Telecaster Style Guitar Build - Part 2

The swamp ash body is now complete using the routing template I showed in the last post. I have painted it white with a Beckers Waterborne pigmented lacquer after first sealing and sanding smooth . The finish off the gun is very good but I'm going to leave it a few days to cure before I rub it out.

Front with some blue tape masking
the neck pocket. Did I ever say I love blue tape?

Rear. No belly comfort curves on this bad boy!

In between a repair job for a violin I've been busy making the neck. I have put a faux skunk stripe in the back and routed the double action truss-rod channel from the front.
When the rod was put into position I simply glued the fretboard into place. I don't intend making life difficult for myself by making this neck from one piece although I have done that before.

Then I used the bandsaw to cutout the profile of the neck. I bent the frets using my fretbending tool then inserted the frets using a 9.1/2" radius StewMac fretting caul here. The edges of the frets are finished off with a StewMac fret leveller and a 30 degree fret bevelling file


The back of the neck, as ever, is shaped using a combination of spokeshave and a series of varying radius curved cauls with self adhesive sandpaper attached. The machine head holes are 10mm diameter and I drilled them 9.5mm and opened them to 10mm with a machine reamer. The side inlay dots are 2mm diameter black plastic.

Back of the neck shaped

The access hole for the truss rod adjustment was shaped using a gouge and I put a few coats of black paint into it to tidy it up.
I have pre-made one of my TMc logos and need just to inlay it into the headstock and that is the final job before top coating with a clear water-borne lacquer from ToneTech that I had left over from a previous job.

The neck should look great with the lacquer coating.