In front of your house there's a tree. Look out your window – there's anther one. There's wood everywhere. You would think it would be easy to come by. Not so much…
The problem is that most wood you buy at a Home Depot or Lowes is still fairly wet (wood takes a few years to dry out) – or worse – it's warped. These are two things that are not so good for building guitars. Also, there are only about 4 or 5 types of wood that are considered well suited to guitar construction (Alder, Ash, Mahogany, Maple, and Basswood. There are also a few exotic woods that are rare). Finally, to build a Tele you need to start out with a block of wood that is roughly 20 inches long by 13 inches wide and 1 ¾ inches thick. That is an uncommon size for Home Depot. It turns out that its an uncommon size all around (at least for those of us that live in the Metro Boston area).
What I did find out is that it is very common to take two pieces of wood that are 20 x 7 x 1 ¾ and glue them together. Guitar makers do it all the time. In fact I've been told that if I sanded all the paint off of the Squier I bought it could be made of up to FIVE pieces of wood that have been glued together. Crazy Talk! Many people on the chat boards that I visited in my research talked about the necessity of good TONE woods in guitar construction - that the wood is essential in making the tone. Perhaps this is the reason the Squier Tele sounds like Ka-Ka. I'll leave that one unanswered until I finish my Tele.
So, I was talking about Wood. I found a great little woodworkers shop in Cambridge, MA – Rockler's. I'm told they are a chain of wood stores. What will they think of next? Rockler had just about every type of wood you could want – except the kind I wanted. I had wanted to make this Tele out of Alder. Alder is one of the traditional woods used in Telecaster and Stratocaster construction. For the record, Leo Fender, the man who started this madness in the 1950's started making guitars out of PINE – a very soft wood. For one reason or another (I'm guessing production costs or availability) he switched to Alder and Ash. Most people don't know that Leo couldn't play guitar to save his life. He built 'em – he didn't play 'em. I'm guessing he was more interested in making a durable, easy to build instrument than creating a tonally balanced instrument. …but I digress.
They didn't have my wood. No one in the surrounding area had any Alder and no one had Ash in a workable size. My third choice was Mahogany. This they had in the right size. I've owned Magogany guitars before. They are heavy but they sustain very well. Whether it was due to the resonance of the wood or the sheer bulk of the guitar – I'll never know. Either way – I bought two slabs of wood in the following size: 20 x 7 x 1 ¾.
The problem is that most wood you buy at a Home Depot or Lowes is still fairly wet (wood takes a few years to dry out) – or worse – it's warped. These are two things that are not so good for building guitars. Also, there are only about 4 or 5 types of wood that are considered well suited to guitar construction (Alder, Ash, Mahogany, Maple, and Basswood. There are also a few exotic woods that are rare). Finally, to build a Tele you need to start out with a block of wood that is roughly 20 inches long by 13 inches wide and 1 ¾ inches thick. That is an uncommon size for Home Depot. It turns out that its an uncommon size all around (at least for those of us that live in the Metro Boston area).
What I did find out is that it is very common to take two pieces of wood that are 20 x 7 x 1 ¾ and glue them together. Guitar makers do it all the time. In fact I've been told that if I sanded all the paint off of the Squier I bought it could be made of up to FIVE pieces of wood that have been glued together. Crazy Talk! Many people on the chat boards that I visited in my research talked about the necessity of good TONE woods in guitar construction - that the wood is essential in making the tone. Perhaps this is the reason the Squier Tele sounds like Ka-Ka. I'll leave that one unanswered until I finish my Tele.
So, I was talking about Wood. I found a great little woodworkers shop in Cambridge, MA – Rockler's. I'm told they are a chain of wood stores. What will they think of next? Rockler had just about every type of wood you could want – except the kind I wanted. I had wanted to make this Tele out of Alder. Alder is one of the traditional woods used in Telecaster and Stratocaster construction. For the record, Leo Fender, the man who started this madness in the 1950's started making guitars out of PINE – a very soft wood. For one reason or another (I'm guessing production costs or availability) he switched to Alder and Ash. Most people don't know that Leo couldn't play guitar to save his life. He built 'em – he didn't play 'em. I'm guessing he was more interested in making a durable, easy to build instrument than creating a tonally balanced instrument. …but I digress.
