paintin' it up real nice

So in my last installment, i showed you a picture of the wood with its previous crappy paint job splayed all over its hapless form. The poor thing was scared. Its last owner had chopped and scraped it all up on purpose to make it appealing to chronofetishists. After much sanding, I was able to bring it back to its pure form. But now it lay naked, frightened even, before me. So here's how we went about restoring this fine piece of swamp ash.

1.) Purchased 3 bottles of nitro lacquer from "Reranch" -- a place on the internet that sells nitro-paint products in aerosol cans. Ingenious! I bought one honey-blond, one black, one clear-coat nitro. Check them out, they have really cool stuff, and great instructions in their forums.

2.) Moved it to the porch, and laid down layer after layer of the honey-blond. Here it is painted up real nice:


I didn't do a prime coat first, because ash is a dense wood, and doesn't always require a primer coat. I just went straight spray-can to wood.

So this, if I wanted, could be the end, and I'd have a pretty straight-f0rward classic looking telecaster. But I wanted to do something a little more edgy.

3.) So I grabbed the black can, and kinda attempted a sort of burst outwards from the center, with the edges darker black. The result was as follows:

Not too too shabby. It's hard to do this by hand, an I feel the "burst" effect towards the bottom is very uneven. Aerosol cans can be tricky with this kinda shit, and it was kinda spitting out unevenly at points. What I'm gonna do, is pick the two trouble areas at the bottom, mask everything else off, and lightly spray a little more black on, to even everything out more. There's also some funky stuff going on in the edges I'm going to have to sand down, and respray black, but shouldn't be a problem.

The back was a little trickier, as it had picked up alot of newspaper from the TOP of the guitar's sides getting sprayed. So it looked like this:It all had to be sanded off. Big pain. Then it got its turn in my hi-tech workshop:
I'd say for the most part, I'm done with the painting. I just have to do 3 changes - 1.) clean up the bursting on the guitar's lower half 2.) Sand and re-paint some yellow showing through the black on the lower side 3,) Sand and re-paint some yellow should through the black on the top side.

After that, I can get into the nitro-finish. That's what I'm truly dreading. Apparently you have to do all these coats, and then wet-sand them in between. It just sounds like a bitch of a job. This whole refinishing nonsense is NOT what I originally intended to do, but now that it's almost done, I'm kinda glad it happened. The more of the project I put together myself, the more the guitar is truly mine.

I'm gonna try to wrap up the painting this weekend, let it dry out real good over the week, and then start doing the nitro clear-coat finishes next weekend. Once that's all finished, I'll have to start picking up the nuts and bolts to put this sucker together: pickguard, tone pots, selector switch, bridge plate, bridge saddles, etc. And the biggest decision of them all: What pickups to use? I have a brand in mind, but we'll have to see if I can get lucky off craigslist, cause they're expensive.

until later.

The Neck

Sorry for my absence from this blog, my writing responsibilities lay elsewhere for a few months. Rest assured: this tele is still getting built.
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Onto the neck.

If you have 2 girls' numbers in your cell phone, and one has runny pimples all over her back, you will call the other girl. Similarly, but less disgustingly, If one guitar's neck does not play comfortably: you will simply always play your other guitar. In my opinion - this makes the neck the most important part of a guitar. All the tone and aesthetic appeal in the world will not make me pick up a guitar that is not comfortable to play. And if I'm not playing it, what's the point?

So, it was with some consternation I went about the task of purchasing a neck I would never actually touch before buying. I was VERY fucking consterned.

Luckily, there are plenty of aspects to a neck that can be spec'd out. If you're diligent about these, you can narrow down the possibility of getting a dud.

1.) Shaft Materials

The same rules apply here as did with my selection of a body. Denser woods resonate at a higher frequency, emitting a brighter tone, blah blah blah. Maple was the way to go. Most Fender and Fender-style guitars have maple necks anyway, so you're more likely to find this than some silly exotic wood. Although I did see some pretty badass looking necks made from crazy woods on ebay

<--- Por ejemplo.
They just weren't the direction I wanted to go in for this axe.

2.) Fingerboard Wood

Alot of guitars will have a maple neck with a darker, rosewood fingerboard glued onto it. I previously owned a guitar in this configuration, and was not a big fan of the rosewood. I prefer a maple fingerboard. To my fingers, they feel smoother and faster. Also, as a rank amateur, I'm often looking at my hands while I play, and it's easier to make out where I am on a bright maple fingerboard. Some people think rosewood fingerboards have a darker sound, and I suppose that might be kind of true, as it is a less dense wood than maple, but most of that is probably psychological. People see the darker color and think darker tone. Guitar racists.

3.) Shaft Shape

Necks have different profiles. Older guitars tend to have larger, clunkier "D" shaped baseball bat type necks. Newer ones are usually contoured to a thinner "C" shape, for faster playing. This is totally a matter of preference. I've played on "V" shaped models (I think one of the Clapton signature series has this contour) and actually found them very comfortable. These are especially suited for rock n roll players, who like to choke up on the neck, and dangle their thumbs over the top, the V really fills in the palm of your hand comfortably for this style of playing. But I don't have such big hands, so I need to push my wrist out in front of the fretboard more, and keep my thumb behind the neck to hit all the notes I need to. Also, anything that helps my speed without requiring hour after hour of running scales over a metronome, I am AAAALLL for. So I'll be going with a thinner modern "C" shape profile.

I had always heard about neck shapes in terms of "C" "V" and "D" shapes, but the below graphic utilizes some different terminology that I've also seen bandied about the internet chat rooms. (Courtesty of some dude @ TDPRI)

You'll notice it's basically as I explained. Ibanez necks are more "metal" and are shaved down closer to be faster. The Clapton neck is very pointed, almost like a "V", etc etc.

4.) Fretboard Radius

This is so important. I would say that fretboard radius, combined with the contour of the neck, is what people are talking about when they describe the "feel" of a neck. Most fretboards have a slight curve to them, the severity of this curve, is calculated as if the curve were extended to complete an entire circle, and then its radius was measured. Thus: fretboard radius. The larger the radius, the larger the "circle", which means the slope of the neck is more subtle, so the larger the radius, the flatter the fretboard.

A curved fretboard is much more comfortable, and makes bends easier, but it has the disadvantage of "Fretting out", where strings won't ring properly if bent too far, especially higher notes. Some modern guitars, especially metal-type guitars, have a completely flat fretboard to eliminate this problem, but I find these very unnatural feeling to play on. I find the happy medium to be at around 10".

There are also new "hybrid" necks, that have a curved fretboard below the 12th fret, but above the 12th fret go flatter, for easier solo-ing. This seems confusing, unnatural, and expensive though. We won't be doing this.

5.) Frets

My current strat (like many newer guitars) has jumbo frets. These are tall frets, that cause enough leverage on the string, that you don't need to fully press the string to the fretboard to get a note out of it. IN FACT, if you do force a string all the way to the fretboard, it plays a little out of tune. Frets are really important I'm sure, but I just don't know enough about them to have a preference. I'll probably get jumbo frets if I see them, if not, oh well.

6.) Finish

Just like with the body, I'll be Looking for a Nitro finish, so it will age nicely.

7.) That's about it. I also want a classic Fender looking head-stock, no weird shapes like so:










aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand.....


SURPRISE --> I've already got the neck. In fact, I got it months ago, just haven't had time to write about it. here it is:



Bought it off of Ebay for $300, which is great, cause it puts me under my $350 budget. It's not a Fender after-market, like I planned on buying, those were all very expensive. This was originally from Musikraft, a company in New Jersey. The big names in replacement necks are Warmoth and Mighty Mite. Mighty Mite makes shit. Warmoth is good, but expensive. Musikraft is a well-reviewed smaller operation, and I'm happy with how this neck looks and feels.

The guy who sold it to me bought it for $350 for a project he had to abandon. After he shipped it, he called me up and talked my ear off about telecaster building...then we slowly realized that he was a country music red-neck and I was a funky LA weirdo. Things became uncomfortable as he asked questions like "So, do you play much fingerstyle?" and I would answer "Only when my bassist borrows my pick to snort coke off of."

Anyway, I really like the flamed maple on this, very sharp. The finish is a nice nitrocellulose lacquer, and it feels good in my hand. Calling this a success for now. We'll see how it all comes together.



Until next time...

(I spared you the usual "wood/genitalia" puns in this posting, but just for the record...shaft shape.)

I Want to Rock this Body

Well, there were some close calls...













But I've purchased my body:


For those of you keeping track (all 3 of you losers), here's how I did with my requirements:

1.) Ash Wood - CHECK - This is a Northern Ash Body
2.) Routed - CHECK - Routed out for pickups, controls, and input jack
3.) Finished - CHECK - Tobacco Burst Polyurethane Finish
4.) Standard Neck Pocket - CHECK - This was easy, everything I looked at that wasn't a blank piece of wood was drilled to the standard size
5.) Not drilled for pickguard installation - CHECK - I can leave the wood bare.

How did I do with my goodies?

1.) Swamp Ash - FAIL - These were either all too expensive and/or routed for pickguards

2.) Nitro Body - FAIL - The only reasonably priced tobacco-burst bodies I could find were from the Highway One series Fender Telecaster. But these are made from Alder, not Ash, so that was a no go. Also, they were all routed for pickguard installation.

