Telecaster Guitar Build

Here's how I made a Telecaster electric guitar, built from scratch. This was a DIY project for me, and it's a great first electric guitar build. The tele body is made from 100 Year old Pine lumber which was reclaimed from a building from the 1920's.
I used a modest number of tools, including a hand plane, palm sander, scroll saw, trim router and LOTS of sandpaper!
A CNC makes an appearance, but I only used it to drill holes manually. I would have used a hand drill, but I wanted them to be square, straight and perfectly aligned.
Tuners are Gotoh Vintage style.
The neck is a 10 year old NOS Warmoth brand, 7.5" radius with 6105 frets and a rosewood fretboard.
More info: https://vintagemusictech.blogspot.com...
Big thanks to Casey for the awesome pickups and knobs! https://www.caseyholford.com/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Measuring, trimming, cutting the board
01:37 Squaring up the outer edges.
02:12 Flattening the halves
03:10 Cutting out the inside edges
03:35 Jointing the body blanks
04:55 Glue up the halves
05:51 Tar removal
06:02 Tracing out the body shape
06:18 Cutting out the rough shape
07:09 Flattening and cleaning up the back
08:58 Sanding the back
09:16 Routing the body with the Template
13:10 Flattening and smoothing the top
15:09 Sanding the sides
18:22 Roundover by hand
21:50 Required Parts
22:09 Knot glue up
22:28 Manual CNC bridge drilling
23:09 Neck pocket drilling, manual CNC
23:50 Ferrule drilling
24:23 Body Cavity "hogging"
24:44 Dremel Body Rout
25:18 Body Routing
26:20 Neck Pocket Routing
27:30 Neck Pocket Sanding
29:15 Enlarging Neck pocket holes
30:07 Electrosocket Jack Drilling
31:24 Body Wiring Drilling
32:19 Chopping the Bridge
33:40 Enlarging the Peg Head holes
34:07 Marking Tuners
34:41 Drilling Tuner screw holes
35:22 Installing Tuners
36:31 Mixing Shellac
37:04 Shellac First Coat, Real time
43:11 Shellac Second Coat, Double speed
45:17 Neck install, General Assembly
45:50 Bridge install, Prelim
46:14 Ferrules Install
46:48 Cover plate
47:15 Pickup installation
49:09 Switch, pots and Cover plate assembly
49:50 Electronics wiring and assembly
51:22 Jack Soldering and Final install
52:05 Cover plate final install
52:20 Bridge Final install w/ ground wire
52:45 Neck alignment and final tightening
53:17 Pickguard install
53:41 Knob Install
53:47 Strap Buttons install
54:45 Neck oil
55:36 First String up!
56:06 String Tree install
57:01 Finished!
57:14 Demo Song
58:24 Outro and Last looks
I used a hand plane, palm sander, scroll saw, trim router and LOTS of sandpaper!
A CNC makes an appearance, but I only used it to drill holes manually. I would have used a hand drill, but I wanted them to be square, straight and perfectly aligned.
Tuners are Gotoh Vintage style.
The neck is a 10 year old NOS Warmoth brand, 7.5" radius with 6105 frets and a rosewood fretboard.
More info: https://vintagemusictech.blogspot.com...
Big thanks to Casey for the awesome pickups and knobs! https://www.caseyholford.com/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Measuring, trimming, cutting the board
01:37 Squaring up the outer edges.
02:12 Flattening the halves
03:10 Cutting out the inside edges
03:35 Jointing the body blanks
04:55 Glue up the halves
05:51 Tar removal
06:02 Tracing out the body shape
06:18 Cutting out the rough shape
07:09 Flattening and cleaning up the back
08:58 Sanding the back
09:16 Routing the body with the Template
13:10 Flattening and smoothing the top
15:09 Sanding the sides
18:22 Roundover by hand
21:50 Required Parts
22:09 Knot glue up
22:28 Manual CNC bridge drilling
23:09 Neck pocket drilling, manual CNC
23:50 Ferrule drilling
24:23 Body Cavity "hogging"
24:44 Dremel Body Rout
25:18 Body Routing
26:20 Neck Pocket Routing
27:30 Neck Pocket Sanding
29:15 Enlarging Neck pocket holes
30:07 Electrosocket Jack Drilling
31:24 Body Wiring Drilling
32:19 Chopping the Bridge
33:40 Enlarging the Peg Head holes
34:07 Marking Tuners
34:41 Drilling Tuner screw holes
35:22 Installing Tuners
36:31 Mixing Shellac
37:04 Shellac First Coat, Real time
43:11 Shellac Second Coat, Double speed
45:17 Neck install, General Assembly
45:50 Bridge install, Prelim
46:14 Ferrules Install
46:48 Cover plate
47:15 Pickup installation
49:09 Switch, pots and Cover plate assembly
49:50 Electronics wiring and assembly
51:22 Jack Soldering and Final install
52:05 Cover plate final install
52:20 Bridge Final install w/ ground wire
52:45 Neck alignment and final tightening
53:17 Pickguard install
53:41 Knob Install
53:47 Strap Buttons install
54:45 Neck oil
55:36 First String up!
56:06 String Tree install
57:01 Finished!
57:14 Demo Song
58:24 Outro and Last looks