partscaster done!

[CraigB]

Hi all, I just finished this guitar.  The body is a USACG swamp ash, MIM 50's tele neck, SD antiquities, standard 3-way switch and wiring with cap/resistor treble bleed, and fender bridge.  The finish is clear McFadden's oil-base grainfiller, Reranch sanding sealer, translucent blond and clear.  Plenty of mistakes/corrections along the way, but am very very pleased with the final result.

Best regards,
Craig

[simonallaway]

That's beautifully done. It's by far my favourite colour for a Fender. I built my own Tele a while back, but went a bit nuts on the hardware as I wanted H-S-H. But I got bored of it, so now I want to redo it to the same "classic" specs as yours.

Nice work! 

[HotBluePlates]

Awesome!! I've got a Tele that looks exactly the same except is has a rosewood fretboard. Maybe I'll get some pictures up in a few months.

[CraigB]

Thanks for the comments!  HBP, I used "virtual guitar" to design the color scheme and get an idea what it would look like.  Pretty fun program to play with.  I really liked how the mock-up drawings looked with a rosewood board much better, but the guitar was built around this spare maple-board neck.

http://www.usacustomguitars.com/virtualguitar.html

A friend of mine was parting stuff out, and one of the things I got from him was an Allparts compund radius tele neck with stainless frets on a maple board for $25.  That's right, $25!  The idea was I would build a new guitar around that neck, but first I wanted to find out if I even liked how it played before I started ordering hardware, body, etc., so I pulled the neck off my MIM 50's reissue and installed the Allparts neck.  It's OK, I like it, but I really like the feel of the vintage neck with the smallish frets better, so I decided the new guitar would get the Fender neck.

Hey simonallaway, where did you get the bridge for that?  I've never seen one of those.  It kind of looks like a Kahler whammy there.

Best regards,
Craig

[simonallaway]

Hey simonallaway, where did you get the bridge for that?  I've never seen one of those.  It kind of looks like a Kahler whammy there.

You're right (kind of). It's a poor clone of a Kahler. I found it on eBay about 10 years ago for about $30, so I thought what-the-hell. It's only useful when fixed. The rollers resonate at practically any frequency, which sucks all the sustain out of the thing. I had to pinch the saddles to stop them actually rolling. At the time you couldn't get Kahlers at a decent price, but now I believe they are in production again. When I started building guitars in the 80's they were the holy grail of trems (at least in my locality).

[HotBluePlates]

Somewhere, Tubenit might have a picture of me playing my Tele through one of his amps. He gave me some excellent advice and guidance from the start of me considering building a guitar, and I taught him some amp stuff in exchange. He also had some great dyes for the neck.

My guitar started as a Warmoth Ash body and compound radius flame maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. I used the same finishing process it appears you did, as I got my supplies and suggested procedure from Reranch. Tubenit's dye came in handy as a first step on the flame maple, as a little touch of dye followed by sanding both raises the grain and causes the figure to stand out. Then some Reranch neck amber and clear.

I wound up paying probably way too much for Callaham parts for my guitar, but I really wanted to use their compensated brass saddles, so I just sourced everything from them, including a set of Fralin pickups. I keep thinking about putting a new finish on the guitar (probably a metallic finish like candy-apple red or Inca silver), but it would be a shame to cover up the ash grain.

Another change I've been comtemplating is to swap the neck pickup for a Fralin P-90. I played a Tele a long time back when I was in Nashville that had a P-90 at the neck, and it was awesome. If I had 2 nickles to rub together at the time, I woulda bought that guitar. f I pull the trigger on this plan, I'll have to contact Fralin for their suggestion on whether/how to alter the winding on one of their hum-free P-90's to get the sound I want. But since I already have one of their pickups and know how my guitar sounds naturally, it should be a good reference point to work from on modifying another model of theirs.

I'd never owned a Tele before making mine, and it's now one of my favorite electric guitars. I hope you're enjoying yours as much as I am mine!