3.) String Through - CHECK - This wasn't hard to find, most of the Teles I saw were routed for string through.

What did I pay? $100 on ebay + $15 shipping. Which is chicken feed when you're heir to a chicken feed fortune like I am, from my father's chicken feed empire.

That's where I came out on top. If I'm to be a man of my word, and insist that finish and # of pieces of wood in the body won't have a noticeable effect on the ultimate tone, then I should be happy with my purchase and the fact that I saved roughly $150.

What does stick in my craw though, is the lack of a nitro finish. The Poly finish is really nice and striking at first; the wood looks like it's encased in glass. But the more I look at it, the more I wish it was nitro. The high gloss over the wood grain just seems...tacky? And to know it's going to stay that way and not wear in...it bothers me aesthetically. We'll have to see if I decide to pursue some refinishing options further down the road.

For now though, I'm happy, and am moving forward in my hunt for a neck.

However, I would like to take a moment to bitch about something that really upset me while I was searching for a body. I noticed this across ebay and craiglist. Basically, the older and more beat up a guitar was, the MORE it was worth! And when I say old, I'm not even going that far back: I'm talking 1980's bodies were going for a ton. What's to blame for this? RELICING.

No, not re-licing: RELIC-ing...why would anyone lice something again? That's just weird dude, why would you think that?

In case you're unfamiliar, let me sum up what relicing is in a little narrative you might hear from someone who purchases reliced instruments:

“I really enjoy rock n’ roll. Not just the music, but all the symbols, the icons. A cigarette-burned stratocaster, a Les Paul with belt buckle scuffing on its back and an imperfection where the neck cracked and had to be repaired.

I like to look at an aged, yellowed fretboard, and imagine all the cigarette-smoke, spilled beer, and hand sweat that turned it that color. I like to imagine the person who smoked that cigarette during his gig, and if his band ever made it. I like to imagine the drunk who spilled the beer, if it caused a fight, and if it did, who won?

Beat up old instruments represent rock n' roll to me. There's an aspect of freedom, but the knowledge that with that freedom comes a little ugliness, and some tough times. Some dirt and sweat and dues-paying in small smelly clubs. But it’s rock n’ roll, so you just push on through. Maybe if you keep at it, one night the band will really be on point, your licks will all be tight, the room will sound great, the crowd will go wild, and you’ll get a good cut of the door. This all means so much to me, that I want my instrument to reflect it.

So what I’m going to do is pay an extra $1000 for every part of my guitar so that someone else can manufacture it new, and then rub dirt all over it for me. I’m also gonna have it treated with a chemical compound that will give it that real authentic “vintage” look. How expensive is the compound? Pretty expensive, let me tell you! Don’t forget the oxidized metal with “realistic” rust on it, I’ll have mine in chrome please! I’ll pick all this up from the post office, then get back in my BMW and drive to work at the bank I manage, where I secretly slam my dick in the top drawer of my desk when no one’s looking.

Then, once the weekend comes, I’ll put on a pair of ripped jeans I just bought yesterday, tell my 18 year old mail-order wife not to bother me until the viagra kicks in, plug into the Marshal half-stack I bought at Guitar Center and just ROCK the FUCK OUT!”

You stupid motherfuckers.

My socio-philosophical indignance regarding the basic premise aside, these items don’t even look like the real thing to me. It’s like a person: think about a thing that is fucked up about a person you know, maybe someone who’s in jail. They’re REALLY fucked up! There is no way you could imagine a problem like that existing in someone ahead of time, nevermind visualize it and reproduce its occurrence.

Beat up old instruments are just like that – they’re actually old and beat up. They don’t look so good, and alot of times have major holes routed in them, or gashes. The whole “relicing” procedure is basically a spray-tan of dirt. It’s utterly false, and I want no part in it.

What's way way way worse than all of this though, is that it means there are no more thrift store guitars! You can't find a "beat up old six-string" that still sounds great, and get a good deal on it, because some impotent baby boomer is willing to pay EXTRA for it to look beat up! Just so he can hang it on a wall in his basement and never play it.

Fucking shame.

That being said, I have to admit I wouldn't turn my nose up to a Rory Gallagher signature strat...

So why a telecaster? Perhaps a brief overview will help explain...

The short answer is that I already have a Strat and a Les Paul, but Telecasters deserve more credit than that.

The Telecaster was the first hugely successful Leo Fender design. Originally dubbed the "Broadcaster" after Leo famously and savagely beat a woman with it, forcing her into a full-body cast for nearly a year. Later, a copyright infringement with Gretsch forced the name-change to Telecaster.

