My next Telecaster....a pictorial. 4-27-23 "Final" update

[MichaelW]

Well, I decided to sell my Nash T-63 and build one to replace it.

The Nash is a killer guitar but at the end of the day, it's a 2k+ parts caster. And my "DIY or Die" ethos carries over to my guitars that I are within the scope of my skills and tools, I'd rather be playing one that I built. I know I can build a 60's style Tele that plays and sounds better than even the Nash.....so away we go!

This is yet another "experiment" of sorts in "aging" a shiny new body.

With lessons learned from my Strat project I decided I "needed" a 60's style strat with a rosewood board in Candy Apple Red to go with my CAR 60's Strat.

So far all I've got is the body and a set of Wolfetone Pickups. I got his "Tele Cub" and his "Rabid Bitch" bridge pickup. The neck is ~7.5k vintage output and the bridge is ~10k for a hotter output. It's a bit hotter than the Lollar "Special T" bridge pickup I have in my other Tele.

The body, once again I'm starting off with a GFS XGP body. I continue to be impressed with these for the price. For $89 they're every bit as good as the Mexican made Fender replacement bodies. They're vintage spec with period correct radii and contours. The only area that I have to complain about is the neck pockets generally need a bit of cleaning up and depending on the neck used, might need to be shimmed. But that's true of MOST aftermarket bodies.

These are solid alder with a poly finish that's surprisingly thin and well done. I didn't want to invest hundreds of dollars in a nitro finished body, but it's always an option down the road.

So like my Strat, I wanted to "age" the bright glossy finish a bit. On my Strat I was going for a "closet classic" kind of look. But I think I wound up buffing it back more shiny than I wanted.

On this one, my plan to take a little bit further with the aging. I'm not a fan of super relic'd guitars as they really look artificial to me. But "lightly aged" is something that appeals to me (and also lets me bang the guitar around without worrying too much about dings hahah).
The plan is to knock the shine off to a dull satin then buff it back out by hand to a duller aged look.

So first step was to knock the shine down. I decided to start with 800 grit wet sanding. I did the first couple of passed with my DA then finished by hand.

I also took down the armrest area to sealer coat. Still deciding how far I want to go with that.

This is how it came out of the box. There was one wrinkly spot in the finish under the control plate. If I were going to build a "new" guitar I would have sent this body back. But since I was going to sand it out anyway it didn't make any difference.





After my first pass with the DA.





Cutaways are a biotch.......also polyurethane dust is nasty stuff.....



Ok, done for today, my finger tips are raw...heh.



I've got some pictures of guitars that are some examples of where I want to go with this, we'll see how well it works.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to get poly finish to "check" correctly like nitro, so I'm not even going to try.
I've seen some videos on Youtube of people that have tried it and it looks too goofy to me.

I have a Warmoth neck ordered. 59 neck carve, straight 10" radius, slab rosewood, 6105 nickel frets. Unfinished. I have some ideas on staining the neck finish that I'm going to try and will do a tung oil finish on the back of the neck. I'll go a gloss lacquer on the front of the headstock. I also need to re-think my logo to see how it fits better on a Tele headstock.

Stay tuned.....more to come!

 

[swyse]

Exciting stuff! I loved seeing your strat come together. I haven't built up a parts guitar in a long time, but your strat thread had me itching to put something together, I'm sure this one will do the same.

 

[almondcity]

Man I've heard so many conflicting reports on the GFS bodies. Disstressing it is a cool idea, I hate shiny guitars. Will be following this thread closely

 

[MichaelW]

Man I've heard so many conflicting reports on the GFS bodies. Disstressing it is a cool idea, I hate shiny guitars. Will be following this thread closely

They sell a coupe of different kinds. The "USA Spec" XGP bodies are what I've used. So far so good.

 

[MichaelW]

4-2-23 Update:

Well I decide to whack away a bit more on my Tele body.

Before doing anything else to it, I needed to rub it out a bit a see if the sheen was where I wanted it.

This was how I left it after wet sanding it last time....



I used some Meguirs "medium cut" polishing compound, holy crap what a mess it made with my buffer, I was polka dotted by the time I was done.



Testing a spot under the pick guard by hand


This is where I ended up. It looks about right to me, what I was going for, but it's hard to tell until I get the hardware and pick guard installed.





still a lot of clean up to be done at this point.

Next up was some dinging.....with my implements of destruction....


I have to say, it's really hard to relic a polyurethane finish. I don't think I'll try it again.




I rubbed a little brown shoe polish into the dings to give them a bit of color and then I painted the pickup cavities with MG Nickel Shielding paint.

Once that's dried I'll clean up the compound mess and buff it out with some carnauba wax and then I think I'm done with the body.
I'll have to order a pickguard, bridge, control cavity plate next to see if I want to do anything else to the body.
Stay tuned.....

 

[Harry Klippton]

I needed to rub it out ....

 

[MichaelW]

I figured some 13 yr old might have a snicker at this........

 

[szukalski]

There's a 13 yr old inside all of us.. (hopefully figuratively!)

 

[Guardians of the analog]

There's a 13 yr old inside all of us.. (hopefully figuratively!)

 

[MichaelW]

4-8-23 Update

So made a bit more progress today.

I mentioned above that I had ordered a Warmoth neck for this project. Which is still probably at least a month out from shipping.

In the meantime, I found an interesting seller on Reverb that sells some very nice necks at a super affordable price.
They looked good so I rolled the dice and ordered one.

I was so impressed that I went back and ordered another for my "other" Tele project.
I actually ordered two more necks they were so affordable. If you put one on your "watchlist" he'll send you an offer with a discount.

These are allegedly made in Japan necks that he finishes in nitro and also levels and dresses the frets. Many of them come with finishes so they're really ready to be installed.

Anyway, the first one I got was a roasted maple/slab rosewood board neck. These might be "blems" that he then works, I don't see how else he could be selling them so inexpensively. Good quality wood and the fret work is amazing.

I'm not yet 100% sure this one is going on the red Tele yet, but I'll make a final decision when the other ones I ordered show up.
The fit is a bit loose on the Red tele body but I don't think the issue is the neck but rather a loose neck pocket on the body (more on that later).

It's a nice piece of wood but there's a couple of mineral streaks on the headstock which makes me think these may be blems.



Check out how well the fret ends are dressed, that's better than I can do myself.


The board has some nice figuring...


I'm planning to do a Danish Oil finish on the neck except for the headstock. which will be a gloss nitro.
Here's a little trick I learned masking off the headstock for spraying. Instead of razoring off the tape, use a sanding block and some 320 or 400 grit and "sand" the tape excess off at an angle.





You end up with a nice "feathered" edge for shooting the finish. When you're done with the finish "feather" the edge with some 800 grit before removing the tape and you'll minimize the chances of "lifting" the edge of the finish.



After misting the headstock with a couple of coats of nitro, I'm positioning the waterslide logo decal here. I haven't been happy with the last couple of Tele's I did and how the logo looked. So this a new placement.



Decal in place here. ready to start building up the top coats. I'm aiming for 12 coats. 3 coats a day with a couple hours in between each coat and some light sanding between each 3 or 4 coats. At least that's the plan, we'll see how well the heat and humidity here decides to scoff at my plans.....


Next up, I got a distressed bridge plate off Reverb. Still waiting for my brass intonated saddles to arrive.

Getting the bridge plate lined up correctly on a body that doesn't have mounting holes drilled can be a bit tricky.
This is my process. I use wooden cotton swap sticks to line the bridge up with the string through body holes. There's still going to be a little play but I line it up next with the neck pocket. I generally don't use a body centerline because the pocket can be off by a few mm and mess you up. So I let the pocket dictate where everything is going to go. I "think" I got it right heh, we'll find out.



continued in next post....

 

[MichaelW]

Once I have it pretty much in place I hold it with painters tape.
Then it's super important to get the pilot holes dead in the center of the bridge mounting holes. Using countersunk screw's you can move the bridge out of place pretty easily by a slightly off pilot hole.

I use a centering bit like this.


Then I'll countersink the pilot hole with a countersink bit.


You want a nice clean hole, that's chamfered and centered.



Getting the first two in place is the hard part. Once those are in and holding the bridge in place, the other two are easy peasy.



So, I've been going on and on about how impressive these GFS XGP bodies are. Well, I'm gonna walk some of that praise back a bit.
Have now worked on 4 GFS bodies now, the consistency between 4 is pretty varied.
The Cobalt Blue Filtertron route body that I got for my other Tele project is a much better cut body than this one.

Getting all the hardware and pick guard to line up correctly took a lot more effort than I anticipated. There's some goofiness in some of the dimensions, like the control cavity route. Thankfully, I think I got it all to work but it took a little modifications here and there with the Dremel.



The pickups are the Wolfetone set I mentioned earlier in the thread, can't wait to see how these sound!

Control plate and knobs are Gotoh "relic'd" hardware. The relic'ing is pretty light on this. Lighter than I recall the last time I used them.
Oh and the freaking dome knobs were 6mm not 1/4", so I had to drill them out to make them fit on the CTS pots.

I'll probably wire it all up tomorrow then it will just be waiting for me to finish the neck (or make a final decision which neck this is getting).

Couple more shots of the mostly finished body.







And a couple of mockups of how it would look with this roasted maple neck.





Continued in next post...

 

[MichaelW]

This is the headstock with about 4 coats of nitro on it. Done for today.

 

[MichaelW]

4-10-23 Update

Headstock is done. Once again, surprised at how quickly this went. I think I have a total of 8 coats of nitro. I think I'm probably laying it on a lot thicker with the rattle can than a real sprayer. I just went to knock it flat today to prep it for the next couple of coats and was surprised to find it was covered. So I wet sanded it out with some 1500 grit, then polished, buffed and waxed it.

