Telecaster build - fretjob

Time to put the frets in. Once you've done this you can't really do much else to the fretboard, so I spent a double checking it was straight and the correct radius, and that there were no scratches on it. 

I went over the fretslots with a little triangular file, just opening them up a bit. I've never refretted a guitar, but apparently this makes a big difference. Then I cleaned all the dust out of the slots with a scalpel: 

The binding on the fretboard makes the fretting very different. Usually you could just hammer this fret into the slots:

But obviously the binding means this won't work. You need to shape each of the frets like this to cover the binding strip:

Various places sell a c$70 tool to snip this little bit of tang off. I bought some cheapo snippers from amazon and dremeled a slot to take the fret, this picture probably doesn't clear up how they work, but they're basically the same as the real version but a tenth of the price :] :

They produce these fret ends:



I put a little glue into the slot, this isn't for holding the fret in, but for making sure there's no voids or gaps under it:



And whack it in. I use a deadblow hammer with a brass head, making sure the underside of the neck is supported all the time. Hammer the sides of the fret in, then move from the middle to each side:



Then it's just a case of moving up the fretboard...:



... until you're done:




Next up - side dots!

Telecaster build - neck completion (again...)

Prior to being attached the fretboard was slightly oversized, we have to spend a little time sanding down both sides of the fretboard so that it matches the neck. I used a straight edge with sandpaper to get the fretboard flush:



Then turned my attention to the headstock transition. There needs to be a smooth radius joining the headstock to the main neck. I built a little jig to hold my robo-sander, into which I could feed the neck:



I fed the neck in until it reached this point:



Then sanded the rest down by hand to get rid of that little lip.

The last job of the evening was to sand the face of the fretboard down to 600 grit, checking all the time that it remained straight along its length and that the radius didn't deviate from 9.5":



The fretboard is now finish sanded, and looks like this:



Here is the headstock transition, only sanded to a low grit but now approaching completion:

Telecaster build - neck completion

First job, to make it to the shed without disturbing the foxes or catching rabies off them... not sure how they managed to get up there, but they seemed comfy...



This was the end state of the headstock after the last session. It was too pointy, so I rounded it down



And spent a little time on the transition between the neck and the headstock:



and similarly at the heel:



With the heel and the headstock close to their final shapes, I worked with files and sandpaper to finalise the neck profile, and join up those 1st and 12th fret profiles. Once it's close, you can run over the whole neck with a straight edge, around the whole profile, to make sure it's straight all the way round and along its length:



It is straight, and the profile is an even "C" along its whole length.

The next job is to glue the fretboard to the neck. I used my new fret cleaning saw to clear out the glue in the fret slots (it got in there at the edge of the fret slots when the binding was glued on):



This was unexpectedly stressful  - the little saw is very sharp and it's easy to slip out of the fret slots where there's hardened glue.

Now the truss rod must be installed in its final position. The end of the neck is finish sanded - it will be significantly harder once the truss rod is in as the metal adjusting nut may get scratched by the sandpaper:



And the end of the truss rod channel is squared off with a chisel:



We then use silicon at various points along the truss rod to hold it in the slot - although it will be held in tight by the fretboard once installed, the silicon will make sure it doesn't rattle in the neck:



Then the neck is glued up (tape temporarily covers the truss rod channel):



Clamped:



And completed:






Next up are side dots and the radiused headstock transition on the front of the neck.

