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Satin Purple Tele Build

labdog03

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First Warmoth build, first guitar was a cheap tele knockoff around 10 years ago and haven't owned one since. Almost pulled the trigger on the purple road worn tele that came out a few years ago and have been kicking myself ever since. Figured I would give building one a go so I could get everything I wanted in a guitar. Absolutely love how it came out even with how nerve-wracking it was to do my best to not mess it up.
Body
Construction: Solid
Core Wood: Basswood
Control Cavity: Rear Rout
Neck Pickup Rout: Humbucker
Bridge Pickup Rout Humbucker
Jack Rout: 3/4" Side Jack Hole
Bridge Rout Type: Tremolo
Bridge Rout: Wilkinson Semi-Recessed
Mounting Holes: Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Pocket Shape: Tele
Body Contours: Custom Forearm Contour, Custom Tummy Cut
Color: Purple Frost
Gloss or Satin: Satin

Neck
Construction: Modern
Wood: Roasted Maple
Neck Profile: Wizard
Fretboard Radius: 12"
Number of Frets: 24
Frets: SS6150
Tuner Hole Size: Schaller (25/64")
Inlay Shape: dot
Inlay Material: cream
Side Dots: White Side Dots
String Nut: Standard Nut - GraphTech White TUSQ XL
Mounting Holes: Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Heel Shape: tele Shape

Parts
Wilkinson VS100 Gold
Fishmann Fluence Scott Lepage Custom pickups
Fishmann battery pack - strat style
3 way dpdt toggle switch
Hipshot Grip-lock tuners non-staggered
Kaisch stereo barrel jack
rtl fasteners 2-56 threaded wood inserts

By far the thing that worried me the most was drilling through the finish for mini-toggle switch. I spent a lot of time researching how others do it and think it came out pretty good imo. There was a small chip near the hole on the front side of the guitar that got covered up by the washer once it was installed.
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Once that was complete I needed to turn my attention to how I was going to mount the pickups into their respective cavities, I bought some 1" thick hobby foam with adhesive back to use for the spacer in the cavity but quickly realized that i would need to cut it down since the Fishmann pickups are quite thicker than normal pickups.
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I'd heard about people using threaded inserts to attach the pickups to the body but a lot of the links that I found were dead so I had to spent a decent amount of time trying to find a place to source a low quantity of threaded inserts. I found RTL Fasteners was able to send me a single packet of 4 inserts which was perfect for what I needed. The 2-56 inserts meant that I didn't have to drill out the mounting holes on the pickups so I could swap them out if I wanted to in the future to another guitar that doesn't have direct mounted pickups. I used the playing card trick (more like magic card trick) to center the pickups in the cavities before drilling out the holes for the inserts. I was able to get 3 of the 4 in the right locations but my bit wandered a bit on the last one and it is slightly off-center. With the mounting screws it doesn't really matter but wanted to note it.
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Wiring took some time but I just went slow and made sure that I double and triple checked the wiring diagram on the Fluence website for the pickups.
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Finally, the finished product! absolutely love how it turned out. The roasted maple neck plays like a dream and the VS100 stays in tune incredibly well. I'm having my local guitar tech do a once over on it to make sure that everything looks to be in order before I get it back later this week.
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Welcome to the forum, and this turned out great! Looks like you were plenty patient and did your research. I like this unique combination of specs, that's what a parts guitar should be--something special that you can truly appreciate, something you can't just buy off the shelf. Nice job, thanks for sharing it here!
 
That’s awesome, love the Larry Carlton inspired theme.
I’m wanting to do a similar build with the trem, and 24.75” scale, but with single coils still, this gives me some inspiration to follow through now.
 
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