Now onto rolling the FB edges and putting a finish on the back. Then maybe a week or so of cure time.

 

[MichaelW]

I tried to re-use a previously installed 4 way Tele switch to wire this up last night. I have the worse luck with these. I guess I dropped a blob of solder down into the switch and killed it. Got a new one on the way. Plus my saddles won't be here until end of the week so maybe the week after I'll get a chance to see how these pickups sound!

 

[MichaelW]

4-11-23 Update: Strung her up! Woohooo!

The only thing I was still missing for this guitar was a set of saddles. Welp, turns out I HAD a set of Gotoh In tune saddles in my parts box, buried way down at the bottom.....

So strung it up today.

Yesterday, I finished the back with 4 coats of Danish oil and let it set up overnight. Then applied a coat of carnauba wax for a little extra protection. Neck feels great, like a tung oil finish but without all the hassle.

I also rolled the fingerboard edges, but I think I'm going to have to roll it a bit more.
The neck profile is a nice Fender "C" and "feels" better than the spec's would indicate. It's .83 under the first fret, I usually like a .86-.87 but I should have mic'd it. I could swear it plays like a .86.

I installed a set of Fender "Road Worn" vintage tuning machines. These are a great value for a relic'd set of tuners. About $35 on Amazon. Every bit as good as the Gotoh's which cost 2x. (In fact, I think they ARE Gotohs)
Since this headstock was drilled for modern tuners (10.5mm) I had to use "conversion bushings". Looks good though.





I have to say, I'm more and more unhappy with this body the further I go. I guess I got lulled into complacency after getting two really nice bodies from GFS. This one is out of spec. The neck pocket is goofy. I SHOULD have measured it before banging it up. I would have returned it for another. So, just a word of warning, these GFS XPG bodies CAN be a great value. But at the end of the day, it's a $90 body with the commensurate QC and consistency.

So I decided to make it work (too late to return it now) with some judicious shimming. I used a neck angle shim (turns out I didn't need it) and I used some ebony veneer to shim the one side. A little red sharpie so the overhanging edge doesn't stand out.



I hate it when screw holes aren't drilled on a neck. Here's a shot of clamping it in place to get the screw holes drilled.



Always put a little beeswax on neck attachment bolts so they don't freeze and break off when you go to remove the neck. (Ask me how I know.....)



Since the neck pocket was a bit cattywampus, I decided to only do two bolts first, in case I needed to make some adjustments.


Which turned out to be a good thing.....I loosely string the e strings to check the neck alignment....this is what I was afraid of.



After making some adjustments with the second two mounting screws, I was able to get it properly aligned.



And here she is all strung up.





The pickups are my first experience with Wolftone F-style single coil pickups.
They sound different from my tried and true Lollars. Not better or worse, just different. A little "stringier" if that makes sense.
They actually sound a lot like Fender CS pickups. Whereas the Lollars seem to have a bit more body and mid-range.
I'm actually liking them a lot so far. I need to dial up some optimal amp settings for this guitar yet.

So as I've mentioned in my other builds, the guitar needs to sit under tension for at least week or so before doing a final set up.
I have not touched the nut yet, it's close but it needs some slot widening and lowering a skootch.

I did not touch the frets on this neck, it plays incredibly smooth and the fret ends are well "hot dogged" (as per @Gordo )

I did an action set up to my preference and intonated the saddles. It plays like "buttah".

I'm still not happy about the body but I've decided to live with it a bit before making a decision about it.
If I do get another body I'll probably get a nitro finished one from MJT or BloomDoom. But given how this thing sounds and plays, I may just let it be. It's got all the twang you could want from a Tele but it can also be soulful.

Oh and I decided to forgo the 4 way switching and installed a standard 3 way. As cool as the idea of having the pickups in series, practically speaking, I just about never used that setting.

I'll try to put a demo together of this in my next pedal demo.

Now just waiting for the Filtertrons to arrive for my "other" Tele build!

 

[JamieJ]

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading this @MichaelW - thanks for having us along on your build process!

 

[MichaelW]

I forgot to mention that when I wired it up I installed my recently discovered favorite treble bleed. It's a 680pf Silver Mica cap with a 150k Carbon Comp resistor in parallel. I found this from John Suhr's wiring schematic and it's probably the best sounding treble bleed values I've tried yet. It doesn't mess with the pot taper and the way it lets the highs bleed through when turning down is really very natural sounding. Same tone, just lower volume. It's pretty cool. Works well for both humbucker and single coils.

I've tried this with both Ceramic (MLCC) and Silver Mica and the Silver mica in this case does indeed make an audible difference in how the circuit works.

The tone cap I used is a Russian PIO .015uf cap.

Demo added here:

 

[almondcity]

What was the difference between the sound of the treble bleed caps?

 

[MichaelW]

What was the difference between the sound of the treble bleed caps?

Between the MLCC and Mica you mean? Transparency. The Mica sounds like it has a bit less coloration.

 

[szukalski]

Those fret ends.. it's like high-end Fujigen stuff!