Pinecaster in Progress - DONE!

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

I'm obscenely busy with responsible adult things lately, not nearly enough time to get to my fun time!  However, I did get some work done on the Pinecaster I started.  This one is a build to spec order for my brother - neck is a Warmoth Vintage Modern Tele (1 5/8th, standard thin, reverse headstock) with a 1 piece neck.  The body is a Tele I ordered from this guy, made out of Eastern White Pine, routed for a standard Tele, and a neck P-90.  It's light - can't be more than 3.5 pounds, probably less, but I don't have a scale to measure it (except for the Wii Fit - but no way to get it tell me anything other than "Work out more!").

As the first pic shows, I started to add a gentle forearm cut - this stuff is indeed, rather soft, and can be worked pretty easily with just sandpaper & patience.  The second pic is the neck after I think 2 coats of TruOil.  That would have been a few days ago, put on a 3rd coat today.

I started to use a sanding drum in my drill press to carve away just a bit of space at the bottom of the cutaway and. . . yikes.  The chuck of my drill press is a mag-fit, and doesn't take well to being used with a sanding drum.  It came off & did that bit of damage seen there.  I wasn't sure how I'd go about fixing it, so I put it away for a few days. . .

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Today, I had a few hours of time to play with, and a newly completed shop/work room in which to do it.  I finished sanding the body edges to get everything rounded, and very carefully, used a sanding drum (with lighter grit paper) to finish carving out the back contour & eliminate the ding.  A bit of wiping with a cloth later to get rid of the dust, then a wood conditioner, shortly followed by a coat of Minwax "Early American" colored stain.

All the rest of the parts are in the mail, should have it all this week.

 

[Firebird211]

That's looking good, I feel ya on the whole responsibility thing brother, now that I have my body and neck and want to finish it, more responsibilities keep mounting up.  You gotta come back to it when you have time, otherwise it isn't as much fun.  Your coming right along. :rock-on:

 

[m4rk0]

really like it so far!! very rustic

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Final coat of stain on yesterday, a brief rub down with a cloth, then the first coat of Minwax wipe-on poly.  Kept it quite thin, going to do at least 6 or 7 coats, polish it good along the way.  May or may not add a layer of spray on gloss poly once that's done, I'll see.  No pics at the moment, but they're shortly to follow.  The last few parts are in the mail, but the pickups are here, and there's a slight problem.

The pickup I got for the neck is this one, and while it notes that it's taller than a normal P-90, it doesn't specify that it's also square along the bottom, and thus won't fit in a regular P-90 rout.

Argh.

Going to see what I can do with sanding & carving away the corners, but I'm probably going to have to buy a dremel.  Which is technically the new tools "yay!", but less cash to play with on other things (since new tools & toys share a budget section).

The neck is done - 5 coats of TruOil across the back, then sm0000thed out with steel wool.  Maybe one more coat on the front of the headstock to give it more sheen, but it's looking and feeling quite nice.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Looking good. I'm excited to see this come together. My dad and I have plans to put together a pine Tele someday (he's not a player, but he is a woodworker). Sadly, my budget doesn't even include a "new tools & toys" section; it's pretty much limited to "rent," "food" and "debt" at the moment.  :laughing7:

Actually, scratch the laughing smiley...  :sad: 

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

I'm liking Marco's word there:  Rusticaster is a decent name for this beast, I think.  :icon_biggrin:

Finally had all the parts come in, so assembly isn't too far out - a few more coats of semi-gloss poly, and increasingly fine sandpaper usage and it'll be done.  This pic shows all the stuff, but I still need to carve out a bit more of the neck pickup hole, which will be after all the finishing is done.  Huzzah for finish scratch covering pickguards.  :toothy12:

 

[elfro89]

That is gonna be a NICE guitar!  :icon_thumright:

 

[Nando Vallart]

Cool!

 

[m4rk0]

Looks great!!! I was also going for black hardware on mine!!! I really like how it turned out for you!
how did the pine take the true oil???

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

It's actually Minwax semi-gloss Polyurethane on the body - I wanted something pretty durable, and I wasn't sure how well TruOil would work with Pine.  The neck got the TruOil all throughout.  Just finished another coat of the Minwax poly on the body, and since it dries pretty fast (when you put it on super thin), I'll sand it with 400, then wet sand with 600.  I'll see how it looks after that, but I'm thinking it will get a few coats of spray on gloss.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

DONE!  (pics there)

Between working on a second job (which has a shot at becoming a second career), family life, and being lousy at soldering, it's taken way too long.  But it's done now!  All strung up, tuned up, ready to be packed in a case & shipped to my brother.  It will replace 2 Fenders he sold to fund the parts for this, and a dis-used 12 string Seagull will soon share the same fate - but this time, the funds will fund a project for me.   :toothy12:

 

[Cagey]

Your link is NFG.

 

[mayfly]

It's also DOA.  SNFU also could apply  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Link fixed - one could also have moused over to see that it's a link to the gallery page, head over to the Telecaster list.... :icon_jokercolor: