CURSED OBJECTS

So when I was a kid starting out playing guitar I had a bit of a dislike for the look of Telecasters, basically I thought they looked completely munted. Like a Les Paul that wasn’t finished cooking or something, and that headstock was just, just arghhh it filled me with rage at how ugly I thought it looked. The tele had none of the beautiful lines like a Stratocaster, none of the rock and roll badassery of a Les Paul and hey to be honest as a kid in the early 90’s not many of my guitar hero’s were playing them, well not in film clips anyway so they were automatically discarded. Let’s just say I was into the curves of a porsche and this was about as porsche as a school bus. 

When I was a kid I was a bit of a dick.

As a teenager (who was still a bit of a dick) I started to notice my most hated of guitars being played by people, people in bands, in bands I liked! This was a time when I was starting to play in bands myself and as you often do, you try and mimic your idols sounds. I think it was “Just” by Radiohead that was the tipping point for me, more accurately it was the moment Johnny Greenwood hit the Fernandez sustainer switch in his tele that really pushed me over the edge. I fucking lost it, I had to have one. I ended up getting a fairly stock standard made in Mexico tele, black, two single coil pickups, white pick guard, neck felt okay but nothing amazing and felt in all honesty as I got home and played it some more, a bit ripped off. This was probably one of the most important moments of my life as a budding musician and it’s probably best I save that story for another time as it’s a long and harrowing tale resulting in my now ongoing search for my white whale (trust me it will make sense when I find the time to write it all out). 

Anyways, I had become a Telecaster owner and from then on, or hence forth if you prefer, I’ve always had one in my collection. 

Now as I find myself in the position of Luthier in training (my own title for myself, hey why not) what with making Cigar Box Guitars rather regularly I recently decided to mix things up and try something new. Making Cigar Box Guitars is great, I love it and I will continue to make them but, ever since I made my first one I have thought, I need to do a full body electric. Now this guitar that this entire rant has been leading towards isn’t even something I have made from scratch, I bought a kit guitar and I won’t try to deny it, I have neither the tools at my disposal right now nor do I think I have the full skill set required at this stage, however I wanted to make a guitar that felt in part like I had a hand in it’s creation… Is that a bit of a god complex? 

I’ve bought a kit guitar, the body is Alder, the neck is Maple and honestly that’s all that needs to be said about what came in the kit because the rest I am customising. So let’s get to the interesting part.

So this is pretty much what the body looked like out of the box, everything seems pretty okay, the pick guard is a single ply black that’s a little bit iffy around the bridge route but that can be cleaned up (or I might completely replace the pick guard altogether in the end)

My first order of business and probably the most simple mod was to carve out a hip groove on the back of the guitar. Just using a rasp file did the job fine and later I cleaned it up easily with some sanding. 

From the start I was always going to change the pickups, the only problem was, I wanted a P90 in the neck but it was only routed for a single coil so, out with chisel and voila. Honestly I would have used a router but ermmm I don’t have one and power tools kinda freak me out 

Pretty sure that pick guard was only cut for a single coil too? Doing this without a template was a little bit hit and miss but after lining everything up beforehand and tracing the P90 out on the plastic it came out alright. 

Okay that looked a little rough, it did clean up okay though!

Today the last order of business as the sun was going down was to switch the electronics around I’ll probably have to still put in a new pot to match the P90 but I wanted to get something small and annoying out of the way. I always switch the control plate around on telecasters as I like to have easier access to the volume control so, now it’s upside down but the right way up with the volume on top, tone and then pickup selector. 

And yeah, that’s where this project is at right now. I’ve started working on the paint and finish idea’s but that’s still in the works though I’m fairly certain it will have a painted top and natural back and sides. I am toying with the idea of using a wrap around bridge like a Les Paul jr style, but I’m holding off on that for now as there are a few variables that need looking at before committing to it but, maybe?