Parts ordered

During the week I bit the bullet and ordered the parts from the US.

So,this is how its going to look now -No more "procrastinating" over the hardware colour etc.

I have decided to use the Gold  hardware ,mainly because the Nickle was just too hard to get from one supplier,Cream binding and a Vintage Pearl pickguard.

The top and back will be Tassie Blackwood .I ordered the top from  Bob down at  Tasmanian Tonewoods and the body and back from the Anogate.

I am going to make my own neck.I have a couple of pieces of  Rock maple that I have had for about 6 years  and a birds eye maple fretboard that I will slot myself. 

The switch and knobs might be black to break up the gold a bit.

I  have ordered most of the parts from Warmoth ,(mainly due to the postage cost I was already up for ,for the pickguard.)

The rest of the parts I have ordered from the old  faithfull  Stewmac.

It was an interesting exercise as I have never used Warmoth before  and I did find that the prices are a little cheaper,but we  will see what the service is like.

I suppose its time for some pics

Template making,Gluing and decisions

I have made the Body Templates and the Neck template.I have also glued the Qld maple body and a couple of pieces of Tassie Blackwood for the Top and Back.

I am not sure if to take out the guts of the Qld maple and just glue the back and top onto the edge or leave the back intact and glue the blackwood to it.

I have been hassling the guys on the Tele Forum with questions!

New Build - Electrics this time

Well,its been a while but every thing else has taken over my time of late.

I did manage to build a 5 Watt valve amp in between painting and renovating the house.

Anyway I have had some plans to build a Strat Style guitar and a Thinline Tele for a while now.

In fact I have all the parts for the Strat for a while now, but I will probably concentrate on the thinline for the start.

The body of the Thinline will be Queensland maple with Tassie Blackwood top and back,Cream bindings and maple neck.

I am at the moment trying to decide on the colour of the hardware ,but I think I will wait till I get the Blackwood and see what Gold looks like with it.

I have started making up the Templates .I will take some pics and post them soon

Set Up

Well its been a few weeks now that the guitar has been strung up .

I am not sure that I have it set up properly , although I have followed the info that came with itand artlicles that are on the net.

I still have the action set a bit high .

It doesn't sound too bad ,but it does seem to be lacking something (Might be my attempt at playing it too) and the intonation on the low E string is a little out.

I am tossing up now if I should keep "fiddling" with it, or take it and get it set up or, at least played and looked at by sombody else.

This really sound like a Cop Out hey!

Some Pics

Making music (Kind of)

I have been playing around with the setup for the last few days and I think I am pretty close now. This is a learning curve on its own!

I did have a problem with the intonation but adjusting the saddle and nut a little (and I mean a little) seems to have solved that problem.

I am going to leave it now for a few weeks then go back and finish it all off.

I am still having problems with it staying in tune,but this may settle down with time??

I picked up some U-BEAUT Ultra Shine polish and gave the body a bit of a touch up with it.This stuff really put a shine back into the finish and I am going to try it on some bone to see if it will polish up.

Strung up

I have now shaped the bridge and strung the guitar up.I decided to make up a new nut (which was easier the 3rd time around) because the other one had a crack in it.

The guitar at the moment is all over the place and won't stay in tune.I am going to leave it sit for a week or so ,then go back and attempt to set it up.

This will give me some time to read up a bit on set ups.
I am not real sure about the height of the bridge etc .The Stewmac instructions are good but a bit more info would be good.

I have ordered Bill Cory's book which may give me some more detail on the subject.