My telebird project

NoOnesFang13

NoOnesFang13

New member
I bought the parts for this guitar about 5 years ago. Even had pickups made by zhangbucker. But lack of tools and me living in barracks at the time put it on the back burner. But now I finally decided.to stop being lazy and actually get it going.

Body is a swamp ash firebird with telecaster routing. I routed the neck pickup for a mini humbucker in the deluxe style (p-90 sized ring). I messed up on the routing and ended up filling the chips I put into it with wood filler. Drilled the pickup cable routs and output jack hole. Sanded it down. Applied grain filler, sand and sealer, and finally sprayed a blonde color coat. It ended up looking a bit more "whitewashed" looking than I originally planned, and it seemed like the grain wasn't filled optimally. But I ended up liking the look, and call me lazy but it makes it easier on me to not be fretting over the evenness. I guess its what I get for being anxious to do it and it was a bit windy the day of spraying. Oh well.. here's some pictures of the progress.
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Re: My telebird project

cool man, look forward to seeing the finished project. got a neck yet?
 
Re: My telebird project

jeremy said:
cool man, look forward to seeing the finished project. got a neck yet?
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Yeah i have a mighty might amber strat neck. I need to buy some fret files to dress the fret ends. Honestly I wish I just went with warmoth instead of trying to save the money.

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Re: My telebird project

i had a nice mighty mite neck, the fret dressing might be a bit better from warmoth but with a little work the neck you have should be fine
 
Re: My telebird project

Cool project. Glad you're finally getting around to it. I love the look just after the sealer...very rich warm look and really shows off that wonderful grain. But it's gonna turn out great anyway.

Love ash because of its beautiful grain (a pain in the neck to get it completely filled however if you want a gloss finish) and because of its great tone.

Yeah, keep us posted with the progress.
 
Re: My telebird project

Decided to try an get the stuff that worried me the most out of the way. Screw holes for the bridge and neck. I don't have a drill press so naturally I would go ahead and mess it up.

Bridge screw holes went pretty well I think. I used toothpicks in the string thru holes to align the bridge then marked the holes from the bridge and drilled. Looks good I think.

Then the neck holes... the guy who made the body didn't exacly drill the holes center on where the plate holes are. So I measured with my calipers the length of the screw and the thickness of the neck pocket. The subtracted to get the depth I needed for the hole. Well I once again wasn't paying close enough attention and drilled too deep and ended up drilling into the fretboard.

So any ideas of how to fix my screw up?

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Re: My telebird project

No need to replace the neck. Just fix it. And don't beat yourself up...we've all made mistakes in working on guitars.

Use a smooth metal object (like the top of a nail punch or any smooth slightly rounded rod) to push or gently tap the "bump" back into the fretboard flush with the rest of the fretboard. Make sure that the fret didn't lift at all. If it did, gently tap it back down too. Put a piece of binding tape (or masking tape) over the boo boo to hold it in place and keep the next step from bleeding through. Then drip a small amount of thin CA cement into the screw hole (from the bottom, obviously) and use a toothpick to spread it around. Just enough to slightly wet the under side of the damaged area. Let it harden a couple hours, and add more a little at a time allowing enough time for each layer to harden to give some support to the fretboard (1/16" thick is plenty). When it's cured, take the tape off and, if necessary, sand starting with 400-600 grit and successively up to 1000-2000 grit.
 
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Re: My telebird project

Also, keep in mind that this only affects aesthetics. A boo boo at the 21st fret between the "A" and low "E" strings won't affect the function.
 
Re: My telebird project

GuitarDoc said:
Also, keep in mind that this only affects aesthetics. A boo boo at the 21st fret between the "A" and low "E" strings won't affect the function.
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Thanks for the advice a s encouragement. And I completely agree with this. I don't even play that high on the higher strings. Maybe the 17th fret on the B and high E. The thing that made it worse is I ended up stripping a neck screw as well I figured at that point it was time to call it a day.

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Re: My telebird project

Ended up using a steel d ring to flatten out the bulge. Put in some model cement into the hole and let it dry. Turned out pretty good.

Had to buy some new screws for the neck as I stripped one and got some stainless steel ones for superior tone :jester:

And a mock up of the final product. I have a package from stewmac coming in tomorrow with screws and whatnot then shielding, wiring, and setup
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