Telecaster III - 14 - Fret Board Profile

I had intended my next job to be cutting the fret slots but looking at the fret board I decided it is too thick and that I would like to take some of the thickness out of it before cutting the fret slots so it's out with the jig I made earlier in the year.  It is simply 2 pieces of wood screwed to the workbench with a radius block which slides up and down to shape the fret board.  I put a clamp at one end just to stop any movement in the guides.  

It works perfectly but I'm rapidly running out of provisions and the sand paper I have is fine for finishing but not much good at removing the couple of mm I would like to get rid of.  I will try and get some courser sand paper at the weekend and update after that.  In the ideal world I would have a planer thicknesser in my workshop and this would just take a couple of passes and be done!

Telecaster III - 13 - Continuing With the Neck

Lat night I carried on working on the fret board shaping the nut end to a nice curved profile.  As the truss rod adjustment nut is at the heel and the truss rod is anchored under the fret board there is no hole or plug visible at the nut end.

I used a drum sanding attachment on my drill stand to shape the profile and have a little more sanding to do now to smooth the transition into the the flat of the head itself.

I then used a cabinet scraper to level the sides of the fret board making it flush with the oak neck.  I am no expert at 'turning the burr' on the cabinet scraper but managed well enough to smooth out the edges.  Next on the list is to mark out and cut the fret slots and then sand a profile on the fret board.

Telecaster III - 12 - Trimming The Fret Board

Last night I set my router up to trim the excess rosewood overhanging the body of the Telecaster neck.  I used a flush trimming bit with a bearing attached to ride along the neck.  

I took my time and did multiple passes both to prevent chipping and because the rosewood is quite hard.

I left a overhang at the body end of the fret board and trimmed this with a coping saw and then sanded it smooth using my drum sander attachment for the drill stand

I now have an Oak neck with an African Rosewood fret board almost ready to have the slots cut for the frets.

I still have some work to do at the head end as i left an overhang here as well.  But the drum sander should make light work of that.

I had almost forgotten that I glued a piece of mahogany the the head so it certainly will be a unique neck when finished.  If you look closely at the image above you will see a wood worm hole!

Telecaster III - 11 - Attaching The Fret Board

After a little more sanding last night to ensure the fillet was completely flush with the rest of the neck I was ready to glue the fret board to the neck.  I will leave it oversize and either plane or route the excess away once the glue is dried.

I used 8 clamps trying to ensure even pressure across the whole of the neck, never enough clamps!

I will remove the clamps later today and then take away the excess before setting up ready to cut the fret slots.  Then I will give the fret board a profile and fit the frets

Telecaster III - 10 - Ready For The Fret Board

Tonight I removed the clamps from the Telecaster neck and starting planing the fillet down flush with the neck.  The fillet is secure although there are a couple of small gaps, evidence of the slip with the router.

I have sanded the top of the neck smooth and flat ready for the fingerboard.  I also dropped a little filler into the gaps and over the anchor so there will be no chance of any glue seeping into the truss rod channel when I attach the fret board.

The adjustment nut is snug in it's hole but there is a tiny bit of play by design.  The adjustment nut is 10mm diameter and the hole was drilled with a 10mm bit so I enlarged it slightly.

I made sure the anchor at the end of the truss rod finished just short of where the nut will be.  I sunk the anchor into the neck and a little filler will ensure there is no play at all, although the anchor was tapped into its hole with a hammer so it is never going to move!

I put a little filler in the hole I cut for the washer, it wont be seen once the fret board is glued on and saves excess glue seeping into the end of the truss rod channel.

I'm looking forward to glueing the the fingerboard onto the neck, It is African Rosewood and should look great next to the oak neck.

Telecaster III - 9 - Installing The Truss Rod

I ended up planing another 2 pieces of wood with a concave curve so I can route the truss rod channel under the fret board rather than through the back of the neck.  There is a 1/4" drop from the end of the neck to the centre and back again.  I mounted the two pieces parallel to each other on a board and then realised my router bit was not going to reach so I added a block of wood for the neck to sit on.

