Custom Telecaster Build

Guitar Specs:

• Korina body modeled after a '59 Telecaster, finished in oil.
• Goncalo neck with ebony fretboard and Fender standard thin contour
• 25.5" scale
• 1 5/8" graphite nut
• Gotoh vintage inline staggered locking tuners
• abalone dot inlays and 6105 fretwire
• flamed copper Thinline-style pickguard with matching knobs
• 4-way switch with extra tone option of pickups wired in series
• Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II pickups
• six saddle vintage style ashtray bridge
• Electro-socket output jack
• shielded, cloth lined wiring and copper shielded control cavities
• strings are Ernie Ball Power Slinkies (.11"s)

This is a bit of a tribute page to the great work that went into making my recently acquired Telecaster-style guitar. It was built by BigShooter on the Straight Dope Message Board. The following pictures were all linked to in a thread dedicated to the guitar build, but I thought I'd condense that thread here, where you can see the pictures inline (instead of having them just as links).

So, most of the text on this page is BigShooter's, or slightly edited versions of his text on the original page. All pictures can be clicked on to open up larger versions. This was a fascinating process to watch, and I hope some find this page fun and/or informative!

Pickguard

The first step was to make the pickguard. He bought a copy of the '69 Thinline design and a sheet of 21 guage copper.

Tracing the outside of the template, and marking location of pickup route, screw, and control holes.

The cut-out pickguard next to the template.

And then after the pickguard gets torched!

Body

First we needed to decide which side of the gorgeous piece of black korina was going to be the front, and which the back. I decided on this for the front:

And this for the back:

Once that was decided, he could get to work. He started by attaching the tele template to the body using two screws; the holes will be covered by the neck and bridge once the guitar is finished.

Then, trace around the edges with a charcoal pencil.

The first cut of the wood.

There's an intentional 1/8 of an inch left all the way around.

Then, several runs with the router:

And, a teaser at this point, laying the pickguard on the body:

Next, the template and cutting of the string holes:

The routed out pickup, control and neck routes:

And again, the body with pickguard and now bridge:

Then, rounding the edges with a router:

Some final cutting to be done. First, holes for the bridge:

Then, the hole for the input jack:

Then, sanding and a quick wipedown:

The manufactuer's label:

Now that the cutting's done, it's time to finish the body with Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil Gunstock Finish. First, he attached a makeshift "neck":

Then, apply the oil:

After 7 or 8 coats, it starts to look pretty snazzy:

We bought the neck from Warmoth, and it is gorgeous. Goncalo Alves with an Ebony fretboard:

He finished the control knobs to match the guitar:

Waxed the body:

Lined the control and pickup cavities with sticky copper:

Put in the string ferrules:

Then, all the hardware attached, sans neck:

The Finished Product

So, after all that hard work, the guitar is done: