I’m finishing the neck with nitrocellulose lacquer.  This is an old school clear coat that gets hard and can be polished real smooth and shiny.  It also feels good for a neck.

This finish is built up using multiple layers so they can be sanded level and then polished.  To save time and material, it’s good to make the wood as smooth as possibly blue before the lacquer.  For this, I’m using an epoxy product.

The headstock face is going to be black with a car ol sticker.  I’ll prolly use polyurethane to finish the sticker (it builds up faster, cures faster, and dries harder).

First step after sanding is to fill the pores in the grain. I’m using Epoxy for this which is a thing 2 part epoxy that is easy to work. You basically mix it up, smear it on with a spatula and scrape as much off as you can.  Then some sanding and reapply a second coat.

After some sanding, I painted the headstock black and fit the tuning machines.  They are Hipshot Grip Lock tuners with cool open gears.

I decided I wanted to have the neck a darker color so I stained it with some minwax stain from the hardware store.  It looks awesome!

Next I will spray a couple coats of gloss polyurethane on the headstock to give the decal a good smooth place to stick.  Then I will start to spray the nitrocellulose lacquer on the neck and fretboard.

I’ll put some more coats on the neck and then let it harden a couple weeks.

Now time for the headstock!  The sticker is applied to the clear coat from a while back.  Then spray a bunch of clear on top to “bury” the sticker.  I’m aiming for enough clear to completely cover the sticker and make the whole thing level and smooth.

Now about 10 billion more coats of clear and let it harden for a week or so.

The neck looks awesome

My friend gave me a pickup for the tele project. It’s a cool Seymour Duncan 59 Custom Hybrid that he had in his Les Paul.

The pickup is black and I wanted to have chrome cover pickups. Santa brought me a cover and I installed it.

It needed some modifications to fit right. I drilled a second row of holes so the screws will peek out. I had to file some corners on the pickup and flatten it a bit.

Now the pickup is ready to install. It also smells really nice. I’m not sure if I have ever seen a pink guitar with nice smelling pickups.

Now that the pink and black are dry, it’s time to put some top finish on the body. I’m going for a half glossy finish. Shiny, but not glassy like my Vanguard. I’m using tung oil for this.

Tung oil is a traditional wipe on oil finish that is used on furniture and guitars. You can wipe on many coats and after it dries, it hardens up a bit. The exact stuff I’m using is polymerized tung oil. This stuff has some polyurethane mixed in that makes it dry harder and more durable.

The first coat gets sucked up by the wood. The subsequent coats add layers of shine.

A few more coats of oil, a very light sanding, and one more very light coat of oil will finish this for now.

I’ll let this sit for a week or so to cure and harden. Then buff it a bit to make it shine!

I put the pink stain on the body and it looks suuuuuper sexy. I used a water based stain from Minwax. I got it from Lowes and they mixed the color for me.

Front looks wicked!

I also painted the neck pickup cavity black. Since I’m not using a pickguard, the inside will show.

After this dries, I’m going to put some polymerized tung oil on it. That’s some old school tung oil mixed with some new school polyurethane to make it more durable. I can build up as many coats as I want until I get the level of shine I like.

Now that the binding is attached to the Tele body, I needed to scrape it flush with the surface of the body (so you can’t feel it). Then some final sanding of the whole body. After the sanding was done, I found another small mod to make.

To smooth out the binding, I used a card scraper. This is a piece of thin steel with a straight/smooth edge and a burr added to one edge. The burr is a small sharp hook that scrapes off incredible thin pieces of material and leaves a nice smooth finish.

NGL, this was a royal pain and very tedious! I broke a small piece off near the neck pocket that will need to be glued back on.

Next step is sanding. I use 220 to sand everything nice and smooth. Then wipe it with water to raise the grain and sand it again after it dries. Then some light sanding with 320.

The binding and sanding came out great! I left a few “apprentice marks” in there that will add to the character.

I got the neck on and noticed an adjustment I wanted to make. The fretboard was a bit high off the body for my taste, so I decided to make the neck pocket deeper by 3/32″. This means I get to use my favorite tools again!

I marked off the new neck pocket depth with a marking gauge. Then I got to work with my router plane.

Next stop, pinkville!

Now is the time to install the binding on the body. The general steps are;

• Starting at the centerline of the butt, tape the center of the binding on the body tightly
• Use a heat gun to soften the binding in areas with tighter radius or the opposite direction
• Make any fine tuning needed to close gaps and relieve strain
• Wick some acetone between the binding and body
• Apply more tape or surgical tubing to hold the binding in place
• Let it sit over night to set up

Next is to “glue” the binding on. I use acetone. I did some research and watched a few videos like this one and decided to use acetone. Acer NE dissolves the binding and makes goo, the goo sticks to wood and the acetone evaporates (at least that’s the plan).

I used a small syringe with a thin tip and squeezed some acetone in and then pulled the binding tight with a million pieces of tape. I used some rubber tubing around the trouble areas to give some extra holding power.

After letting it sit overnight to harden up, I removed the rubber tubing and made a giant ball of blue tape.

The binding came out pretty good! There are some gaps in conspicuous and inconspicuous locations, but over it looks cool as shit.

Now the binding needs to be scraped level with the body. I will use my card scraper and some fine grit sandpaper for this job. I’ll probably sand the top of the guitar at the same time.

I’ll put up another update when that is done.

I am going to put some black binding on the Tele guitar body. I think it will look super cool with the pink body and other black hardware.

To install binding, you need to cut away part of the body in an accurate and clean way. I think big builders use a router and choose a cutter and bearing that cuts the right depth.

I don’t like that, so I will do it by hand. I bought a really cool special tool named a gramil that will help me do this. The gramil comes with a blade and is adjustable to cut pretty much any size rabbet.

I am very happy with the results. This tool was very fun to use!

The next step is to install the binding 😱

Telecaster style bodies are not super comfy to hold and play. Gonna make the heel where the neck meets the body more comfy and accessible.

I bought a neck plate that is curved and then knocked the corner off the body.

I’m not sure if I’m gonna plug that hole or leave it. I’m leaning toward leaving it.