Ash Thinline Telecaster

[Mark Crenshaw]

I'm out of control!!!

After my last few builds, I wanted to do something classic. So, I've decided to build an ash Tele.

Specs:
Quarter sawn 2 piece ash body
Black pickguard
Standard Tele pups and hardware
Flame maple neck & fretboard

And so it begins.
The body will be made from a rather nice slab of quarter sawn white ash. It's dried to 5% but is still a bit heavy. I know going in that this will be a heavy guitar but I'm comfortable in the 7 to 8 lbs range...strong back and shoulders.

The slab has a machined edge and one natural edge. This will present a few challenges and require a little different approach.





Because the natuarl edge is twisted...it's narrow to the right on this end but to the left on the other end. I need to find the widest portions of the board before I decide how to cut it.



I ran a tape measure down the board on each side using the machined edge as my quide. One side showed 6.75" and the other 6.5" to be the widest points. I makrked those on the other side and checked the width to see how the opposite edge would yield. The max I can get out of this board, with a perpendicular edge is a shade over 6.5"...which I can get for about 90% of the length of the board.

So, I laid out my cuts...deciding at just over 2.75" in thickness, it was too much for a table saw...mine anyway. Plus I knew I had to maximize the width, and I could do that better in smaller pieces vs ripping the entire length to one width.

The 3 sets of marks are for the cut lengths and guide for my circular saw.



This shot is for illustration only. Both hands are needed to do this safely. One hand holds the combination square in place, squared to the edge, while the saw rides against it. I made shallow cuts until I was half way thru, then flipped it and cut from the other side. I set my lengths at 17" so I didn't have to be super accurate in lining up front and back.

[Mark Crenshaw]

After making my 3 cuts, I set the pieces on the bench and tried them in various combinations until I found one that gave me the widest area without crossing the natural edge.



In this shot, you can see that I'm still just a bit shy of the 12.75" I need for my Tele body. But, I'll be resawing the planks down to roughly 2" thick. You can see that the deeper I go into the board, the wider the natural edges are from eachother.



I decided to cut the boards into manageble sized pieces not only to make it safer to cut, but to allow me to use the jointer to clean up the natural edge. Here you can see this in progress. With my jointer set at a .0625" cut, it took awhile but I just shaved away at it.



Stopping to check my setup as well as how far I need to take the edge to get the width I need.



I could continue until all the natural edge is gone, but it would make the boards too narrow for a 2 piece blank. The portion above 2 " will be cut away during resaw.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Here's a test piece...the third plank...that I ran first to test out my jointer setup and theory. It's a nice before and after.



During resaw, I removed about .75" leaving the planks at 2" thick. Plenty of room for planing later.



After both planks were resawn, you can see that I just do have the width I need for my template...I love it when things work out.



Nice grain match and flat joint, ready for glue up.

[Mark Crenshaw]

That slab yielded a very nice body blank, Three .75" boards for use on another project and a third, and a 3rd resawn plank that I'll feed into the planer butted up to the tail end of the blank each pass to prevent snipe.



Here's the blank out of the clamps and down to thickness with the planer. I used the other plank from the slab and passed it thru behind the blank each time and I had zero snipe. Nice.



Rough cut on the band saw...broke a blade. Should have wrapped it up then...nope, pushed on.



Profiled the body with the route and template. What's that gouge you see there? Well, I told you I should have stopped eariler. The router bit I was using is not one I normally use. It's a very shallow cut and has a pressed on bearing. I was using it because of a thin template so I didn't have to take off a huge cut first pass. Well, after about 3 inches, the bearing slid up the shaft and the cutter ducked under the template. I could have been worse...it could have cut the template.





So, now my simple, classic Tele is going to have a black .090" binding on the front. I must be living right because the .090" bit leveled out the gouge. I haven't sanded the sides of the body yet and after I do, I'll re-route the channel just to make sure I got it all.

[Mark Crenshaw]

In addition to working on my walnut build, I had a chance to work a bit on the ash build.

As I noted earlier, a bearing mishap created the "opportunity" for the addition of a front binding. No big deal, the binding channel will easily cover the damage. To make sure, I trued up the edges of the body on the spindle sander and then recut the channel to make sure it was clean and that I removed all the damage.

A note here. I could have just cut the channel to the same depth as before, but I wanted to make sure I had a nice, square channel so I cut this pass a few thousandths deeper than finished depth. This recut not only the thickness of the channel, but the depth as well.

I then passed the body thru the planer with the knives just breathing on the top to cut the channel height back to spec...I always leave the bindings a bit taller than the channel and scrape them down to meet the top. This gives me a flat, square edge on the tops of the bindings...they have a tiny bit of roll on their edges as they're delivered.

Here it is with an extra flame maple neck I ran during my alder/mape build.



Well, this build continues to evolve. My last 2 builds were planned out very carefully and I knew, step by step, what I wanted the guitar to be. This one seems to have a life of it's own. Instead of forcing the issue and building what I want, I'm rolling with it to see where it goes.

The latest development is the body weight...as is, 7.3 lbs. Routing would remove perhaps .75 lbs but, adding hardware and neck that's likely a 9 pounder...at Mickey D's, that's 36 Quarter Pounders. Ha!

So, remember the cutoffs from resawing? They may be destined for a top on a chambered Ash Thinline.

In preparing for this option I decide to plane and glue up the cutoffs to see what I would end up with. I had 3 and only need 2 for the top, so the third will be used as a "prop" to get the top pieces thru the planer safely. I lay them on the bed and feed them one right behind the other. The prop is the last to go in since I only have snipe issues on outfeed.



I sue a sled in my planer to keep from bottoming out the height adjustment. It effectively raises the planer bed toward the knives. Beacuse of the pressure from the feed rollers, the sled can sometimes push thru with the stock, so I use a stop clamped to the end of the planer bed.



The top planed out nicely...just over .375" thick. I left enough that I can run it thru again after glue up.



Looks nice. Like it was meant to be.

[Mark Crenshaw]

To make this work, I needed a new routing template for the chambers. I posted this in my Maple Thinline thread but since I was taling pics anyway...

Starting with a standard template, I drew a center line, measured out 2" either side and, then drew out the curved lines for the chambers. I used a couple of spacers...one to ride along the edge of the template and one to space the pencil out to the distance I wanted. Then I just traced the template like you would with a router.



I added to lines that are at the center point of my Forstner bit making it easier to stick and go while drilling.



This kind of drilling makes a huge mess so I hung my dust collector hose overhead so I could grab it and keep things cleared off.



All drilled out and ready for filing.



I figured out that I was putting too much pressure on the fragile template while filing with it on it's edge, so I layed it flat and hung a small portion over the edge of the bench and clamped in place, letting the bench support most of the template as I filed.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Here it is after some time with a rasp...



And then after some blocking with 80 grit.




The top came out of the clamps looking pretty good, so I decided to go ahead and chamber the body. I started by removing the .25" that made up the binding channel. 15 to 20 gentle passes thru the planer took care of it...always using the extra piece to prop up the feed roller as the body passed thru.



Here you can see the last bit of the channel...a couple more passes and it's done.



I traced out the body profile and rough cut the top. I cut it very close to the line to prepare it for the next step.



And that is, attaching it to the back of the body and running it thru the planer to smooth out the glue joint. I cut it as close as I could so that it would be fully supported by the body. I placed 6 pieces of double stick tape around the edges and attached the two. I placed the tape at the edges so I could reach it with a thin putty knife to break the bond. This keeps me from having to pull on the thin top to separate it from the body.



To make this work, I also attached 2 pieces of scrap from the top to keep my prop the same thickness as the body and top taped together.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Two nicely planed surfaces ready to be glued up...but not yet.



First, I need to chamber the body. Nothing new here, just showing the steps I went thru.