[CraigB]

HBP, I think you need to do another guitar, this time a sparklecaster with p90 neck pup 

Tubenit's guitars are incredibly beautiful creations, as are his amp cabinets.  Definitely inspiring!

Best regards,
Craig

[HotBluePlates]

HBP, I think you need to do another guitar, this time a sparklecaster with p90 neck pup 

Well, I probably won't get around to refinishing the current Tele. And there isn't money to make a new guitar. Beside, if I added a new guitar to the existing collection, I'd want a Les Paul type, since I already have the Tele and a mid-90's japanese 60's reissue Strat.

The Strat had had it's share of tweaks along the way, although it appears stock. Almost the entire area under the pickguard is hollowed out. And I did several iterations of pickup/electronics changes before reverting back to an essentially stock arrangement.

But since posting about adding the P90 to my Tele, I've almost certainly talked myself into it. The more I think about it, the more I want a sound from the neck pickup that's not typical, slightly brighter, slightly more mids. I'm not looking for high output, but more clarity in the bass and the ability to use the tone control more. I'm thinking that if I talk with Lindy and describe exactly what I want, he'll be able to deliver. Especially since the existing pickup is one of his models, and can be used as a reference for how the sound needs to change.

I wouldn't consider this a way to go, except that I've played a modded Tele with a P90 in the neck and a stock bridge pickup, and the neck p/u had a sound that just can't be replicated any other way.

[tubenit]

HotBluePlates has a nice guitar and he is a great picker! And he taught me ALOT about amps while I showed him just a little bit about finishing guitars.
 

With respect, Tubenit

[HotBluePlates]

Thanks Tubenit!

(He downplays his playing ability all the time, but I've had to stop himon more than opne occasion to ask how he played a certain lick).

I think everyone can see your woodworking skill highlighted by the amp in the photo! One of these years I'll have to get Tubenit to build me a cabinet. Each one he's made has been a true work of art!

[TerryD]

Supernice finish.  Did you have an airgun?

[HotBluePlates]

If Craig did like I did (I think he might have based on the finishing supplies he used), then no airgun was involved. ReRanch sells aerosol spray cans filled with the finish you need to complete a guitar. It's great for people making a guitar or two that can't justify buying a spray rig.

[TerryD]

I did that but got "a little" of the orange peel effect.

[HotBluePlates]

You get orange peel no matter how you spray the finish. It's a result of droplets forming as the finish flies toward the guitar. When I worked at Gibson, the same thing happened with every guitar they made. They had a whole team of guys whose only job was to buff the finish from orange peel to nearly perfect. Where I was in final assembly, we'd touch up any minor scratches until the surface was like a mirror.

To make the process safer and easier at home, you wet-sand until all the orage peel is gone. You move to progressively very fine grit sandpaper, and then finish with a buffing or polishing compound. I used 3M's Finesse-It. It's tedious to apply and buff by hand, but it works and leaves a great finish.

All this assumes you planned ahead and sprayed maybe 4-6 more coats of clear lacquer than you thought you'd need, just to allow sanding without the risk of going into or through the color coat. I boogered that aspect of it in 1 small spot on the back of my guitar.

[FYL]

You get orange peel no matter how you spray the finish.

Let me kindly disagree: you get orange peel when your spraying equipment/method isn't right. A spray can isn't a proper method for shooting nitro, as are high volume booth systems. OTOH, HVLP or conventional consecutive sprays of very thin layers lead to near perfect surfaces after drying/curing. OK, the process take a couple of weeks at best...

[HotBluePlates]

I'm just saying 100% of guitars made at the Gibson factory had orange peel after finishing. There was a whole section of maybe 5-6 guys whose only job was to buff the orange peel out, and they could do that very quickly and have a near-perfect finish every time. There were only a handful of folks that worked in the spray booth, so I know they have an enormous number of guitars under their belt; more than 200 per day for many, many years.

You can probably spray with very little orange peel. There are also degrees to it. But I wouldn't personally worry about orange peel, as long as there are enough layers of clear coat so that you can wet sand to a flat surface.

[TerryD]

"There are degrees to it"

Ok   OK ....so I had a "lot" of orange peel.

This is interesting.

[CraigB]

TerryD, yes, I used rattle cans from Reranch.  Lacquer dries real fast, as you know from spraying it yourself...so orange peel is merely the result of the spray droplets partially drying in midair before hitting the surface.   I built my finish starting with a sanding sealer, color coat, followed by several "dry" coats of clear lacquer.  Once you get a good base to work with, it's easier to start moving the can closer and laying down heavier "wet" coats without worrying too much about getting runs.  When you do this, the newly sprayed lacquer melts into the dry coats, and you get something that looks a little closer to a shiny finish.  Still, it's not very impressive to look at.  It looks like, well, someone did it with a spray can 

I waited 30 days from the time of my last coat and then proceeded to sand the finish flat with wet'n'dry paper (I think I started with 600 grit) and naphtha as a lubricant.  Then from there it was progressively finer papers (as HBP said) and final polishing.  One bit of advice I got that I was glad I listened to:  "stay away from the edges as much as possible with the sandpaper to avoid sanding through the finish."  I got a little spot near the output jack where I went a little too far and had a sand-through.  I considered trying to fix it but decided it was too small to even notice.  Only I know it's there...

It seems like everyone does it a little different, but this is what worked out for me.

Best Regards,
Craig

[simonallaway]

On the tele I posted above I also used ReRanch spray can paint. I had similar experiences to CraigB, but I left it too long (about a week) between colour coats and clear coats. This meant the clear coats did not "melt" very well and actually lifted the top colour coat which meant I had to to let it dry and sand it back. I then had to lay down very very thin coats of clear and let it build gradually.

I also used their vintage amber tint on the neck which came out extremely well for my liking. I don't care much for un-tinted maple necks.

Simon

[Rev D]

 I guess them 6 guys is the reason Gibson charges an extra (typical) 500.00 for any finish thats shiny basically. You'll see the price at MF catalogs and then For colors blah blah blah add 500.00. I suspected that was for the extra sanding and rubbing out the finish, seems a bit expensive, but what at Gibson isn't. I guess HAND anything you can automatically figure it's going to be very expensive for an American made product with our American wages. No whine, just a fact of life, they're still stunning guitars. My BB King model is a 90' but in the rarer (not super rare, but how many BB's you seen in Red?) cherry red and its mellowed real nice, binding is darkening cracking in a few places but not enough to worry about fixing it.

 Anyway, nice Partscaster man! I hope to get my 75 tele done down the road here.

Regards,

D.

[HotBluePlates]

You'll see the price at MF catalogs and then For colors blah blah blah add 500.00.

"Musician's Friend" is anything but your friend.

When I worked at Gibson, an employee could buy any instrument for the same price that a dealer pays. Gibson sets out a "list price" which is a suggested retail price, and sells the instrument for substantially less to the dealer. That allows the dealer to offer a "discount" off of the list price and give the illusion of a good deal while still making some kind of profit.

I don't know if it has changed, but Musician's Friend used to put "list prices" in their catalogs that were higher than Gibson's list price! That way they could offer a "discount" of so many percent, yet still be taking in more money than if they gave the same percent discount from Gibson's suggested price.

Musician's Friend often charges well over what a store charges, and vastly more than what they actually pay. That's probably because typical music stores slash the prices of big ticket items almost to their cost, and earn the bulk of their money on strings, picks, books, drumsticks and the like. You're less likely to buy small price/high profit items from mail order.

Anyway, we're far afield from the original topic.

[Fresh_Start]

Craig - love the look of that Tele!  It's classic

My experience with ReRanch rattle cans spitting and producing orange peel lead me to buying an air compressor.  Did it make any economic sense?  No, but the finish turned out much better IMHO.

FWIW using Birchwood Casey's TruOil to finish a guitar neck gives you a really good feel.  That's what Ernie Ball necks are finished with.  It's easy to apply and requires much less effort to buff to a fine finish than nitro.  I'm not sure I'd ever finish a guitar body with it though...

Cheers,

Chip