Given that COVID-19 has made travel kinda stupid right now, I've decided to take a "guitar make-ation" -- so get ready for a week of lutherie.

I'll start with a few builds that I've been working on, evening and weekends, for the last year or so. Time to get them done.

First up: a Telecaster-inspired build with a one-piece ash body and heavily figured sepele top.

I'll be stuffing @tvjonesinc Classics (Tom's take on the Gretsch Filter'Tron pickup) in this one.

With apologies, check out the ash on this one. I live for "boxed cathedral" grain.

The neck on this one is perfectly quartersawn wenge, wearing an ebony fretboard. My logo (burned in with an electric brand) is pretty subtle.

I'm still debating sanding the finish (Tru-Oil, a wipe-on varnish designed for gun stocks) off of the back of the neck - naked wenge feels incredible.

That'll work.

The neck fits just snugly enough in its pocket that the neck doesn't droop under it's own weight.

First up: a quick coat of carnauba paste wax. No silicone allowed here - it forever prevents future finishes (e.g. repairs) from adhering.

When drilling the holes for the pickup screws, be VERY careful to avoid letting the spinning church jaws touch the guitar's top. That would be... disappointing.

I've lined the electronics cavity with copper foil to cut down on electrical noise; after dog walk+dinner I'll touch it up with the soldering iron to ensure long-term conductivity.

For single coil pickups I'd also line the pickup cavities, but here I'm using humbuckers.

Pickups in place, strap buttons screwed in, and pots+switch put in place for a photo opp.

As @GeorgeTakei would say, "Oh, my!"

Back to the workbench/kitchen table. I've used a scrap piece of MDF to temporarily mount the controls to ease the task of wiring. I'm using 50s Gibson style wiring, though with just master volume and tone controls.

500 kΩ CTS pots, 0.022 μF paper-in-oil capacitor.

Soldering done! After some careful packing, I'll cover this up.

Yes, I could shorten all of the wires a bit, but leave them a bit long so that you don't have to unsolder everything to pull or replace, for example, the pickups or instrument cable jack.

Well, would you look at that.

All buttoned up!

Time to move on to the neck!

I'll clean out the wood in the nut slot first. It's too narrow for my 1/4" chisel, so I'll use a specialty file, which has riffling only on the narrow faces.

To keep from damaging the wood on either side, I'll slip feeler gauges into the slots and file between them.

After a spell, the slot is done. It's critical that this slot be flat, or the nut can rock back and forth, wreaking havoc with setup later on.

Next I'll lightly sand off any finish that made its way onto the fretboard and prepare to level and crown the frets.

I always listen to music while working on my guitars as inspiration. I designed this build after corresponding with @ToadWetSprocket's Todd Nichols, who favours the TV Classic pickups I'm using. I love his guitar work with TTWS, along with Dean Dinning's bass playing.

So, it's only fitting that I'm listening to "Toad the Wet Sprocket Radio" on Spotify.

Third Eye Blind's "God of Wine" just played. I was fortunate enough to play with 3EB's @KevinCadogan for a year or two in a band before he went on to stardom. Kevin was (and is) the real deal. Holy hell can he play. https://open.spotify.com/track/7due1Ojbs249hAhgSy7pTt?si=-g8O3flGR0yUTIIZb3GKTA

AFAIK, the only photos I have of those days are stills I pulled from a video recording. At any rate, here's Kevin, singer/songwriter Alza Cannon, and me on bass, sometime in 1992, with Broken Ocean.

Spotlight on Kevin.

Spotlight on me.

Another of the three of us. The other two band members were Jan Leger (keys and backing vocals) and Lee Rudnicki (drums).

Thanks for sharing the stage with me, @KevinCadogan - those were good times. Too bad for all the typical band BS.

The fretboard is all cleaned up. I always go into this step thinking it'll take a few minutes, but there's some delicate work involved.

Time to walk & feed Lohan, my Labrador retriever.

LOGAN.

I hate typing on this phone.

To level the frets, I'm using a notched straightedge to ensure the fretboard is straight. Then I take a sharpie pen and blacken the tops of all of the frets.

I think this might be as far as I get on the guitar tonight. With some luck, tomorrow I'll:

Level, dress, and polish the frets
Mount the neck
Shape up a nut
Do a complete setup

Fingers crossed!

Good morning! In preparation for leveling the frets, I've taped off the fretboard and reapplied sharpie pen to the fret tops.