I chose to use a Forstner bit to hog out most of the wood before routing...guess you could just route is out if you wanted to.



I used a piece of scrap to help set my depth. I'll go deeper than this with the router to clean up all the center points from the bit.



I decided at the last minute to attach my routing template to use as a visual guide for landing the bit...as long as I don't nick the template, I know I'll be inside my lines. Ready for routing!

[Mark Crenshaw]

Before I started routing, I used a chisel to remove some of the sharp points left from drilling...just to keep the router from hanging up and popping loose. I don't need any extra drama when doing this step.

I made a couple of shallow passes using a 3/8" long cutter. This ensures I won't take too big a bite and I'm able to remove the template after the first pass.



I changed to a 1" cutter and though it doesn't show in the pic, I had to reattach the template or it would have taken a very deep first pass.
Done!



A down and dirty, low tech way to check the thickness of the back is to place a piece of scrap inside, mark a line...


Set it outside, mark a line...



And measure the distance in between the two lines. I used calipers but a tape measure works just as well. Mine is just a few thousandths from .50" I can easily take it further, but with the body and top now at 4.5 lbs, no need to cut away anymore mass.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Now I just need to decide what shape of vent, if any, I want to use. Hmmm.



I went to put the guitar away and found our fat cat Mony keeping the blanket warm while it was away.

Catocaster?

'

I laid out the vent. I really like the way this shape came out on my maple thinline so I've decided to adopt it as a regular element for my chambered bodies. I cut this one the same way as last time but before I do another, I'm going make a routing template...guess I need to get a dremel tool also.
I placed it exactly as on the maple thinline. It's the same size, too.



I started by drilling into the corners with my smallest Forstner bit.



Then I drilla round the edges and the center dropped out.



After a bit of filing, things are looking better. Just the corners to go.


I took the blade loose on my coping saw and assembled it thru the opening. I cut a straight kerf into the corners. I can carve the rest out with a sharp knife.

[John Keeton]

Don't know if I could handle doing two at once! I like the ash, but the walnut is striking. However, you set the bar pretty high with that maple one.

[Mark Crenshaw]

Just a bit of fine tuning and it's ready for binding. Even though a router operation would speed this up, it only takes about an hour to do it by hand.



I'm waiting on binding to arrive and I want to bind the vent before I glue up the top, so on to the neck.



Again, using long clamping cauls to apply even pressure down the neck as I glue on the fretboard.



Out of the clamps and it's time for profiling on the belt/spindle sander.

[/QUOTE]

[Mark Crenshaw]

The fretboard is evened up with the neck...


The heel is shaped...



Thinned out the headstock...still needs some blocking.



I use a little different technique for laying out the position markers. I draw a single diagonal line on each position. Then I draw a line down the center of the fretboard. This gives me an average of the entire fretboard vs just finding the center of each position with 2 crossing diagonal lines forming an X. I don't mark the 12th fret until the center line is in place.

[Mark Crenshaw]

On to carving the neck. I'm still trying to find a workflow that I like. Today I tried setting the crve depth by using a rasp to take the head and heel ends of the carve to depth first.

I propped the neck up on a couple of blocks so I could slide the calipers under to check my progress.



Once I did this, I carved down the edges to allow the calipers access to the center of the neck.



Then, using the calipers, I carved down the length of the neck to take it all to thickness... .850" in this case.



If you have a belt sander, save the belts after they've seen the end of their use on the sander. They're great for hand sanding too. The strong backing makes them ideal for sanding the backs of necks, using on sanding blocks and other uses.



That worn out belt made short work of rough sanding the back of this neck.

[Mark Crenshaw]

I did some detail carving head and heel. This one, along with the walnut neck from my walnut build, is ready for fretting.









So, I fretted them along with a nicely flamed neck from my maple/alder build. My hope is to have all 3 of these builds ready for finish at the same time. Fingers crossed. But I have plenty of fret leveling and dreesing to do while I wait for binding to arrive.