Telecaster build - more neck profiling

In the same way that the 1st fret area was profiled, I did the same at the 12th, again matched to the equivalent on my Parker. This leaves the neck looking like this:



The idea now is to hack away all the wood in the middle until the 1st fret profile and the 12th fret profile are joined in a straight line. This ash block has had a straight edge planed on it and illustrates the idea:



Eventually it will sit flush on the neck, proving that the neck is straight along its length. I draw on the neck to find high spots when the neck is sanded along its length with the ash used as a sanding block:



Getting closer, mostly using the Japanese saw rasp and spokeshave at this point:



When the neck was getting closer to being complete I changed to less aggressive files and turned my attention to the headstock area. I wanted there to be quite a defined 'step' from the neck to the headstock. Initial rough shaping yielded this:




Similarly at the heel, I marked out a circle where I wanted a heel transition:



And rough cut this:



I then continued to finesse the heel and headstock area, as well as continuing to sand the length of the neck profile down to meet the 1st / 12th fret profiles. By the end of the session, it was close to completion, and looked like this:



And the headstock:



And heel:



The 1st/12th fret profiles are not fully joined yet, the neck probably needs another couple of hours to make it completely straight and to finalise the shape of the heel / headstock. After that, the fretboard will go on, followed closely by the frets :] At that point I will turn back to Telecaster Two to get its neck to the same state.

Telecaster build - neck profile

Just a small update; I started the neck profile. My method involves carving the profile at the 1st and 12th frets, then joining the two of these up. It will have a fairly standard "C" shape on the neck, the thickness will about match that of the current US Telecaster (which is about 0.82" / 21 mm including the fingerboard thickness, depending on where you read). 

First I use a profile gauge to measure the profile at the first fret off my Parker Fly:



Then I draw some lines showing the lines where the headstock will 'blend' into the neck. The lines must not be crossed with any of the carving tools, and must remain sharp till later:



And start carving, using rasps, planes and the japanese saw file. Bit further to go:



Keep going until you're about there with the profile:


And without the gauge in place:



I kept a very close eye on the thickness of the neck - you do not want to take so much material off that you go through the back of the neck into the truss rod channel - I have seen this mistake before and it's very upsetting!

I'll do the same at the 12th fret later in the week and start to join them up before moving onto the finer shaping around the heel and headstock transition. 

Telecaster build - inlay sanding and neck thicknessing

The clay dots have all been installed in the fretboard, but they're standing proud of the surface. The first job is to get them flush. This is done first with a chisel:



Then the fretboard is put back in the radius block jig and hit with first 120, then 180 grit sandpaper:



Yielding a half finished fretboard. I would have carried on through the grits to about 600-800, but annoyingly I'd run out of finer sandpapers. Sanding out the scratches from previous sandpapers is nowhere near as much work as radiusing the gretboard in the first place, so this will be a relatively quick job once I pick up some more rolls of sandpaper. the fretboard currently looks like this:



And close up:




I'm very happy with how the binding turned out; it's slightly darker than the surface of the fingerboard (because it's from a different piece of wood to the fingerboard), which makes it look like a nice accent along the edge. I'll definitely be binding the ebony board on the second fretboard when I come to do that.

With this done, the final fretboard thickness can be measured (its something like 5.8mm and will not lose any more thickness - the finer grade sandpapers will not remove much material) I could work out how thick I needed the maple of the neck to be. Given the depth of the neck pocket on the body, the neck and fretboard together need to be 1", so I needed to mill the neck down to 19.6mm.

I built a little mdf guide to hold the router flat above the surface of the neck:



and started milling the neck blank down from the back:



Once the correct thickness was reached, I set the depth stops on the router, here's the heel at its final thickness:



I progressed up the neck, making several passes at each section of the neck to get to the right depth rather than going all in one:



And the headstock:



I decided to take the opportunity now to drill out the tuner holes. I have a jig from stewmac for this, which needs little setup. I measured carefully the position of the holes from my template and clamped the jig in place. Once the first two holes are drilled through the jig (the two E strings go first), little poles are inserted:



Which the jig then slides onto:



Allowing for jig to be firmly held in place and the rest of the holes to be accurately drilled (the jig is clamped before it's drilled, unlike in the picture below):



Yielding:



Finally, I mill the thickess of the headstock down to 14mm:



The grain on the headstock is fantastic - very much looking forward to seeing it lacquered up. 

From both ends, the neck now looks like this:



and:



Next up will be the neck carve, after which the fretboard will be glued on - putting the side dots, shaping the headstock transition and the fretting will follow.