christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

[mistermikev]

just wanted to share my current project and christmas present to myself - 3 teles. Each has a 'milestone' for me as a builder... wanted to challenge myself.

so first up... "The Broadchaser". Planning this to be sort of a 'modern classic' - vintage looks with modern electronics The main milestone here will be doing a relic finish.

This one I'm calling the "Gipsum Les Flaws". Sort of tongue in cheek - not sure if I'll stick with the inlay/name as I don't want to anger the gods. Milestone here will be my first carved flame top. a quilted maple body... laminated set neck, 27.5" scale length baritone.

finally, what I'm calling the "Tuxedo". Milestone being a 30" radius top and bottom. Semi hollow.

that's what I'm aiming for anyway. As always all comments, questions, jokes, asides, bedtime stories, laughs at my expense, completely unrelated content - welcome in my thread.


I'll spare you some gory details and skip ahead a bit...

LES FLAWS:
here is the top/body for the les flaws... really pleased with this top. this is one I got from downhomewoods and have had it for quite a while... just realizing now it's actually quarter sawn. not sure how easy it is to see... but it's got some really cool shimmering fleck.

and a shot of the quilted maple backside for this one:

shot of the neck blank for this one...

a vid of my progress and a song... could say I'm a song and dance man now...

BROADCHASER:
here's a shot of the neck and 'smugglers route' I did for the 'broadchaser':

here's that one with the pickguard... just checking alignment:

TUXEDO:
here's the neck blank for the tuxedo:

shot of the neck and body:

here's a shot attempting to show the radius on the top/back...

another shot looking at the backside:

 

[mistermikev]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

sidenote/btw... think I'm going to use the stk3-b for the bridge on the tuxedo. I had one in a carruthers tele that I loved. was up last night working on a wiring for a 4 way... to split the bridge in pos 2/3 and yield bridge-series-hb/bridge+neck-parallel/bridge+neck-series/neck. Do have one concern tho... the stk3 is a bit taller and I like my bridge set sorta low... only have approx 7/8" depth in the cavity due to the guitar being radius'd and only 1 5/8" at center, and having a trem route under. Will have to pick one up and do a test fit - fingers crossed.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

I fully condone this course of action.

That tuxedo is going to be hot

 

[Mincer]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

I have to say, I love threads like this.

Congrats on challenging yourself and allowing us to watch. I look forward to more pics.

 

[jeremy]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

looks like a good start so far, look forward to watching progress. cool designs too!

 

[mistermikev]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

I fully condone this course of action.

That tuxedo is going to be hot

sorry for belated response... nowadays I just assume crickets when I post on sd... but I apologize for being rude. I very much appreciate the responses I do get so - THANK YOU!

 

[mistermikev]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

looks like a good start so far, look forward to watching progress. cool designs too!

sm as above... sorry for belation. I very much appreciate the support and kind comments. I hope my designs are slowly showing less and less influence of the 'great ones' and more and more 'my style'. essentially all just teles, but hopefully my own style showing thru here and there. thank you again for taking the time!

 

[mistermikev]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

I have to say, I love threads like this.

Congrats on challenging yourself and allowing us to watch. I look forward to more pics.

thank you sir! I very much appreciate folks chiming in. i'm no leo fender or orville gibson... but I did stay at a holiday in last night!

 

[mistermikev]

Re: christmas present to me! building 3 teles.

few updates... did a lil video of joining the top for my tuxedo

here is the result:

put in my f-hole in just 974 easy steps!

and switched back to carving my les flaws:

wow, much more work than I thought! should have done more steps (next time). All things considered I think I did ok for my first carve. still a few spots that could use a little smoothing and I'll knock that out once I put the slope on.