I've built up a handful of the Chinese strat/tele necks (almost all of them were very good quality fit, but most needed fret leveling/dressing...but that's perfectly acceptable to me), and they've varied a bit on nut width and specs. Might have to measure and file a bit to get it right. Anymore, I just buy bulk brass blanks and cut my own. I'm a big fan of brass because it doesn't degrade or lower over time.

Speaking of budget necks, there's a dude on Ebay out of canada that sells strat/tele necks, and usually labels them as good quality with stainless frets. He's full of shit. Buddy bought two and wasn't impressed with them (one was sprouting a fret to the point it needed surgery to reset), and wasn't sure the frets were stainless. He sent them to me to work, and I did my best but they were junk. Terrible grain/quality on the fretboard, frets were butter soft (definitely nickel, and small/cheap at that), and they had a weird radius...13" which is odd. Worse, they came with a shitty poly overcoat sprayed OVER the frets.

If you're shopping for a neck and see that dude's stuff, avoid. The $35 Chinese necks are a better deal, and all the ones I've seen have good fit/finish.

That's probably Southern Yellow Pine - when aged, it's really a hardwood. I learned that from trying to help my grandfather nail some bracing to the floor joists on his house 50 years ago.

got the bridge in today. Decided I'm just going to use the lower 3rd of a black Tele Deluxe pickguard after googling a bit today.

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ETA: 10/8/20.  Not sure I like the Tung Oil finish. Made it pretty dark. I may sand it and apply satin poly instead of risking it getting darker with more coats of tung oil.

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That color looks awesome to me...but then, it's not mine and I don't have to live with it.

If you don't like it, don't settle, because once you get it together, you won't want to take it back apart to re-do it.

Neck comes tomorrow, got the pickguard today.  I'll see what it looks like mocked up.

ETA:  lightened up a bit, everything north of the blue tape on the PG will be cut off..

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Neck arriving today, ordered mini button version of the Wilkinson EZ Loks tuning machines. Also ordered these knobs off Amazon.

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Need to do some more sculpting on the pickguard inside of the horn.

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Neck was complete garbage. Twisted and nut slot in the fretboard was cut so badly it was unusable.

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Update... already have ebay neck taped to a return shipping label. Ordered this neck from Reverb. A lot of good reviews on this neck and their other necks. Decided to try Maple fretboard with aged tint and this one came with a Warmoth bone nut installed. Guess I'll use that Tusq XL one on one of my other guitars.

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That one looks exactly like the one I got. Dad asked me to bring it to him so he could use it for fitting. As I was putting it in the car, I dropped it and put a giant scuff in the very end of the headstock.@#$&+*!

It was on the back of the headstock, not immediately visible. Dad said he thought he could repair it and make it less obvious.

Your Tele is looking amazing! I might have to look for some reclaimed wood now!

Here's one that interested me and the wood should be thick enough

https://www.ebay.com/itm/9-3-Bd-Ft-2-pcs-OLD-GROWTH-RECLAIMED-WHITE-PINE-42-x-2x8-LUMBER/303394413371?redirect=mobile

Got the pickguard cut but dammit I lost the new Switchcraft output jack i bought so had to order another. Pickguard is easy to cut but countersinks for the new screw holes darn near ruined it. Going over to my dad's tomorrow and use his full size drill press to drill the string and bridge holes.

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ETA: deburring the string thru holes on the bridge, just another place where a wound string might hang up or a solid string might be damaged.

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Almost forgot my ground wire for the bridge. Going to drill from under the bridge to pickup cavity and ground it to pickup baseplate. Pickup baseplate will be grounded to controls by the pickup wiring.

Just a thought...

If you had been able to cut the pickguard on an angle, would the middle ply be visible?

Not really important, but it triggers my OCD...lol.

I think I know where I can get some reclaimed 2" lumber for free. Don't know what it is (hope it's NOT oak...lol). I'd have to plane it and laminate it, probably, but it'd work.

This thread is going to cost me money.

So I did the bevel where I recountoured around the inside of lower horn.   I freehanded  it with dremel sanding drum, then finished it by scraping with razor balde.  I left the top with a straight cut merely for my preference.  On Deluxe and Custom Tele's there are unbeveled cuts around the pickups so it just looked right to me.  There will be a few  things that might be secondary projects like that if I don't  like how it turns out.  Also, although  I clened out the string thru holes, this will be built as a toploader initially.  I can't tell the difference and I'm trying to get as much jangle, highs, high mids out of these pickups as  possible so it couldn't hurt IF there was a difference.  Driving me nuts I can't find the Jack I bought for this

Knobs came in and while smaller than I pictured them, they look good.

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I firmly believe that top-loading gets a brighter tone.

Amazon has no idea where muh jack is...  These knobs aren't  going to work as they hit the nuts and when raised high enough to clear them, they look too high.

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Knobs plastic? Can't trim them back underneath with a Dremel?

As far as the jack goes, if it's a standard guitar jack with a thin nut, let me know, because I got one I'll send to you priority if you need it.

That thing looks AWESOME. You've definitely inspired me to build one.

And, you've definitely inspired my wife to divorce me. Two guitars in and she's getting upset because I leave guitars lying all over the place....

Thanks! You're right, i just need some dremel time on them since its only the points hitting the knob. I have 28 spline shaft pots and the knobs are for solid shaft with a set screw.  I found some bakelite knobs at an amp parts wholesaler i might try also.

Update 10/14/20

Everything coming together, neck should arfive this weekend. The lighter coloration on the sides is natural, i used same number of coats of tung oil on all sides. All the hammer marks were on the wood when i salvaged it , unk if from 1920s or from demolition.

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I'm not showing pics of wiring/control cavity, its pretty ugly as my soldering skills are awful. It would make everyone cry...

ETA: going to dab some stain on the wood filler on the neck joint and lower cutaway.  I thought the tung oil would darken it but nope...

That thing is looking awesome! I definitely want to do one like this!

Neck is nicer than i expected. Frets are already leveled and the ends aren't ugly, but frets need a good polishing.  Tint matches nicely with the exposed lighter wood in the body cuts and sides.
I will need to shim the neck laterally but only at the thickness of a couple of Fender thin picks. Not bad for $79+s/h

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That neck looks a lot like mine. And it looks fantastic on that body.

I really like this build.

I'm in the middle of another build right now (not guitar related) or I'd be starting one of those this week!

not a big surprise but my neck pocket is too sloppy.  going to pick up some birch veneer from Lowes and build it back up then hand fit it with a file. I had the same issue on my SX guitar and I used guitar picks to shim it and it worked just fine but this is a nicer build.

Yeah, functionally, that's not a big deal. I understand wanting to make it nice, though.

I dropped the neck I bought off to my dad so he could use it to cut the neck pocket for the Telecaster we're building. He was adamant that he had to have it in order to make the neck pocket, because if it was off, it would ruin the whole guitar.

I assured him that wasn't the case. I'm sure the body on my Muttcaster was made in a Chinese factory to Chinese tolerances. I had to shim the neck to get the strings to line up over the pickups. If you looked at it from the front, I had to rotate the neck a bit "counterclockwise" in order to get it sorted out.

You'd never know it now. Plays perfectly and the shim is not visible. But, there's lots of room in the "tolerances" to make adjustments and get things lined up.

When it comes right down to it, outside of a twisted neck that can't be brought back in line with the truss rod, it's kinda hard to ruin an electric guitar.  Which is why you can buy a super cheap $100 guitar and end up with a nice instrument with a little work and setup.

I mean, if I can build one and make it play decently...

I'm going to use the Espresso stain I got for my pedalboard to blend it.  The frets polished nicely.  Now all I have to do is drill the neck screw holes...



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Neck is bolted on. My wiring is goofed up. Was using the seymour duncan diagram and toggle works correctly but tone is inoperative and volume seems to work as a tone. I'll go back over it this weekend.



Neck is going to need bottom shims. action too low but by much. The offset bolts on my neck joint are going to make shimming it interesting.

Good news: string alignment is good.  Pickups work. Neck is great. It looks better than I imagined.

Finished!

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The pickups are very bright, in the same general vacinity as reissue Wide Range Humbuckers or Shawbuckers. I'll post some sound samples this weekend.

