How To Make A Telecaster Guitar From Scratch

ever since I picked up my first guitar when I was seven years old it has always been a dream of mine to make my own and ever since I started woodworking I thought loot theaters were absolute Geniuses with skills at the Pinnacle of Woodcraft after building this guitar my respect for True luthiers grew exponentially I made a lot of mistakes along the way and most importantly learned quite a few lessons the hard way let's get started my best friend and long time bass player Sean joined me on this build we went to Rockler and picked up some gorgeous mahogany for the body in bakote for the fretboard the mahogany was too big for my jointer so he stuck it to a sled with double-sided tape and hot glue I never had two pairs of hands in the shot before so it was awesome having help run this heavy board to the planer once both sides were milled flat we marked out the areas of the board which contained the neck and the body so we cut them down for easier workability I gave it a straight 90 degree Edge on the Joiner then hopped over to the miter saw to cut it down to size the body portion wasn't wide enough so I took extra from the neck portion of the board to glue strips to the body it'll make sense in a second the glue of choice for this build was type on 3 Because it's what I had in the shop it's a solid body guitar so the type of glue shouldn't affect sound at least that's what I read on the internet somewhere which means it's true once it was clamped up and set to the side to dry it was time to Mill up this gorgeous figured Maple Billet after Sean joined up some nice edges I resawed two panels off of it to make for a sick looking book match top removed all the saw marks and got to pieces to equal thickness on the drum sander after that I stuck them together and ran them through the table saw to get cleaner edges this didn't provide the best results so we went old school and cleaned them up with a hand plane and a card scraper after we were happy with the seam the panel was thrown in some clamps and left to dry for a few hours before moving on to the drum sander and getting it down to final thickness which I really didn't even remember what that measurement was now that the top was completed Sean cut the ends of the mahogany strips off and we pass it through the drum sander again so we just threw a bunch of type on on both pieces to prepare for the vacuum press to get a better more even coated glue across the panels Sean used a little silicone roller to spread it out evenly before throwing it into the bag we added some tape over the edges to keep it from sliding around too much the vacuum press really made this process easy and it's always super satisfying to watch it in action once it was dry I grabbed my template which has a center line on it it matched that center line up to the almost invisible glue seam double-sided tape is ideal for keeping it in place while we do the rest of the work I cut off most of the excess on the bandsaw which took entirely too long because of my blade size but not as long as changing the blade we finally had a guitar shaped piece of wood and were completely stoked I put a pattern bit in the router and routed out the edges to the template before moving over to the router table and finishing it off with the flush trim bit I used that same pattern bit to knock out the pickup and control panel Pockets finally we got the template off and cleaned up the edges on the spindle sander then we while Sean took the extra step to remove any final inconsistencies by hand with sandpaper and a sanding block rounded over the top with a quarter inch bit in the back with a super big table Edge bit which you'll see later when I shape the neck one thing I didn't realize about making guitar is how many holes need to be drilled just different holes being drilled with smaller and bigger bits learn from my mistakes and don't drill every hole all the way through the body and don't route your neck pocket after rounding the edges it was an absolute pain in the ass to get that clean afterwards after the neck pocket was routed I drilled the holes on the back for the string ferals and a 7 8 inch hole on the side for the auxiliary input I added some copper tape to the interior Pockets to help with shielding and then I moved on to finish so it'll be stabilized I've always wanted a natural feeling guitar so I went with Rubio Monaco pure for the finish I know a lot of players prefer gloss or a painted look but my guitar my decision once the body was technically completed I moved on to the neck and fretboard both pieces got milled to approximate Dimensions to make it easier on assembly and shaping having a bandsaw here is particularly helpful to save material and to keep from spending Forever at the planer I marked the center line on the neck blank and routed a Groove for the bridge Side Access truss rod I hate using Edge guides with the routers but it worked out well and then I cleaned up the rounded edges with the Chisel for the fretboard I used a template from stumac and attached a blank with double-sided tape the template has little notches that correspond with the tiny pin in my miter box it takes all the guesswork out of fretting supposedly I cut out the Frets and attached the neck template to the neck blank and cut out the waist accordingly glue up was simple I just added glue align the center lines and clamped it in place once dry I flushed it up on the router table then used a radius sanding block to add a 12 inch radius to the fretboard if I were to do this again I'd make a jig and radius it before gluing it to the neck I thinned out the headstock on the bandsaw then moved to shaping the neck I love hand tools but I'm a power tool guy so I found a way to cheat the system for shaping next at least I thought I bought this huge table Edge bit and used it to remove most of the material on the back of the neck I was nervous how it would turn out but it actually worked amazingly and reduced the hand tool work to just blending the ends and the sides for the blending I used the Shinto wraps to remove the bulk of the material then onto sandpaper and finer files for the final shaping I realized I cut the headstock too thin so I used the mistake as an opportunity for creativity with the leftover top material I cut out a small portion to use its thicker veneer to glue to the headstock to ensure I got a good flat glue surface I use a card scraper to smooth it out then glued the two pieces together once dry it was back to the bandsaw for bulk removal then the router table for flush trimming which made me realize I should have designed it this way in the first place the spindle sander cleaned up those hard to reach spots real quick removing any burning from the flush trim bit when I was finally happy with the neck and headstock I cut the Fret slots to final depth I had no idea what I was doing and honestly I messed this part up bad I didn't bend the fret wire enough so I had to remove the Frets later and redo the whole thing that being said I didn't film the second time around but I followed the same process of bending the fret wire cutting the size pressing them into drill press snipping the ends finally the edges flush and at an angle then leveling them with a long piece of jointed Oak with sticky sandpaper on it after taking out all of my hard fret work we threw some Rubio on the neck and moved on to making room for the nut I didn't get special or try piston fitting it I just chiseled out a larger space than needed and added CA glue to hold the nut in place is it ideal no do I care no I was too close to the end to mess it up completely so I made the sacrifice because I'm a big baby I added some Hardware then Sean and I switched off on the most hideous soldering job we've ever seen it may be ugly but it worked and you won't see it anyway I'm a guitar tone snob so fenders Gen 4 noiseless pickups were the sound makers of choice I added the final hardware and realized I wanted the 12th fret inlay remember how I said I was a big baby I'm also a reckless idiot so I risked it all at the very end and use my router to route a channel on the 12th fret for an inlay it magically turned out great so I added quarter inch recesses on each side and then filled it in with white epoxy after it was dry it was time to get it stringed up add the string trees and give it a test run [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] if you guys enjoyed this build and you want to learn more make sure to like And subscribe because I got plenty more coming we're going to tackle a bass soon a homemade amp and quite a few more awesome woodworking projects thanks for watching and happy building foreign

Channel: The Wooden Hobbyist

Views: 31,883

Keywords: Guitar neck build, Make a telecaster, Telecaster build, Telecaster from build scratch, custom fender guitar, custom telecaster, diy guitar, diy guitar kit, electric guitar build, full guitar build, great guitar build off, guitar build, guitar making, guitar making for beginners, handmade guitar, how to build a guitar, how to make a fender guitar, how to make a guitar, how to make a telecaster, make a guitar from scratch, telecaster guitar kit, Building a telecaster

Id: izwbV4LA30U

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2022