I then used dowels to keep the neck in position with a little card to make everything snug.  This proves to be a problem as after the 3rd pass the card started to move meaning the neck moved a little.  This is why i wanted to route under the fret board to hide any mistakes... although I should have really practiced with a piece of scrap first.

I drilled a hole at the nut end to accommodate the anchor and stopped a couple of inches short of the body end and drilled a hole for the adjustment nut.  I then made a slot at the body end to allow me to install a washer to spread the pressure from the adjustment nut.

I fashioned a hardwood fillet to cover the truss rod slot and clamped it up to dry been careful to avoid getting any glue on the truss rod itself.  I will plane this level once the glue has dried before fitting the finger board.

Telecaster III - 8 - Jig To Cut the truss Rod Channel

Last night I started to create a pair of 'sleds' for my router to run along giving me a curve to cut a concave slot for the truss rod channel on the Telecaster neck.  I had a couple of pieces of pine with a curve already cut in them (from an old bed headboard) but the curve was not the same on each piece and the curve would have cut too deep into the neck anyway so I screwed the two pieces together and started to plane them level.

On doing some research I read the depth of the slot should be about 1/4" deeper at the centre than at the head and heel ends so I made some marks and started removing material from the centre outwards to get the curve I require.

These rails will be used to route the channel from the back of the neck so I will have to glue in a'skunk stripe'.  This is my preferred way at this stage as i will need to make a pretty accurate fillet to fin in the cavity so I may make another set of rails with a concave curve in them to allow me to route from the fretboard side of the neck.  Watch this space!

Telecaster III - Making The Truss Rod

Well I had ordered a 2 way truss rod from China and was waiting for it to arrive so I can continue with this project but it never arrived so I decided to have a go at making my own.  I decided to make a single action truss rod.

I have some threaded rod and found some furniture hardware to turn into the anchor and adjustment nut.  My metal working skills are a little rusty to say the least, I haven't really done any metal work since I was at school so the first challenge was to make an anchor.  I cut a piece from the end of the metal rod above and then tapped the hole, threaded the rod into the hole and then hammered the end into the groove to keep the rod from turning while it is been adjusted.

That was the easy bit.  Next I cut another section from the furniture rod to make the adjustment nut.  I needed to drill a hole right in the middle of the rod and then tap it to accept the threaded rod.  My first couple of attempts at holding the blank steady whilst trying to drill a hole in the dead centre failed until I filed two grooves in the vice to hold the blank in position.

Much better result, I started with a pilot hole and drilled 30mm deep before moving to a larger bit.  I then used a countersink bit to widen the hole at the top to make it easier to locate the rod.  The hole was then threaded.

It's a good job I had a few spare blanks to practice on.  Next I cut the slot in the adjusting nut.  This will give  a substantial screwdriver enough depth to maintain a good grip whilst making adjustments.  I started the cut with a hacksaw and then widened it with my Dremel before filing the slot and then polished everything using a little buffing wheel on the Dremel.

Well it look the part, Ideally this should be made of brass as brass will wear out quicker than the threads on the steel rod and is easier to replace.  Next job it to route the channel for the truss rod but that is a job for another day.

Another Ukulele Project - Levelling The Frets and Done

The ukulele project is almost finished, so time to get this off the bench.  I refitted all the hardware after the final coats of Tru-Oil had dried and  then fitted the strings.  I then fitted the nut I had made and notched it for the strings.  

The frets need levelling so I loosened the strings enough to tape them out of the way.  I then marked the tops of the frets with a blue indelible marker.  I then used my radius block to flatten all the frets whilst maintaining the neck radius.  

Gradually the blue ink wears away from each fret as they become level.  There was one in particular which was lower than the rest but gradually the sand paper found its mark and started to wear away the ink on each fret.