That looks awesome! I love it.

Wow.

That thing looks really, really cool.

I've been telling my wife about the guy on Arfcom buiding the guitar from reclaimed wood.

Finally showed it to her this evening.

"That looks classy", she said. You should be proud. She has a keen sense of style, evidenced by her always telling me I have none! LOL.

Seriously, though, that thing looks amazing. Can't wait to hear it!

Very nice looking!
I notice that Fender is now offering pine as a "tone wood" for bodies.
So that guitar is a trend setter!

We had a huge humidity change last night and I'm very happy with how stable it is. Made some sound clips with no noise gate or filtering so you get to hear full spectrum along with the pick and slides... chain is guitar> pegasus OD (Klon Centaur clone)>Joyo Ultimate Drive (OCD clone)>Line 6 Firehawk FX (Wah pedal, all amp sims)>effects loop-Mooer Radar (cabinet sims, parametric EQ)>Firehawk FX (Delay, reverb and digital recording interface).


https://soundcloud.com/user-871162776/tele-clean-twin-verb/s-D7FWNHTPzCv

Trigger warning for SoloDallas! Pretty sure I slaughtered some AC/DC but in my defense i hadn't played Have a Drink On Me in 33 years and I thought it was pretty good from memory

https://soundcloud.com/user-871162776/tele-clip-dirty-jtm45/s-nskaFuxOtMu

ETA: links fixed

Wow. That thing gets a nice variety of sounds, and that neck pickup sounds FAT.

This is doing nothing to convince me not to build a double humbucker guitar of some sort.

Although I just made another offer on a Squier Strat on Facebook today...

Good work!

It really does sound Fender-like without the hum, though I've never had an issue with hum on well-shielded single coil guitars except at very high gain. Inused the no load tone pot because these PU's were reported to be muddy and dark, but they simply aren't in this guitar so it was unnecessary. Not a fuzz fan, but it takes fuzz very well with the AC30 and JTM45 amps. I need to post a sample with the AC30.

Looks and sounds great! I think a tele will be my next. Not sure if I want to build or buy. Probably build so I can build a butterscotch with black guard tele exactly how I want it. Doing all my research now.


Just put together my 1st partscaster a couple of weeks ago using all Fender parts, other than the electronics, and it came out exactly how I envisioned. It sounds and plays great. Filing the nut slots for the strings was the most nerve racking part, but got the correct files from stew mac and went slow so I didn't file the slots too low and I feel I had great success. Could maybe go a little lower. Just need to shape the nut a little, but going to wait until the next string change.

It's my version of the Pulse guitar, but with gold hardware. It compliments my black strat as well. Black one was bought.

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Nice!

The Pulse Strat looks great. Which body and neck did you go with? I've put together three Strats with Fender parts and they have worked out really well.

Your Tele looks awesome and sounds great. Post up more sound samples when you can.

Thanks!

Its a Mexican Strat body, candy apple red prepped for vintage style 6 screw trem.

12" radius, 22 fret, roasted maple neck. I freakin love the roasted maple neck. It looks so good in person.

The few roasted necks I have played at a local shop were very smooth playing. All of my current guitars are nitro finished and they can feel sticky at times. I may have to pick up a roasted and try it on one of the Strats.

The black strat has a gloss poly on its neck front and back, but does get a bit tacky at times.

The roasted neck is gloss poly on the fretboard, but a satin on the back. Not tacky at all.

I have no regrets with this neck so far. My favorite part on the guitar.

It's so great that Fender sells all their parts on their own website. They make it too easy to piece your own together.

On cutting nut slots, there's a lot of how-to's and some good tips (the ground flat carpenter's pencil trick is a great one, if you have the means to make one) on Youtube. If you don't have a large sanding surface to make one, a great way to get good results is a sacrificial plastic nut to pre-stage your grind & cut.

I did this for years, and it's very easy. Ebay has cheap nut blanks (plastic) for next to nothing. Buy a bag of them, and grind one to fit your neck as close as you can reasonably get it, with strings on guitar but pulled aside. When you have it close, lay the strings on the nut in approx where they'll be, tighten them up to close to playing tension, and look at how high they are off the first fret. The countour will be ballpark when you have about 3/4 the string's width off of the first fret (so close to a full string, but not quite should fit under the string in question at the first fret.

