Telecaster/Ukulele build...

JBennett

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I'm building a telecaster/ukulele. Here are some pictures of my progress:
Carved the body from a hunk of pine.

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Rounded the edges with a router. Sanded it all down. I'm waiting on the neck. Someone else is building that for me.
Wired the electronics, I'll need to do it again. The cavity is tight!

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testing:
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I'm going to be trying a telecaster pickup and a duo-sonic pickup, each with it's own pickguard...

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And, here is what I hope the final product looks like.

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Very cool! I'm having a mini les paul style body (semi-hollow), danelectro-shaped headstock, blue burst finish electric made for me. I don't have the wood-working skills to make one myself, but boy howdy do i admire those that can. Can't wait to see what this looks like all finished (my husband is a telecaster and gretsch fan)
 
That sounds really nice. Post a picture when it's all done. I only have the most basic skills, so I farmed out the tough part (the neck) and picked the simplest guitar design to take on. The boat paddle with a bolt on neck.

I'll post more photos as I complete steps.
 
When I saw that rough shaped body with the belt sander, I thought, uh oh, here we go. All I can say, that cleaned up real nice! Interested in seeing the finished product.
 
Very nice. The sonic blue will look good with the chrome and pickguard. What type of tuners are you using? Since you chose a tele neck pickup, you might check out the GFS dual blade humbuckers. You could add a three way switch to expand the tonal range of the instrument. I'd suggest an on/on/on switch.

Nice bridge too.
 
I'm going to try out the duo-sonic and tele neck pickups first. If the string spacing is off and I can't get an even response with separate magnet pickups, I'll try that GFS blade type. That could be just what I need. It depends how these two pickups I have work. Thanks for the suggestion.

As for the belt sander. Yeah, I was skeptical myself! We clamped it down to the bench and it did a great job. It's a pine body, so it's real soft and was easy to shape with a light touch.
 
Hey. I might try that out. Looks great. The pickup routing can be altered, it doesn't matter. It's all covered by the pickguard. I've carved my pickguards out of cheap 3 dollar craft plastic. If I find the perfect pickup I can always make a pickguard for that pickup.
 
Vinnie,
That's considered a string through bridge as opposed to a hardtail where the strings feed through the back of the bridge. A tun-o-matic bridge utilizes a tailpiece to anchor the strings. For what its worth, I build almost all the bridges that Tom sells. He makes a few from time to time when I get backlogged, but at the present time he is my sole distributor. Tom is a great guy and I've been trying to talk him into offering an electric uke kit but he just hasn't had the demand although he will do one upon request. There is one other fellow named John Mixon that recently started building short scale bridges. They are a bit pricey but very well done.
 
This reminds me of the little tele and strat guitars Stew Mac was selling 20 years ago. Great job--would love to hear what is sound like when your done.
Steve
 
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Reranch primer/sonicblue/tinted-clear arrived.

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Andrew. You must have built this bridge. I love it. Can't wait to get it tuned up. I was hunting around for options, thinking I'd have to settle for a guitar bridge with two saddles removed, or a bass bridge with new string notches carved into the saddles, but then I was pointed toward your bridges by Paul Setzer. Great work. I only wish it had one of those old fashioned snap on bridge covers.
 
Yes, Paul has referred quite a few people to me for custom bridges. The bridge I made Paul was for a two saddle setup like the old Tele bridges. You can also get piezo saddles for those bridges if you ever decide to go back to nylon strings or a midi interface.

You can't go wrong with the Reranch products for one off instruments but I'd highly recommend that you shake them well before spraying. I used their seafoam green and the colors separated on the instrument. Be very diligent about keeping it mixed.
 
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