They didn't have my wood. No one in the surrounding area had any Alder and no one had Ash in a workable size. My third choice was Mahogany. This they had in the right size. I've owned Magogany guitars before. They are heavy but they sustain very well. Whether it was due to the resonance of the wood or the sheer bulk of the guitar – I'll never know. Either way – I bought two slabs of wood in the following size: 20 x 7 x 1 ¾.
Someone in the peanut gallery is saying something about Telecasters and Mahogany. Oil and water...? What? I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
For the record - Mahogany is not the wood of choice for Telecasters. It is usually considered too dark in timbre and tone for the classic Tele sound. Okay, I've said it. When you build your Tele - tell me how it goes.
One final note about wood: Rockler's had a wood called butternut that was lighter than mahogany in color and weight but came in 20 x 14 x 1 ¾ blocks. If I ever do this again I'm going to try this process with a solid block of wood like that rather than two slabs glued together. Maybe it won't make a difference in tone but it is one less step (i.e. no glueing).
So, gluing. I was supposed to take pictures of the gluing process so you could see how it works. I found that holding two gluey pieces of timber toghether while trying to focus my camera was a tad difficult...
...okay, I admit it - I forgot to take the pictures...
It basically involved me finding the two edges that were straightest of the two pieces I had and sanding them until they were smooth and made a tight joint when placed together. Then glue them together and introduce pressure (hello pressure, how do you do?).
I slathered a ton of glue between the two pieces of wood and used six 24 inch-long clamps to clamp the two pieces together. The basic idea is to glue and squeeze them enough that they in effect become one piece of wood.
A tip: as you are tightening the vice grips glue will seep out of the joint. This isn't a problem but you might find it easier to wipe this up while it is still wet rather than waiting until it is dry. Either way - it will sand away with elbow grease.
You should probably use wood glue for this process - that's what it's for. The wood glue I used recommended that I keep the glued pieces under pressure for an hour and let it set for 8 to 24 hours. I clamped it for 2 hours and let it set for 20 hours. When it was done – I took the above picture.
One note about the image above: This was taken after the glue had set for 20 hours. I then sanded the top surface with 60 then 100 grit sand paper and gave it a light mineral spirit wash to see what the wood grain will look like when I'm done. I nicked that trick from someone on the telecaster forum (http://www.tdpri.com/).
For the record - Mahogany is not the wood of choice for Telecasters. It is usually considered too dark in timbre and tone for the classic Tele sound. Okay, I've said it. When you build your Tele - tell me how it goes.
One final note about wood: Rockler's had a wood called butternut that was lighter than mahogany in color and weight but came in 20 x 14 x 1 ¾ blocks. If I ever do this again I'm going to try this process with a solid block of wood like that rather than two slabs glued together. Maybe it won't make a difference in tone but it is one less step (i.e. no glueing).
So, gluing. I was supposed to take pictures of the gluing process so you could see how it works. I found that holding two gluey pieces of timber toghether while trying to focus my camera was a tad difficult...
...okay, I admit it - I forgot to take the pictures...
It basically involved me finding the two edges that were straightest of the two pieces I had and sanding them until they were smooth and made a tight joint when placed together. Then glue them together and introduce pressure (hello pressure, how do you do?).
I slathered a ton of glue between the two pieces of wood and used six 24 inch-long clamps to clamp the two pieces together. The basic idea is to glue and squeeze them enough that they in effect become one piece of wood.
A tip: as you are tightening the vice grips glue will seep out of the joint. This isn't a problem but you might find it easier to wipe this up while it is still wet rather than waiting until it is dry. Either way - it will sand away with elbow grease.
You should probably use wood glue for this process - that's what it's for. The wood glue I used recommended that I keep the glued pieces under pressure for an hour and let it set for 8 to 24 hours. I clamped it for 2 hours and let it set for 20 hours. When it was done – I took the above picture.
One note about the image above: This was taken after the glue had set for 20 hours. I then sanded the top surface with 60 then 100 grit sand paper and gave it a light mineral spirit wash to see what the wood grain will look like when I'm done. I nicked that trick from someone on the telecaster forum (http://www.tdpri.com/).
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