I'll use a heavy straight beam w/240 grit sandpaper to carefully level the frets. Any fret showing sharpie is lower than its neighbours.

Once the frets are leveled, the tops are again hit with the sharpie.

Then out comes the crowning file, which rounds off the flattened tops. The goal is to file the frets only until the ink disappears, and not any further.

This work is a little tedious (though not so much so as polishing), but very satisfying:the inked flat spots get narrower with each stroke of the file, until the last stroke - when a hair-thin line of ink disappears, replaced by shiny nickel.

The fret on the left is recrowned, the middle one is partially crowned, and the fret on the right awaits its turn.

Once all of the frets are crowned, I use this tool to find any unlevel frets. It's designed to span three frets at a time (with different edge lengths to accommodate the decreasing fret spacings).

If the tool rocks back and forth, you've found a high fret.

I go across each fret and mark the high spots with sharpie, then go back with the crowning file to knock 'em down, recheck, and repeat as necessary.

Once the frets are all level, another specialty file comes out - this one to round the fret ends. Its designed to prevent marking up the fretboard.

Before (L) and after (R) rounding the fret ends.

These last fee steps have definitely required the old man reading glasses. The good news is that the frets are ready for polishing. (Well, after lunch, anyway.)

I do love this wenge.

On to fret polishing. I first sand them using a progression of grits, from 240 to 1200.

This is probably my least favourite steps, both because it's so repetitive and because "almost done-itis" starts setting in. Still, it's a critical step, frets = hand/guitar interface.

This step benefits greatly from upbeat music. Spinning on Spotify right now I have HAIM - three sisters from Los Angeles who are putting out some great pop tunes. (Thanks for introducing them to me, @jlewallen). https://open.spotify.com/album/5m9rXTBF7mHFGQlFsiEHrY?si=XtHrEocYSVaptdUFrsPYgQ

Finally done with the sandpaper. The frets look great, but there's one more step to take them to the next level: hitting them with a felt buffing wheel chucked into the dremel.

The polish does fly off the felt wheel, do wear eye protection and cover nearby things you dont want sprayed.

But the end result?

(The fret marker dots are mother-of-pearl, but the way.)

Back to it after walking Logan. I've test-fitted the tuning machines, and will carefully mark where the little screws that secure them will go. Then I'll drill pilot holes, press in the bushings on the front face, and reinstall the machines.

This is one if my favourite steps, mainly because I get to use this old twist drill and marking tool from my uncle.

I press the bushings in using my drill press, which ensures that they go in straight.

Strange - my phone isn't letting me upload the photo.

Each screw gets a bit of beeswax before bring driven in. (This goes for every screw.)

I've spent the last couple of hours fussing with a scraper in the neck pocket to get a perfect fit. You can't rush this step and hope for it to come out well. It's very close now, but I'll leave the final touches for tomorrow.

Here I'm checking the alignment - spot on!

Some more pictures:

Good morning! It's taken several hours (both last night and this morning to get this right, but I'm finally happy with the neck-to-body fit.

The neck is perfectly aligned and I'm about to mark the locations for the screw holes on the back of the neck.

Serial number 008!

To ensure the holes are drilled straight, in double-sided tape the neck to the same radiused block block I used to sand the fretboard to shape. I love that faint trace of the neck pocket brand on the back of the neck.

That neck plate will be engraved with my JK logo soon.

Its enormously satisfying to see this come together. I wasn't initially sure whether the wenge would look right with the top wood, but I absolutely love it.

Even the back has me .

Eating some lunch before fabricating a nut for the guitar. I have Spotify playing my "On Repeat" songs, which includes this absolute from @JoeyLandreth.

Sit down, crank it up, and feel that masterpiece of a solo build and build. https://open.spotify.com/track/4o3oDq7gcUBxAtA0FicAF1?si=6eZL8nefRJuR0Hy6lx_tZA

I swear this guitar would've been done days ago if I could stop just staring at it.

Nut time. Above is a blank piece of unbleached bone; below is a nut in which I cut the string slots too deep on an earlier build. I'll trace its shape onto the blank and rough it out on the disk sander.

After roughing it out, I sand the nut to snugly fit in the slot. It's important to check the thickness frequently with a micrometer so that you don't end up with a nut that's thinner on one end than the other.

The sharpie dot marks the bass side of the nut.