In this page I will show every moment of the build process that I captured on camera. There are very few moments that went unrecorded, and I endeavoured to talk about them if they weren’t seen on camera. I have shortened down the vast majority of videos into time-lapses, this means it takes much less time to view them all but you still understand what is happening. Over eight hours of footage have been condensed into a far more manageable eighty minutes or so.
In addition to the construction footage, I am showing the explanatory videos that I shot as I believe it helps demonstrate the thought process behind the actions I took. I am including footage that didn’t make the edit, as well as poor takes, as I wish to show the entirety of this process, and that includes my mistakes when offering explanations.
As this is an area I had very limited experience in, I sought plenty of help, often from Tony who played a great role in the project, and often from external sources. Below is a collection of resources I used and a brief description of their application.
For neck dimensions, Guitar Chalk had a very useful guide to the basics and averages that you would find across many telecaster style guitars. (Guitar Chalk Editorial, 2023)
When it came to drilling the holes for the tuning pegs, I needed to find the right diameter, I found this at WiredGuitarist’s site. (WiredGuitarist, 2016)
As I began to sand a few things down, I knew I was best off looking into best practices for sanding. It would help in the early stages but more so in the latter stages once I moved onto the body. One example of what I learned was the “pencil trick” where one lightly makes pencil markings along the side that is being sanded, as you go on, the markings are sanded away and you are able to see where needs more work and where you have finished. (Katz-Moses, 2022)
When it came to drilling the passage for the output jack, I looked to Warmoth for guidance on sizing. They are a respected guitar modification and building company and gave me just what I needed. (Warmoth, n.d.)
The final step of setting up the guitar involved attaching the strings and tuning them. My dad recommended that I looked into a “luthier’s knot” which, he says, is more secure than the standard wrapping method. I followed a YouTube tutorial closely and it seemed to work rather well! (Clark, 2022)