Then, you can slot this sacrificial nut if you like, or use it as a template to grind the real one (brass, bone, graftech, etc). You'll only need a small groove to sit each string into it's correct position this way, and then you've got the sacrificial nut to keep back and use for the next time you repair or replace this guitar's nut. Takes a lot of guesswork out, lets you practice a bit, and know that you're where you need to be before going crazy on an expensive nut or one you only have one of. When it's time to grind your real nut, you can use vice grips to clamp the good one to the template and grind down to reasonably close before separating them and finishing up.

For shaping, a disc/belt sander combo from Harbor Freight with an oxide belt/disc is the way I roll...cheap, effective, much easier than by hand or on the guitar (which I'd never recommend). And, for god's sake, don't glue the shit out of it...it only needs to stay put a tiny bit, not welded in there. You should be able to easily knock it up and out with a tiny chisel blade down the line. I hate it when they glue them in all crazy....seen cracked wood and ruined slots as a result.

And, the big rookie mistake is cutting & slotting the nut dead level with the fretboard. It should have a bit of a bevel, so the leading edge is holding & intonating the string. Even a lot of guitar companies get this wrong from the factory.

If you don't want to buy expensive nut files (I own some but got by for a long time with this trick), buy some straight feeler gauges from HF or Amazon. $5 will get you a set. Take a dremel cutting wheel and make sawteeth by nicking the edge of one of the feeler blades (about every 1/16" of an inch). Use a file that's .002" over your string width...so a .013" for a 11 gauge string. These will file plastic/bone/brass very easy, and straight. I use them for up to 18-20 guages, and then use rounded or beveled needle files for the wound strings.

You should name it "Barney" for "barn wood".

Good info! Thanks!

Well crap. With this info now I need to get some blanks to practice with and swap out a couple plastic nuts for bone nuts.

My three Partscasters. Im going to be changing the top one over to gold hardware soon.

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Love them!

So I'm not the only one who loves gold hardware.

Most I talk to do not care for the gold, but I just love it.

I like gold hardware when it looks classy and fits the build like your red guitar.

The top one was built around a left over loaded SRV pickguard I had after selling off a couple of other Strats. I'm going to put gold on it to be more like the SRV #1. The surf green started with me buying the birdseye neck to swap onto the one in the second picture. Ended up not liking the neck swap and basically rebuilt a Custom Shop 59' reissue instead and per the factory build sheet it had gold hardware so I put gold on it. I was originally going to go with chrome but have to admit the gold is growing on me.

Guitar parts are almost as bad as AR parts for growing new projects. And now because of this thread I want to build a Tele. Thanks a lot guys.

Except for a set of tuners, I have enough parts to build another Strat style guitar. It would be pretty crappy, but I could do it.

I was partial to "Barnburner."

Yeah, that's perfect.

There's several sellers on eBay that make custom headstock decals. You should get one made with "Barnburner" and put it on your guitar.

One idea i saw is to use maple cutting boards for the body. Use a thick one to chamber out heavily  and top it with a thin one.  Look in the knife forum for the olivewood handled Opinel knives i photographed on top of olivewood cutting boards. I could see topping a chambered maple body with olivewood.

That's a fantastic idea that will likely cost me money.

Its one that could cost me my life if the 'ol lady finds out i pilfered her nice olivewood cutting board for a guitar body.



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"Honey, why does your guitar smell like peppers and tomatoes?"

Thank God swamp ash doesn't resemble...

So, in comparison to my traditional Tele, this one leans harder toward Marshall JTM45 and Vox AC30, and takes fuzz better.  For overdrive, the Colorsound Overdriver, which hates my other guitars, sound great with it.  It doesn't like my OCD clone beyond 25% gain, but that's not unusual.  Tubescreamer and the amp's OD sound the best together.  For the most part, it retains much of the Tele spank in the bridge and middle position, with a thicker tone in neck position.

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That looks & sounds great. Nicely done!

One of these days...