Telecaster Two build - neck profiling and milling

I've posted all of the pictures and processes from here onwards with the other guitar build, so not much detail.

I started to carve the neck, as usual getting the first and 12th fret thicknesses and profile correct:



I'm using a modern thickness around 20mm and 22mm at the 1st and 12th respectively, and a C shaped carve copied from my Parker Fly.

Once you've got the profiles approimately correct, get rid of all the wood in between using planes, files, rasps, teeth..:



I've been doing the majority of the work on the guitar in the evenings recently, so most noisy power tools are out. I got a window for using the router, and milled the back of the neck down so that the total thickness of the fretboard and neck was the correct 1":



I also milled the front of the headstock down so that its thickness was reduced to about 15mm:



Leaving the transition to the fretboard to be shaped later:



Then back to the neck, it slowly gets closer with the japanese saw rasp:



Eventually when you get close enough, you can colour in the neck and sand back to reveal low spots and knock back high spots:



And this is as close as I got. Soon you won't be able to see the profiles at the 1st and 12th, there will just be one straight line connecting the two.



 One more session on this is needed to finish it and the heel / headstock transition.

Telecaster Two build - 12th fret inlay

I've had a couple of sessions since I last posted, but they were both spent on the inlay at the 12th fret. I've never done inlay this intricate before and there was a reasonable chance I'd mess it up and ruin the fretboard. Rather than do this publicly, I thought it prudent to wait...

We wanted an animal, and given that I've got a couple living on top of the workshop, a fox seemed a good call. So, I printed off the picture I wanted to inlay:



And superglued it to the MOP sheet:



Then I routed it out with my dremel. This is not the right tool for this, but I didn't have a jewellers saw at the time:



Rough cut, and after a little filing... It doesn't look terrible...:



By now I'd realised that this was a much more fiddly job than I initially thought it would be. I bought the proper tool: a jewellers saw to cut out the inside hole in his legs:



And did some more filing. Held against the fretboard, he looks ok...



Then I attached him to the fretboard with tape / glue and traced around him with a scalpel. this is a bit stressful as a slip with the knife could gouge the fretboard:



Leaving this:



Which I routed:



To this:



By this point, it looked a bit rough, but the inlay fitted. It wasn't a tight fit, but it was close enough. I glued the MOP in with superglue and dust filled the edges with some ebony dust I'd saved from the fretboard radiusing. It looked a right mess:



But by the time the fretboard was finish sanded to 600 grit, it looked pretty good. I'm very happy with it, it does look like a fox. The worst you could say is that it's a dog, but even that's close enough!



The fretboard is now finished:



Now that I have the final thickness of the fretboard, I can mill the neck down so that the overall neck + fretboard thickness is 1".

This guitar is now very close to complete - the only major job remaining is the neck profiling. I should hopefully be able to complete the carpentry on this one within two to three weeks. 

Telecaster Two build - more neck

There's a defined order of work for the rest of this neck. I need to radius the fretboard to get it's final thickness before I can mill the neck blank before I can carve it. 

To radius the fretboard, I needed a centreline so needed to get the neck blank routed down to its final shape. One of the things I've been trying to do in these two builds is trying to de-risk each step as much as possible. With that in mind, I build a router box to run the router on. This will keep the router from slipping off the template when cutting and makes sure the router bit is always at 90 degrees to the work:

It is much easier and more controlled to use the router like this, and I'll be using this technique for almost all of my routing from now. Here's some close ups of the corners and headstock:

Then I trimed the fretboard down using the already cut neck as a guide for the bearing on my router cutter - I had already attached it to the neck with tape / glue before realising that I hadn't trimmed it... I just made a lot of very small passes with the router to pare it down:

Yielding:

Knowing the final size of the fretboard meant I could mark a centre line and mount it in my fretboard radiusing jig:

Then I spent the usual 100 hours sanding it down to shape:

And started drilling the holes for the inlay dots, this time in MOP:

And finished:

It's only rough sanded to about 60 grit; I'm going to inlay my design at the 12th fret, which has a high risk of being mess up'able before finishing it any further

Telecaster Two build - neck catch up

Most of the steps for this neck will be identical to the other telecaster so not much detail here, and I'm hoping to run through this at a relatively fast rate. The only difference will be a small bit of inlay at the 12th fret and I may not bind this fretboard  - not sure on that yet.

I planed a straight edge on the fretboard to allow me to have a decent edge to get it placed on the neck:



Then as before, drilled little pins through the fretslots to locate it on the neck. Then I rough cut the shape of the neck.

By this point I needed to use my router, but it was late and the neighbours may not have appreciated it :]. Instead I drilled the tuner machine holes using the Stew Mac jig.

You drill two holes, then the jig holds itself in place with the two steel pegs:



Then drill all the rest of the holes:



So, lots left to do, probably have to radius that fretboard soon :(

Telecaster build - side dots, neck fitting, lasers!

The side dots and neck fitting are almost the last piece of carpentry needed on this guitar.

Carefully mark the position of the side dots along the side of the fretboard. Double check - it would be bad at this stage to get one in the wrong position...



And I drill a hole for the side dots I baked earlier:



Unfortunately I forgot to take picture of the next stages, it's a pretty easy job, drop some superglue in the holes and then pop the side dots in. Once they're sanded down they look like this:



I moved onto joining the neck to the body. First the screw holes at the heel are drilled using a drill guide to keep them at 90 degrees to the body:



Then the neck is put in. The router templates I used seemed to have the neck template slightly oversized relative to the neck pocket - this allows you to get a very tight fit by sanding the neck down to meet the pocket size. After a few tweaks, the neck fits and holds itself for the first time:



Getting the neck in the pocket straight is key. The nut and the bridge must lie exactly along the centre line of the body. I like to use a frickin' laser beam to line everything up:



The laser should follow the centre line of the body, then hit the centre of the nutslot: 




Obviously you can't see anything in this picture, but it looks pretty cool. Once it's lined up, clamp the neck in and drill the screw holes into the neck.

So here's the guitar, neck bolted on, carpentry complete:



It's light - before the hardware it weighs 5lbs; thinline telecasters appear to vary a bit in weight but I'm pretty sure this sits somewhere near the weight of a standard US guitar.

This guitar will now take a back seat. I'm going to go back to the solid body guitar and get it to the same state before starting to finish sand them both.