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Just bouncing these ideas off the wall here. Looking for aesthetic advice/ideas.

First off, thinking of turning this into a real guitar. I have a nice piece of mahogany that I plan to make a real body with. The idea is to make the body a proper thickness that I can make a deep enough neck pocket to use a hardtail bridge or set it up with a real TOM bridge. The body as it is, is just scaring an inch thick. The bridge makes it sound super tinny. I would make the exact same shape, add 1/2 - 5/8 inch thickness to body and then probably contours. Use the same pickguard/neck and pups. Finish the body with a clear french polish.

Hardtail: using this bridge and string through. TOM stop tail.
Second project would be make a different guitar from scratch based on some cool early 60's teisco pups that cooter was kind enough to sell me. I am thinking of a tele, but with pups and guard like on a teisco telecaster and a bridge like on the cv duo sonic. Maybe an ash body with a see through white or tan finish.

cur wrote: Second project would be make a different guitar from scratch based on some cool early 60's teisco pups that cooter was kind enough to sell me. I am thinking of a tele, but with pups and guard like on a teisco telecaster and a bridge like on the cv duo sonic. Maybe an ash body with a see through white or tan finish.

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Dude, I would would keep the tele bridge and pickup, just keep that teisco neck pickup where it is and butt the second one up against the bridge plate as a middle pickup.

Well it's not going in my daughters guitar. That was just a visual for reference . I would build everything except a neck. So I have options. But I have thought of what you said.

Gluing up the body blank for the old teisco rebuild. Any opinions on bridge style to use. Hard tail start or TOM stop tail?.

i LOVE YOUR PROJECTS

I know you said you're not changing the shape of the rebuild for project one, but I feel like the bottom half of the pickguard could fit the body shape a bit better. Albeit, even a small change to the bottom horn of the body might throw off the balance of the guitar completely. The more I stare at it the more I'm liking the curve created by the lower half of the pickguard and the body, it's that bottom horn that seems a bit too elongated to me.

As for the bridge, with all the space on the butt of the guitar, the original tremolo bar piece seems to fit nicely even though it's incomplete. That being said, I'm finding the hard tail bridge to be slightly more aesthetically pleasing, but only because the cover of the tom stop tail looks a bit too far down on the body. If it was in the same area as the old tremolo bar it'd be my vote. Just shooting out idea, ultimately it's your project, but that top horn pin could do with some relocation. Good luck on the projects, they seem like some cool ones.

I know what you mean about the pickguard, but I am keeping it like that. I don't know why, but the asymmetric aesthetic seemed popular with the old kooky japanese guitars. My sort of project was to make the guitar a player, and not so much to redesign it. If I went with the TOM, I would have to move the stop tail closer to get a better break angle off the bridge. That being said, I am probably 90% set on the hard tail/string through set-up. I think it will give a better tone at the end of the day. Also, I have all but the ferrules to finish the job.

After I got done making the template today I realized it looks like one of punacc's big donk designs.

I also knocked out a tele template today and in the morning a package from Cooter-the man-finger showed up at my door with a vintage specked dus sonic template set.

Little progress. cut it out and added contours.
I just eyeballed how I liked them
Then got the tools of the trade (couple shots of wild turkey and angle grinder loaded with 36 grit). Then just go for it. Hog out the wood in the lines I drew. I used 100 grit and a dry wall board to smooth out the cuts. Original body was 1 3/16" The body is now 1 9/16"

so the spacing for the hardtail strat bridge was off. the whole idea of the project was to make the old thing a player. so I decided to make a new bridge that should intonate. went to lowes to scope our materials. ended up with a drawer pull made of nickel and a 1/8" piece of brass rod. the pictures show what I did. since the scale is close to 24" I looked at saddle spacing one some of my short scales. Once I get to setting it up I will fine tune the brass bar, notch for the strings and then fix the brass saddle to the bridge. I flattened the bottom of the brass so it lays nice and is only round on top.

made a jig to make sure everything lines up correctly. I like to use waxed dental floss tied to beads as the strings. you can just wrap them around the tuner pegs and they stay put.

getting ready to finish. I am going to have to do an oil based finish to match the tint of the mahogany neck. Will test some 3 lb shellack to see if it gets close. if it does, will try a french polish. i'm thinking it will get close. How does the clam shell placement look? Check out the squared lap on the neck. I made a perfect mold of the neck to make my routing jig. I can pick up the guitar from the dry fit of the neck.... nice snug fit.

Looking great Cur, the clam shell looks a little crooked but it might be the photography playing a trick on my eyes. Really cool concept on the bridge, looking forward to seeing it complete.

Well, gave her some orange shellac. Got the tone I was hoping for. Now I am waiting for a nice enough day so shoot some gloss poly over it. Having a bit of uncertainty about the pickguard. looks to be original, but is very dark and can barely make out the tort pattern unless it is under light. was thinking of using celluloid, if anyone knows of a good supplier let me know. otherwise, who makes nice tort pickguard blanks. I hear GFS tort is not that nice.

GFS tort is garbage. Its just a sticker encased in a clear guard. You can see the pixels on it.

Robert(OG) swore by grizzly's stuff. Here's a lank: laaaaaaaank

tenderstems wrote:GFS tort is garbage. Its just a sticker encased in a clear guard. You can see the pixels on it.

+1
The pattern and colours suck, it's that go-to definition of bad tort these days, like the stuff on the Squier CVs. I have two sheets of it lying around.

paul_ wrote:

tenderstems wrote:GFS tort is garbage. Its just a sticker encased in a clear guard. You can see the pixels on it.

+1
The pattern and colours suck, it's that go-to definition of bad tort these days, like the stuff on the Squier CVs. I have two sheets of it lying around.

Yeah but in the future people will be saying... "look at that awesome looking digital tort! That's so retro!" Btw.. Awesome work Cur. That stain looks amazing! very vintage looking.

Well I was looking around the intertubes and came across this.

Pretty much what I just built in the body. I could get some aluminum and polish it up and go like that. Any ideas if that would be cool or suck ass?

Well, all I have to do now is get the electronics sorted out and give it a proper set up. Oh, and nail down the bridge I made for best intonation and then fix it in place.

I took the near fifty year old pickguard and tried to spruce it up a little. I am assuming it is the original, looks like it is to me. First I hit it with some 3M liquid rubbing compound and a microfiber towel. Did this a couple times. Then I hit it with 3M glaze, and that did the trick. I could have buffed all the scratches out if I wanted, but I got it down to pretty good. Getting rid of the surface grime and most of the scuffs brought the thing alive. After all was said and done, I hit it with a little liquid car wax.

Looks good. For a replica pickguard I wonder if you could make a white one and use a brush and some paints to get a similiar
look then spray clear over it and polish out.