Once I was down to the a level I used 600 grit, 1200 grit and finally 1500 grit paper on each fret to remove the marks from the levelling process.

Next I took a triangular file to crown the frets.  Once again I marked the top of each fret with the blue marker pen and then filed each fret until I was left with a thin blue line along the middle of each fret.

The file has one corned ground away so as not to damage the finger board but I still masked the fingerboard up to prevent any damage.

Once each fret was crowned with the file I used 600 and 1200 grit sand paper to take out the file marks and then used my Dremel and a polishing compound to shine the frets up.

With the frets shining I re-tensioned the strings and fine tuned the string height at the nut end aiming for a 0.012" gap at the first fret.  With that set I adjusted the string height and then fine tune the intonation and finally the project was finished and ready to play!

It's great fun to play, but the volume and tone knobs are a little restrictive and do hinder play a little.

I presented the instrument to my son and he seemed happy with it and did actually acknowledge it after looking up from his X-Box for a moment! Plenty of time for him to have some fun with it!

So there it is, a Telecaster Ukulele featuring an all pine body with a glued in pine neck with an oak fingerboard.

13 frets with guitar style dot fret markers.  Chrome machine heads and a copper plated pick guard which should darken with age.

The pickup is a 'hot rail' humbucking pickup with volume and tone control.  The four string bridge is fully adjustable and the strings are mounted through the body, the same as a regular Telecaster.

I installed one string tree on the head and printed my own waterslide graphics .

The tone is crisp and clean with a lot of treble, as you would expect from an instrument of this size.

All in all this was a fun project and hopefully something my son will keep for a long tine and get some pleasure from playing it.

Now maybe I can get back to my guitar projects! although everything seems 'scaled up' now!

Another Ukulele Project - Fitting The Machine Heads

Tonight I drilled out the holes for the machine heads on the Telecaster ukulele and test fitted them.  I also applied some graphics I had printed earlier in the week.  They are printed using my inkjet printer, then a later of lacquer is sprayed over the print before cutting the graphics out and soaking them in warm water.

The graphics then just slide into place, and with the head already been nice and shiny from all the layers of Tru-Oil they move around easily enough allowing me to position them exactly where I want them.

Tonight I also rubbed the front of the body down again as it had picked up a few knocks while I was chiselling out the cavities for the electronics.  The front of the body will now receive several coats of Tru-Oil over the next week or so.

I also made a nut for the ukulele tonight, I cut out a piece of plastic and ground it down on the bench grinder and it is ready to fit once I have finished with the clear coats and I'm ready to re-assemble.

The final job for the night was to neaten up the wiring.  There was a lot of extra wire from the pickup so I trimmed this and rewired to pots.  Everything fits much neater now and I don't have to worry about trying to squeeze the wires into the control cavity and run the risk of shorting everything out.

I'm really looking forwards to putting some strings on this and trying it out... and then reluctantly handing it over to my son!

Another Ukulele Project - Completing The Electronics

Today I continued with the Telecaster Ukulele, I started by lining all the cavities with  copper tape, it's the first time I have used It and I must say it is very impressive. It moulds easily to the contours of the cavities and also adheres really well.

I drilled a hole for the jack socket and also drilled a hole though to the control cavity and also a hole through to one of the mounting screws for the bridge to run an earth wire.  Unfortunately I was a little to enthusiastic and came through the top, so that will have to be filled.

I mounted the pickup in the pick guard, I was not happy with the edges of the hole I had cut for the pickup so I added a piece of copper tape cut fit over the edges of the pickup cavity, It finishes the pickguard perfectly.  I then drill 2 holes and mounted the pickup to the pick guard.

I the wired up the volume and tone pots, I am still very concerned about the location of the volume and tome pots.  Perhaps I need to consider moving them, I think they will restrict playing the instrument too much.  I tested the volume and tone by tapping the pickup with a screw driver and the sound defiantly changed in both volume and tone.