Arguably, the Tele was later surpassed by the Stratocaster in popularity, but inarguably was a huge home-run in its own right. It's really the first "modern" guitar: reasonably priced, mass-produced, and a solid-body (not chambered, more on this later). Leo, a venomous xenophobe, was quoted as saying, "even the filthy Irish will reckon' this hot little numba' is worth some whisky money!"

It's believed to be at least partially based on some of Leo's earlier lap-steel guitar designs, and there's evidence to support this if you compare the naked pickup of an old Fender lap-steel to a Tele's bridge pickup: identical. Also supporting this claim is Leo Fender's well documented lazy and self-cannibalizing nature.

Telecaster guitars are relatively light-weight and have bolt-on necks. It makes their production process and swapping out worn necks easier (lucky for me). But a sonic consequence of this, is that more of a "twang" sound emits when they're plucked at. This is as compared to say, a Les Paul, which is generally heavier and has a neck that is glued into the body. Les Paul was a great inventor, and pioneer of musical instruments and recording techniques.

Teles can be made of all different kinds of materials. The first were made of pine, harvested by indentured servants on cruel, cruel Leo Fender's pine plantation, but your stereotypical telecaster these days has a body made of Ash wood and a neck made of Maple. Different woods have an effect on the tone of a guitar. Maple and Ash are denser, harder woods, which resonate at a higher frequency than softer woods like Mahogany. This gives the Tele a higher or "brighter" sound.

Between its bolt-on neck and brighter woods, a Telecaster generally inhabits a higher sonic frequency than most guitars. This, matched with its "twang" made it a favorite for country music, and to this day it probably sees most of its market saturation there.

But country music is awful. So why do I want a bright and twangy hayseed guitar invented by an unabashed necrophiliac?

Well slow down there - lots of folks have done the Tele proud, and proven themselves unique, original, individualistic musicians by playing one:

**Time spent arranging that low-res visual gag: 20 minutes, and you can barely see all the headbands. Good thing I'm immortal.

The Telecaster was part of the creation of rock n' roll. Following the decline of big-band music, rockabilly was on the rise. Groups were looking to get larger volumes out of smaller numbers of instruments; less of an orchestral effect, and more something resembling what we consider a "band" today. As a result, the old-school chambered guitars were being played at higher and higher volumes. Their hollow-body construction caused them to give annoying feedback at higher volumes. Enter Leo Fender with the solid-body telecaster, freeing guitarists to turn up their volume.

Historical significance aside...Teles are great in a band situation. Their trebley voicing helps them cut through the mix of the band, keeping your tones from being muddied up by some stupid bassist or singer who doesn't know their place and keeps bumping into you during practice until you finally just scream, you just scream in their fucking faces, and then everyone's like "You're out of the band!" and you're like "Fuck you!" and they're like "We're calling the police!" and you have to do community service because in the scuffle your leather pants ripped and later some kid saw your junk on the city bus you were taking home and started crying. Also, Teles (like most Fender instruments in my opinion) are based on a superb design, well-made, rugged, QC'd on par with coca-cola, and above all else: VERSATILE.

What I wrote above about a Telecaster's tonal properties above is a generalization. There's no problem recognizing a Telecaster sound from a Hank Williams tune, but you might be surprised by some of the thicker tones people have coaxed from it; like the Stairway to Heaven solo for example.

The telecaster is right at home in almost any application, but most importantly for a guy like me who happens to be in a funk band:

It's funky as fresh shit.

But that's for next time - enjoy your day people.

Parts-Caster

Hello,

I'm making a telecaster from parts I buy off of Ebay and Craigslist, and have decided to blog about this.

I am not going to make the body.
I am not going to make the neck.

Why would you assume I'd do so much work? Is it because you're an ass hole?

I will fit the neck to the body, probably do some wood-filling/patching, install the electronics and hardware myself, and attempt a decent setup. Along the way, I'll be explaining the reasons motivating my preferences and choices.

Some of these choices will be based on what I think will produce the best sounding guitar. I'll go into detail about different tones I want to produce, and some ideas about what sounds "good" and why. I'll try to place this in a mildly historical context of modern popular music as well.

Yet some more of these choices will be based on my expansive and preternatural knowledge of Rock n' Roll music, and what is good for it.

Yet even some more will be based on my impeccable aesthetic sense of what disparate parts will make a cool guitar once clumsily glued, screwed, or soldered together ("Glued and screwed" did I just write the tag line for the next Larry the Cable Guy movie?).

As I am the fucking man, it probably behooves you to read every one of my posts twice. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Maybe pull out a dictionary and buy my seperately sold Cliff Notes to help you cut through some of the subtext.

Please hold tight my hand, gird your loins, double-check to make sure you girded them up REAL nice, and take the first steps of this journey with me...as I build a telecaster.