pretty nice and ended up using it for around 18 months as my main stage guitar. I got some crazing on the back of the body were I rubbed it out too hard and the finish crazed when it cooled off. I used hat as an excuse to hang onto it plus I needed a good solid tele at the time

Pics from the build
Solid 2 piece Myrtle body. Myrtle is kind of like Alder in many respects. It is tight grained and light with just a little more pink than alder.

The neck is again a Warmoth Rosewood on Maple, compound radius neck which is dream to play on. It has a standard thin contour with 6150 [jumbo] frets. The bridge there didn't end up on the guitar. I ended up using a Gotoh HD with stainless saddles

Repro gotoh heads are planned

You can see the forearm contour and it also has a tummy cut to accomodate my fat belly. I will probably finish this in either a Brit Racing green or a deep bottle green. It will have a customised strat style Vintage pearl guard.

Pickups at this stage will probably be Seymour Tele stacks. Although I have a few spare hotties lying around waiting for just such a project. This one is gonna be the hotrod tele I always wanted but never owned.

You can just make out the reshaped headstock in this pic.

Finish is on!
After a couple of weeks in the office it will be ready to buff and pollish.

Wow, love that seafoam green. I always wanted a guitar in this old Fender colour. I cut a uni rout at the neck. You can get a mini, humbuck or P90 into that rout if you want to swap out the SD STR2 that is going in there. The guard will be a custom job. Tele-esque but a liitle different.

Got to strip off the masking over the pocket and the neckplate rout on the rear. Still need to finish the steel slab neckplate on this one. The front needs cutting and the plate is still to be pollished and plated.

Colour is commercial acrylic with clear colortone water based guitar lacquer on top. Got the SD ST2's and all the hardware. This one will bo heading out the door in the 2-3 weeks

Top

Solid Mahogany - Based roughly in the Gibson Blueshawk shape

Here's some pics from the build

String up test - The Schaller Roller bridge and Grover locking tuners make this guitar very stable. I had the intonation and setup done within 5 minutes and it sounds very loud and ringy accoustcally. A very good sign that this one is going to have the "tone of doom". I have a pair of Seymour Vintage P 90's for this one. Next job is to pull it down and prepare the neck and body for spraying.

Had some bits of Mahogany left over out of the slab I bought last Autumn so I lammed up a 3 piece solid blank and cut this body. You can see one of the the joins on the bottom bout. You cant see the glues lines on the rear so will leave that as is and prolly go over the front with a 50's style car colour maybe Brit racing green or a deep plum colour. Will use a white mother of toilet seat guard. She will look pretty smart sporting the Schaller roller bridge and SD Vintage p90's. Got a Warmoth strat maple/rosewood neck to go on this one. The stock was a big old 70's CBS slab which I cut down a bit to make it balance with the small body better. Man those CBS Strat stocks are big. I reckon they only look good on a big old Jazzmaster or Jaguar body.	0
Neck pocket Routing All set up ready to cut the pocket. You can see there is no chance of anything moving as it is down real tight. Before clamping I use DS tape to sit the template down so it don't move when I apply pressure on those clamps. Got a routing mat down so we don't pick up any dags off the bench top when it is tightened down.
Pocket cut. Damn! the binding pulled up when the cutter hit it. Restuck with masking tape holding it in place pretty tight. There is always something new and fun in work like this. oo

Patterns Just cut the patterns to make the templates for routing the control and pickup cavities. The guard is done as well. Next comes the tricky bit of making it up into masters out of 9mm ply. From them I will cut 12mm MDF working copies. I don't like working with master templates cos if you wreck it you gotta do the whole thing from scratch again. ooo
She'll look something like the above.

Top

Hawk Junior Thinline
Another killer Big Leaf Curly maple cap from Vedder Mountain, Canada, on a Mahogany body. That kind of swirling flamey pattern towards the front of the quitar is known as spalting and makes very cool patterns when you get in close. Some of it will get covered up by the pickups and guard.

The design is based on the old Gibson Blueshawk with a string through body, Hipshot "Hardtail" bridge. I will use Seymour p90's with cream covers. There are 3 single coils to choose from trad, hot and very hot and a few humbucker options as well. Probably will go for hots as the trad style can be a bit nasaly and bright. Although with all that mahogany around them, trad's might be pretty warm

I have a real nice Warmoth mahogany LP Style neck with a cool curly maple laminated headstock I am going fit to this guitar. The resemblance to the gibson ends here as it is a bolt on 25 1/2" scale. The wiring will be quite different to its antecedent as well.

Warmoth neck Rosewood on Mahogany with curly maple laminated headstock. Compound radius 10" - 16" with 6150 frets [jumbo's] Scale length 25 1/2" and its a bolt on job


Next stage Neck pocket cut and binding in. Just went over the top face with my brand new veritas cabinet scraper. Suer beats the hell out of sandpaper. Still a few small details to take care of before the initial string up. Cut the neck bolt holes, mount the Hipshot Hardtail string through bridge. Next is to finally decide on the pickups, cut the routs, design and cut the custom guard. I am more and more leaning to using min humbuckers in this one. I really the cutting ballsy tones of the Old Gibson Firebirds and Seymour Duncan have a vintage model I can try. Maybe Dimarzio's plain mini might look better without that big g "S" stamped onto the front of the SD unit.	00

I must catch up with this project and get some more shots up. I have done quite a lot since the above shot was taken. Here you can see that I have cut the control electronics access port.

Below are some shots of the finished guitar Ive missed out most of the finishing, strinup testing etc pics on this build. I ended up using seymour 59's instead of P90's I must say that this one has surpassed my expectations on sound and feel. It is a beautiful guitar to play and has a bright vintage jangle and excellent sustain. It has a warm sweet tone from the neck to die for and a raw, ball busting rocking blues tone from the bridge. I love this guitar and its going to be hard to say goodbye when she goes

Top

Top