Starting a Tele build

Coopster

Newbie
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Good day! First post to the forum (although I've had some interaction elsewhere with The Aaron, thank you sir!) I got notification that the lovely roasted maple neck I ordered has shipped out to me (I'll post pics when it's here) and I'm trying to dial in what I want the rest of it to be so I can get the body started. I've narrowed the general specs to nickel finished hardware with three compensated brass saddles, Gotoh tuners with oval pearl buttons, black pearl pickguard and a white body of some sort... and that's where I'm really stuck. Besides pickups, of course.

So what I'm doing is building a tribute guitar for my dog who just passed.

She was with me for a long time and was essentially my meant to be companion. It's a long story, but we've been through a lot. ANYWAY! I had originally considered doing a flame maple top with the Mary Kay white to kind of emulate the fur but discovered that combo has been discontinued. So I rethought that possibly a nice swamp ash body with that color would be good with the black pearl pickguard sort of emulating the black patch around her left eye. Now I'm sort of spinning around the idea of white pearl with the same pickguard. It just might be snazzier! I'm not sure, looking for any input or ideas.

As far as pickups go, I'm leaning towards some Duncan Broadcasters or something with some snarl to it. I'm not overly familiar with Tele pickups but this is a rock 'n' roll fiddle, not a chicken pickin' rig... although I like flexibility too.  :icon_biggrin:

Thanks for letting me share and hang out here!
 

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Welcome to the forum...

I look forward to seeing your build progress and thanks for sharing a picture of your dog and inspiration behind your build.
 
Hello! That is nice to dedicate a guitar to your dog, they are family members just like blood. I am dedicating mine to my grandmother who passed recently.

If you're interested, I posted a thread just recently with the neck plate I designed and ordered on Amazon. It's printed in color and I included the Warmoth logo and Turtle as well as my Grandmother's name all on top of a nice piece of artwork I found online. It was like $20 on Amazon and turned out perfectly. It's a nice way to really imbue the guitar with it's identity.
 
Sorry for the delay between posts, had a lot going on and then some pic posting challenges but... finally received my neck. It's a lovely baked maple with stainless 6150 frets, 59 roundback, 10-16 radius, 1 11/16 nut and reamed for Gotoh's. Said Gotoh's are their Height Adjustable Posts with Magnum Lock and oval pearl buttons. So the individual posts can be adjusted making string trees unnecessary.

Also received my decals from Rothko and Frost. Unfortunately the main headstock logo seems to have been damaged so I'll have to get another one. But you can get the vibe from what's there. My girl's name was Boo. I called her Boogie Bear frequently and would play gonna get your butt which was basically me chasing her saying that and then catching her and scratching her butt. Simple game but she loved it and would wiggle all over and wag wag wag. So it's a Tailawagster. The serial number is her date of death.

The last piece is really the first piece of the next part which is the body. A Gotoh In Tune steel bridge in nickel with cut down sides and brass compensated saddles. Next will be a four way tele plate, in nickel of course. Trying to decide between reversed or traditional. Then pickups and all the little parts and pieces and finally, I'll order the body. It'll be the most expensive single piece so I'll need to save up a bit before I can order but it'll be worth it in the end.

Thanks again for letting me ramble on as I slowly put the pieces together here.
 

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SeaGroomer said:
Hello! That is nice to dedicate a guitar to your dog, they are family members just like blood. I am dedicating mine to my grandmother who passed recently.

If you're interested, I posted a thread just recently with the neck plate I designed and ordered on Amazon. It's printed in color and I included the Warmoth logo and Turtle as well as my Grandmother's name all on top of a nice piece of artwork I found online. It was like $20 on Amazon and turned out perfectly. It's a nice way to really imbue the guitar with it's identity.
I'll definitely look in to that. I've been looking at a custom etched neck plate but haven't settled on anything yet. Thanks for the heads up!
 
SeaGroomer said:
You're welcome! BTW, where did you order those decals?
Rothko and Frost. It's a British company that has a toe in a lot of decorative corners but they do really nice waterslide decals for guitars too. It's my second set from them. The first was for ANOTHER dog but that build has been delayed do to being more expensive than this one and a little more challenging. Just a smidge really. It'll get done sooner than later.

https://www.rothkoandfrost.com/

 
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