Tele Build Thread (FINISHED PICS! 1-23)

[Anonymous]

So I'm building a Tele as I mentioned. I got a nice flame maple neck with Brazilian Rosewood fretboard from Musikraft and a body from HolyGrail Guitar Company. I literally know nothing about the company that made the body, but I got this one for literally half the price of a Musikraft or similar quality body, so I figured I'd try it out.

Anyway, here is the body. It's now with Dan Lawrence, painter extraordinaire, who is doing a Honey Burst finish on it:

The neck had a very light sealing coat of Nitro (except the fretboard of course), which feels like bare wood. I don't like heavily gloss finished necks, so this is perfect for me. Next up for me was to apply an accurate '50s Tele headstock decal to the Musikraft neck and apply ReRanch nitro clear. This time after about 10 coats of nitro, I let it sit for a week and then just wet sanded down the raised decal area with 600 grit until it was almost flat. Then another 15 coats of nitro, waited a week and then wet sanded 800-12000 grit, then polished. The decal area is now completely flat with the rest of the finish and it is very glossy and glass-smooth. Came out great:

Since these pics, it's been a few weeks, but I've also put the TronicalTune Plus system on the headstock as well. There were MAJOR issues with this that I'll get into in my next post....

Steve

 

[Shawn Lutz]

going to be a sweet build. What pickups are you going to use?

 

[Anonymous]

going to be a sweet build. What pickups are you going to use?

I went with the Lollar Special T Series neck and bridge pickups. A bit higher output than the Vintage series - I heard them in another guitar and they sounded really nice.

All the other parts will be Callaham. I went with this kit he makes (although I won't be using the tuners obviously), because I love their stuff:

Callaham Telecaster Kit

Steve

 

[Shawn Lutz]

Callaham makes good stuff for sure. Update the thread when you have it all together. I have one of their steel TP's for LPs

I wish I had the build...I slapped together a bunch of Charvel clones from Musikraft parts. I got burnt out on it and just want to play guitars, build them.

 

[Anonymous]

Callaham makes good stuff for sure. Update the thread when you have it all together. I have one of their steel TP's for LPs

I wish I had the build...I slapped together a bunch of Charvel clones from Musikraft parts. I got burnt out on it and just want to play guitars, build them.

I'm gonna update throughout the process, but it'll happen really quickly once I get the body...

Steve

 

[paulyc]

Sweet !!! I have Fralins in my ESP Tele and they're awesome. Can't wait to see yours !

 

[Anonymous]

Part II - Adventures with the TronicalTune Plus system AKA WTF is Musikraft thinking:

So... when you order the TronicalTune Plus, you have to specify the specific layout of the tuners by selecting a particular system (C, C1, C2, C4, C5). The reason for this is there is a PCB that has the tuner holes cut in it that the Robotuners go into and it must match the exact location of the tuners on your headstock. Now, on the Tronical website, you can select your guitar and they will tell you what tuner system fits. Of course, I have a Musikraft neck, so I can't do that... Not to worry, they provide templates of each system's PCB that you can cut out and test against your guitar. Musikraft says their necks are exact copies of '60s strat necks, so I picked a '60s Custom Shop guitar from Tronical's menu selection and it said I should order a "C" system. Now just to make sure, I print out the C 6 on a side template and test it against my guitar headstock. It's slightly off, but very close. I tried every C template (C1, C2, C4, C5) and none were anywhere near as close as C. I (stupidly) figured it was a printer scaling problem because it was so close, so I went ahead and ordered the C system.

I think you see where this is going...

So Tronical sends me the system directly from Germany on Friday and I get it Tuesday, with free shipping (how the hell is that even possible?? Damn Germans get shit done! ). So I break it out (nicely packaged BTW) and get the PCB lined up on my headstock and the tuner holes are off from the PCB just enough that there is no way to get the tuners into the PCB and the headstock. Great... So, as it turns out, Musikraft necks have the tuner holes (every neck, not just the Tele, I checked) slightly wider apart than a '60s Fender neck, and in fact, there is NO TronicalTune Plus system that will fit one of their necks without modification. Why the hell would Musikraft fiddle with the goddamn tuner to tuner distance. Mindbendingly stupid if you ask me because you are gonna have issues with vintage Klusons as well...

Ok... so now I have to decide if I want the TronicalTune Plus system enough to risk ruining the neck. Well, of course I do! So now, I like the pcb up in such a way that I can actually almost fit the middle three tuners in correctly and looked at how much I'd need to ream out the others to fit the tuners. I took off the tuners and the PCB and went to work with my ream. I had to make all the holes bigger, especially the farthest two, but after about 45 minutes of reaming the tuner holes in the headstock. I was able to install the system. Now with ordinary tuners, this would be unlikely to work because the tuner holes would now be too large, but the Robotuners lock into the PCB at the bottom and you tighten a nut and washer on top of the tuner (as with any normal tuner). There is no way for the tuners to move in the hole, so problem one solved.The system is installed in a way that should work (theoretically)...

So now, I read up on how the system works and am checking the lock nuts on each tuner. It turns out the tuner shaft on one of the tuners just spins freely with the system off, while all the other don't move at all. So, based on how they say it works, that one tuner HAS to be broken, since there is no way to tighten a string with it... Great... So I email Tronical's support team and explain the problem and they get back to me and ask for a video showing the problem. (Really???). So I make a video, upload it to Dropbox and send them a link. They view it, apologize for the inconvenience and ship me a replacement for the bad tuner. The Gernan support guy literally packed and shipped it within 15 minutes of viewing the video and it will be here tomorrow. Very good support, that is for sure...

So, that is the whole saga. One problem was my fault (and Musikraft's for ridiculously changing the tuner spacing and saying their neck is identical to a '60s Tele), the other theirs... Now, I can't test the TronicalTune Plus system until I get the body back from paint and install a nut in the neck, but I'm hoping for the best (no more fucked up parts)...

Anyway... here are a few pictures of the TronicalTune Plus system installed after all the annoyance:

And a couple of full pics of the neck just for the hell of it:

Steve

 

[mlamuth]

Man, that is a beauty... congrats!

 

[smdb]

Dibs! lol

 

[Anonymous]

Man, that is a beauty... congrats!

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Dibs! lol

I actually have a very specific use for this one though, so it'll probably stay a long time...

Steve

 

[Shawn Lutz]

bummer. I hope it works for you when you get the body and string her up. I know a lot of LP guys remove the device after a while

 

[Anonymous]

bummer. I hope it works for you when you get the body and string her up. I know a lot of LP guys remove the device after a while

Well, there's no removing the device now, just substituting a new neck .

The TronicalTune Plus is the next gen from the Gibson Mini E Tune (also made earlier by Tronical) and supposedly a major improvement - I guess time will tell!

Steve

 

[Hua and a tele]

That's gonna look killer. I love tele builds

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[Anonymous]

So, some progress has been made. The body is back from paint (by Dan Lawrence - he does such insane work!). It's a nice Honey Burst. I was debating between a black parchment pickguard and no pickguard and so I did mockups of both and have decided to go with no pickguard for this one.

I also decided to go with a different neck. Flame maple, but roasted this time and 22 frets. It's a Warmoth with the headstock adjust truss rod and 10-16 compound radius. It will get the same headstock decal and finish as the other neck and this neck fits the C1 Tronical Tuner setup, which has been ordered. I'm going to sell the other neck with the Tronical Tuners installed - obviously, that neck will ONLY work with the Tronical Tuners now. Hit me up if you want a great neck cheep!

The string ferrules won't fit now that the body has been painted, so I ordered a tool from StewMac that will allow me to manually remove a bit of paint with out chipping so that the ferrules will fit again (They are the correct size for the holes, the paint is the issue). Also will begin the headstock decal/finish process this weekend.


Here are some pics of the mockup. Whaddaya think??

Steve

 

[harsh59]

Wow that is sweet and I'm not even a Tele fan .

 

[gibson5413]

How awesome Steve!!! This looks great!!! I have been really getting into T style guitars over the past year. Yours looks killer!

 

[Rock Bodom]

Cool build, just getting into teles myself and love the look of this. The new neck looks great (I like it having the 22nd fret as well).

 

[mooncobra]

waiting on Henning guitars!

 

[Jeff Hilligan]

beautiful finish and ya that roasted neck looks so cool with the color!