Cabronita Thinline Tele Build

fitz

fitz

Ambassador of DIY
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Here's the build pics so far on my almost done tele build.
Posted already in the British amp forum I also frequent, so thought I'd share here too.

Kinda started when I traded a pedal for this no-name custom tele neck.

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Had this ash slab from an abandoned idea, and picked up this purpleheart board from the local Rockler store.

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Like I said, it's almost done.
I was figuring a fairly high chance of potential catastrophic failure on this, so I didn't post any pics until I actually had a functional guitar.
Here's how it looked the other night before I took it all apart again for a final coat of clear.
The back of the body and neck are stained with "Phantom Gray", front of the headstock is stained black (awaiting a custom decal), and the purpleheart cap is nothing but clear lacquer.
Pups are GF'Trons Alnico V 6.6k / 6.0k set from Guitar Fetish, as is most of the hardware.
(Its' a clear pickguard with a black beveled edge, if you're wondering...)

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Ok, here's some of the build pics.
Cut the 38" purpleheart board in half and squared the sides.

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Re-sawed the halves into bookmatched planks.

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Borrowed a planer from my brother and milled down to 1/4" thick.
Shown with a little water on the wood to see how it would look with clear finish.

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Edge glued the two side panels.
The panels will get joined when they're glued to the body.

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Pretty! I have always liked the Tele/Filtertron combination from a purely athstetic view. Always wanted to do a Tele with Filtertron/Single Coil combo and Bigsby B5.

**edit** I found a photo of how I'd set it up, as there are many variations.


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The ash slab I had was a full 1-3/4" guitar thickness, So while I had the planer, I ripped the slab back into 3 planks and milled doen to 1-1/2".
Glued it back into a panel.

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Already posted this pic in the guitar thread, but here's the parts ready for eminent destruction.
I didn't like the finish on the neck, so that got stripped and sanded.

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To pull off all the steps for the semi-hollow body, I made a set of templated that have common reference points (blue dots) to attach to the ash slab.

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Started milling with the rear access hole.
Foerstner bits to hog out material and the router to trim up the edges.

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The only purpose for this template is the recess for the rear access panel.
All the other templates get used multiple times.

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Hogged out as much of the cavities that I could reach before rough cutting the body shape.

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Guidelines to bandsaw the rough body shape.

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Now the drill press could reach the rest of the body cavities.

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Cleaned up with the router.

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Milling the sides on the router table.
Body template is face down riding the shaft bearing on the router bit.

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2nd cut is the body face up with a top bearing bit riding the 1st cut.

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With the body shaped and the cavities in, it's almost time to put on the purpleheart cap.
But first, I cut the F hole while I still had access to the panel.
Drilled a bunch of holes, connected the dots with a hand coping saw and sanded to the finished shape.

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Rough cut the cap enough to get some clamps in there for the glue-up.

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A little glue, a couple of clamps....

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While that was curing, I got started setting up the neck pocket rout.
Using the actual neck, I set some guides that will act as router guides and spacers for the depth of the cut.

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Added some more random spacer bits to make a wide stable base for the router to ride on.

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Neck rout milled to depth.

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Left some extra material on each side so the router didn't blow out any unwanted chunks.
That'll get trimmed down later.

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Trimmed down the cap edges with the bandsaw and oscillating drum sander.
A little water again to show the grain.

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Stuff arrived from GFS right on schedule.
Here's an "as is" mock-up.

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Here's how I get the strings ligned up with the neck.
Two 24" machinist scales set with 12-3/4" opposing each other on the 12th fret, centered on the neck and down the centerline of the body.
Lock all this in place, drill the neck, and install the neck plate.
I locate the bridge AFTER the neck is on.

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First little setback...
One of the neck screws snapped off flush with the body.
Drilled little holes around it until I could get some needle nose pilers in it and twist out what was left of the screw shank.

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Bored a nice clean 3/8" hole through the F-up.

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Cut some 3/8" plugs from a scrap of ash left over from trimming the body to shape.

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Glued in a plug from each side, trimmed and sanded flush.
The neck plate will cover the plug on the back...

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...and the neck will cover the plug on the pocket side.

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Now back to the regularly scheduled program...
Next up is the pickup routs.
Added some spacers to the template to get the correct cut depth.
Again, Foerstner bit to remove as much as possible, and router to clean up the leftovers.

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And, then the 2nd little setback...
Router bearing slipped under the template on the first cut and did this.
Took about a second to gouge this out.
Final depth cut followed the template, so the bottom is the correct shape.

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Done with the router, so I cut off the index tabs and got a scrap of already laminated purpleheart cap on ash.

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Trimmed the repair piece on a belt sander until it fit snug on the curve of the F-up.
Glued it in a little high and wide to trim flush later.

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Used a little sanding drum on a drill stand to smooth off the patch.

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Sanded the top of the patch flush.
Grain doesn't match, but you never noticed in the pics from the 1st post, did ya?

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Now to drill in the bridge and the string through holes.

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Used the drill stand gizmo again for the string through holes because the drill press throat would never reach that far into the body.

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Drilled in the volume knob and toggle switch holes and did another mock-up.

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Stained the headstock face black and masked off the backs to clear coat seal the cap and head face before staining everything else.

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Backs stained phantom gray and a few coats in of clear on everything.

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Drill bit kinda wondered through the 1-3/4" body drilling the string through holes.
Need to enlarge to 1/4" for the ferrules anyway, so I made a little drill jig from a piece of aluminum plate as a drill guide.

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And a few more coats of clear.

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So, we're back where we started.
Here it is strung up on the bench before the pics in the first few posts.

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I've since taken it all apart for some final coats of clear.
Custom decal showed up in the mail today, so I got that on and proceeded with the final finishing.

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And here it is as of a few minutes ago.
Clear coat done and waiting to cure before final assembly.

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