72 Thinline/Custom/Deluxe Parts Guitar

[tlguitars]

Building a great parter (as E would say it) for a regular set up client of mine.

Ordered so far:
Fralin P-92 black covering
Duncan Antiquity Tele Bridge
72 Thinline black matte pickguard neck humbucker only drilled
C neck, 1 11/16 nut width, bone nut, Compound 10-12 radius Rosewood Fret Board from Guitar Mill. 3 weeks out
72 Thinline body, T-Style Hollow with neck humbucker route, and standard tele bridge route in Ash. 3 weeks out

More to come when they arrive.

[Eben]

RIGHTEOUS, T!!!

If there's one guy who gets my juices goin' when he builds 'lectric, you're him;
Right on!!

E

[Dennis Mitchell]

Yep....gonna be watchin' this one!

[tlguitars]

Neck and body to ship at the end of the month.

Customer has the Pick-Ups in hand and we've decided on paint and binding. Going to be Jet White Nitro with Black binding and a simple B/W top purfling just to frame it in a little. I'll get to bind it after the body arrives. We're going to leave the neck natural and put on Chrome Gotoh Delta mini tuners with ebony buttons.

[tlguitars]

Got the body in the mail, and was hot and cold. The body had a crack in the back. Looked like it was a construction error. There were stress cracks in the wood that were visible at the end of the guitar. After looking closer at what I thought was 1 crack, turned out to actually be 3 cracks. So I thin CA'd them and they should be good as new. This is a solid color guitar so I'm only flush sanding and not worrying about the glue that remains.




I also noticed the top wasn't clamped with a press. I don't clamp with a press (yet) so I'm not worried about it but here it is, I can fill it.


I decided to route the recess cavities for the Strap buttons. I located the center on the upper bout and I noticed that the center lines on top plate and the back didn't line up. So I located from the center of the top plate and drilled the flare with a 3/4 flare bit. I then drilled the rest with a 29/64ths bit.






On the back button I found that my crack was showing (yeah I said it) after I flared it so I dripped some more glue and finished.





On the Upper button I ran into a major issue. Since it was a chambered cavity I wasn't sure there would be enough button material after I drilled the recess, but as this has happened before and I was prepared with an old cavity route template. So I quick made a Button Block that just barely fit and fished it in, glued it up, sprayed it hard and redrilled to clean it out. The cool thing is even if the block slips the flare of the button pulls the block like a clamp. I drilled just past needed depth so there's about a 64th of an inch of air to clamp against.








Finished Button recesses with holes for screws.

[Joe Sustaire]

Very cool fixes and saves Todd, and being from the acoustic side, cool info on the recessed strap buttons!

Joe

[Dennis Leahy]

Nice work, Todd. I too like the upper bout strap button block fill-in technique. This also shows why it is good to have a drill press without "runout" or wobble, as it is difficult enough to get clean beveled holes, and wobbling bits make it all but impossible.

You mentioned gluing your crack. I'm not a doctor, but I will recommend an all-liquid diet until you find the acetone. (yep, I went there. )

Dennis

[tlguitars]

Fit the Pickguard to the bridge tonight. I first check the holes in the bridge I am going to use against the Guitarmill CNC'd holes. JUst off to where I needed to recess the outer holes to allow for the sway. I found center on the top and then center on the Pick Guard and Bridge, and then made them all fit together.



I drilled my holes for the guard, screwed it down and then routed the guard to match the cavity


Then I marked the Bridge location, cut the bulk with my band saw, and filed the rest until I got it tight!!!



Done.