Quilt Top Telecaster Build w/ Warmoth Finished Body

[mycroftxxx]

At 16 weeks since order, so should be seeing the shipping notice in the next couple of weeks. First partscaster, and first Tele; here’s the key specs for the body and neck:

Telecaster® Replacement Body:
Chambered mahogany with quilt maple LamTop, forearm contour, belly cut, cream binding
Gloss finished amber dye with transparent brown back
Hardtail with vintage Tele bridge rout, no F-holes, standard Tele 2-pickup rout, top rout control cavity
Standard 4-bolt neck, standard Tele neck pocket

Telecaster® Replacement Guitar Neck:
Modern construction, roasted flame maple neck and fretboard, unfinished
Standard thin profile, SS6150 fretwire, 22 frets, 9.5”-14” compound radius, white TUSQ nut

I’ve settled on Fralin split blade noiseless Tele pickups in the Blues Output range, and a Fralin prewired control plate flipped, with 500k pots, treble bleed, and 3-way switching with a push-pull volume pot that gives the series output in the up position. Also Hipshot open-back locking tuners in chrome, and a chrome Gotoh bridge with cut-down sides and their compensated brass saddles.

I’m not sure about the pickguard. I ordered and received a Warmoth F-hole Tele pickguard, cream/black/cream - the F-hole one because it’s much smaller than the regular Tele pickguard, and I kind of want to show off the top. I also got a chrome neck pickup ring in case I decide to not use a pickguard at all. Decisions, decisions…

Anyway, will start posting pictures in the next couple of weeks as soon as the body and neck arrive!

 

[mycroftxxx]

End of week 17, no shipping notice yet…hopefully this will be the week

 

[mycroftxxx]

Week 19 done, now into week 20, no shipping notice yet

 

[syscokid]

Week 19 done, now into week 20, no shipping notice yet

Have you checked with Warmoth headquarters yet?

 

[mycroftxxx]

Have you checked with Warmoth headquarters yet?

Not in a while; around week 12, I touched base and they said it should be in the 16-18 week ballpark, so I figure I’ll give them a few more days before checking in.

 

[syscokid]

Not in a while; around week 12, I touched base and they said it should be in the 16-18 week ballpark, so I figure I’ll give them a few more days before checking in.

Cool.

30 days ago, I placed a couple Warmoth orders. First order was for a custom build and painted 7/8 Strat body, and a custom build 7/8 neck. Second order was for miscellaneous parts for the first order. According to Spike at Warmoth, the miscellaneous parts order shipment was delayed due to the recent Warmoth website upgrade. Once the delayed shipment was corrected (Thanks, Spike!), I then asked Spike if the first order was affected too. Spike said that it’s on schedule and custom orders like these are at about 18 weeks… October 19th… maybe! I’m known for torturing myself…

 

[mycroftxxx]

Cool.

30 days ago, I placed a couple Warmoth orders. First order was for a custom build and painted 7/8 Strat body, and a custom build 7/8 neck. Second order was for miscellaneous parts for the first order. According to Spike at Warmoth, the miscellaneous parts order shipment was delayed due to the recent Warmoth website upgrade. Once the delayed shipment was corrected (Thanks, Spike!), I then asked Spike if the first order was affected too. Spike said that it’s on schedule and custom orders like these are at about 18 weeks… October 19th… maybe! I’m known for torturing myself…

I wish Warmoth had more status info on orders than just “pending”

 

[syscokid]

“Pending” is a scary word!

 

[Hodgo]

Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part

 

[mycroftxxx]

Shipped! Will have it middle of next week! So just under 20 weeks…

 

[mycroftxxx]

Delivered! First picture:

 

[mycroftxxx]

And that’s a “Warmoth choose for me” quilt maple top

 

[syscokid]

There’s definitely a lot of creepy and crazy faces in that quilt…

 

[bagman67]

Wowzers. I mean, I can see why it's so hard to get good lumber when businesses like Warmoth are hoggin' up all the goodies. Glad you got such a fine piece.

 

[mycroftxxx]

Haven’t had a lot of time to work on this, but have made some progress:

• I dry-fit the neck and did the basic measurements per Warmoth’s directions; looks good
• Installed the Hipshot open-back staggered locking tuning machines; the universal mounting plate system worked like a charm. I really didn’t want to drill holes for retaining screws in the roasted maple (too many horror stories about cracking the roasted maple headstock!), which is a big reason I went with the Hipshots. They look cool too
• Decided to forgo a pickguard, even the smaller-than-standard F-hole Tele pickguard, in favor of showing as much of the wood as feasible. So I got a chrome neck pickup ring from Vintage Forge, looks good, a hefty piece of metal. if I change my mind later, the pickguard will cover the pickup ring mounting holes; the converse is not true.
• Got the screw hole locations for the football jack plate and the control plate measured and marked; I used “delicate” painter’s tape aka washi tape in the right places, then measured several timesand marked the hole locations on the tape. Tomorrow I’ll do the strap button and pickup ring mounting hole locations the same way. I figure I’ll use an awl or something to start the holes so the drill doesn’t skitter.
• I was attempting to locate the mounting ring holes, but I needed to do that with the neck pickup mounted on the ring and that meant I needed to run the neck pickup wire to the control cavity, which turned out to be a bridge too far tonight - ran into an obstruction about an inch into the passageway connecting the neck pickup pocket to the control cavity. I’ll troubleshoot that tomorrow, starting with feeding a wire the other way to see how that goes.

Goal for Saturday is to get all holes drilled, HW installed on the body, and everything ready for soldering; Sunday will be soldering, mounting the neck, doing final setup, and testing everything out.

Will post some “in-progress” pictures Saturday.

 

[stratamania]

You might need to feed the wire through with something stiffer, as the wire might have gone into a chamber. Taking your time is always a practical approach.

 

[mycroftxxx]

Body holes drilled, pickups mounted on neck ring and bridge, neck ring and bridge installed, strap buttons installed (Schaller Strap Locks, have them on all my guitars). Had to clean out the neck pickup wire chaise to the control cavity because it was too narrow for three pickup wires (the control plate has a pull-up volume pot that engages series neck and bridge, which requires a third wire).

I know many would argue that one should solder the controls and check the pickups before mounting them, but I’ve taken this risk before and am reasonably confident the pickup install went fine. Soldering the pickups and control plate together is tomorrow’s task…

Anyway, here’s end of day today:

 

[mycroftxxx]

Finished this morning, sounds great! I haven’t done any setup at all, just bolted on the neck, strung it up, tuned it, plugged it in, and started playing, but it plays terrific! A rough check on intonation is plenty acceptable, as is the action. I’ll likely do a full setup next weekend, but it’s darned good right now. Plugged it into my Mustang GTX100, dialed up the ‘65 Twin Reverb model, and clean twang for days; switched over to the ‘55 Tweed Deluxe and got some really nice crunch, exactly what I was hoping to get out of the Fralin Split Blade Tele Blues output pickups. And dead silent too, just as quiet as my Suhr Standard+ with their semi- proprietary SSCII noise-cancelling system. Super-happy with it so far.

Will post some pictures of the finished guitar later today, including some shots of the neck; some really nice flame maple there. And I’m very happy with the neck ring instead of a pickguard.

Very impressed by Warmoth’s quality on the neck and body; worth the 20-week wait! Would also strongly recommend the Gotoh In-Tune bridge if you want the classic brass barrels but you also want good intonation. And love the pickups so far; my first set of Fralins.

 

[mycroftxxx]

As promised, a few pics of the finished product; not the greatest lighting but I think you can see some details:

 

[rockandroller]