Welcome back to the second part of this thin line Telecaster build, there's a
link to part one just up there in case you missed it
if this final part I'll shape the headstock I'm going to use hand tools
and tell you how easy or difficult it was I'm also going to stain the guitar
and finish it with poly finishing oil and then polish the frets to take the
sharp edges off then I'm going to set it up for the final step I'll put a
complete price list up as well so that you can see what the overall cost was a
few fancy giving this a go I also put a list of the tools and parts in the
description with links to make it easy for you and that will include the
soldering iron kit that included the multimeter for just $23 then I'll play
the guitar and give you my overall feedback as to whether it was worth
doing so let's shape the headstock using a coping saw and some 140 grit sandpaper
So I went with a fender ish headstock with my own little twist style it was
easier than I thought to be honest a nine-dollar coping saw and six dollars
worth of different grade sandpaper all from Amazon took me around three hours
in total to do it and I started with 140 griten went down to 400 then 1000 to
polish it I'm really pleased with how relatively easy it was I did do it all
in my kitchen as a it's cold in Chicago at the moment and I don't have a
workshop as I live in a small apartment I also wanted to do this with hand tools
to put your mind at rest that you don't necessarily need expensive power tools
and a garage or workshop to tackle this because let's be honest that's how most
of us will do this.
Don't forget to Like and subscribe this is your sort of thing Cheers...
I used tea as a stain to get the vintage amber look on the headstock and the neck
and it worked absolutely fine three to four tea bags
did it and I'll let it dry thoroughly around about two days before sanding and
applying the poly fish and it looks really good I'm really pleased with it
so I sanded the body with 400 grit then went down to 1000 grit sandpaper
before starting the sanding process to get any glue residue off and make
sure it was fairly smooth after some nice messages about the color thanks
guys are used an early American stain from
Verathane I got it in Home Depot 'Home depot' and
after just one coat to be honest it looked fantastic in fact it looks
professional I did do more than one coat when it dried out to be honest I didn't
need to but it just bought out the grain of the wood and the color was just what
I was after but of course you can have more coats to taste
for shielding I use copper shielding tape I shielded all the cavities then I got a
small piece of copper tape and run it from each of the cavities luckily on the
thin line Telecaster you won't see that because the pickguard covers it all
also within the cavities I just overlapped them slightly onto the body
so that I will get a good continuity a good ground between the cavities and the
back of the pickguard
I designed my own neck decals with my name and the year of the build on it I
didn't want the fender logo is isn't a fender and these decals are really
delicate when using waterslide paper it did take a few attempts but in the end
it turned out great I'm really happy with my attempt at the
vintage neck look
the setup included fitting the new nut adjusting the action and intonation I
won't show it here as there are many videos online to show you how to do this
but it took me around 30 minutes to complete so here's the final build
so is it worth building your own guitar from a kit rather than let's say buying
a squire at 3 or 400 or a firefly guitar a 150 well in my opinion yes as long as
you put the effort in try it at least once build and set up your own guitar it
will give you a greater understanding of the instrument and a great sense of
achievement plus you get to own a one off
custom guitar with no resale value ...thanks for watching.