Guitar Build 2017!

Indeed. I figured if in doing a tele, I might as well make it compatable with standard parts.
A decent sanding rig and a drill press would make it a lot easier.
 
Wow. Did I say tedious? I meant tedious. Coloring inside the lines sucks!

I used the following tools to get to this point...
Jigsaw
Router
Drum sander
Palm sander
Sanding block
Sandpaper by hand

I'll stand behind the shape, though. The tolerances are within a thousandth or two.

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Thanks. Drilling the tuner holes now. More tediousness. A row of holes in a straight line requires "measure four times, think about it, measure twice more, then drill."
 
Flatspotter said:
I've yet to master that skill, even with a drill press.
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It's tricky. No doubt about it.
But, without a jig, you can do it by marking well, using a punch and a good bit with a brad point.
I use a forstner bit on a job like that. Nice clean holes with little tear-out.

jelloman said:
And all this effort is going into making the templates...
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No shit. The lazy side of me says "Screw it! Get to cutting!" But I know I can get better accuracy this way. Plus, I have a solid shape to check against.

Been trying to come up with a lazy way to get truss rod routed but haven't had success. I'm making a jig for that, too.
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Alright. There's a fixed fence on one side and a loose fence I can clamp down on the other.
In theory, I can set it wide enough to stop the router on either side of the channel in the appropriate place.
The channel needs to be about .42" wide, while my best spiral cut bit for this job is .375". I'll have to make two overlapping passes to get the full width.
I'll make some practice runs on scrap tomorrow and test it.

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jp_nyc said:
Are the double circles at the twelfth fret a fixed mistake or a technique thing?
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I wondered about that myself, so I did some googling.
Fender has two different spacings.
According to a guy over at the tele forum....I'll just quote him....


"The closer dots you mention on the USA and MIM were the standard configuration on Fender necks up until about 1952. Fender then changed them to the further apart style you see on the MIJ. The kept this config until sometime in 1963, when they switched back to the former config. It stayed thus through the eighties at least, even with the MIA 57 Reissue, with Fender stating that they couldn't do the wider spacing with the equipment they had in house. The MIJ Fenders had the 52-63 spacing from the get go.
Fender now has the capacity to do either format, and have adjusted to the proper spacing on all the reissues (as far as I know), but other than reissues, I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason to which spacing they use on which model."
 
Elias Graves said:
I'll have to make two overlapping passes to get the full width.
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That's the best way to do it.
If you set the fixed fence right, you can run one side, then flip the board and run the other side. By using the same reference point, the route is the same distance from each edge - which ensures that it is perfectly centered.

I learned that from Norm Abrams.
 
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