Telecaster Custom Build

The cautions expressed in countless YouTube videos are well founded here.   Careful prep and wearing gloves are certainly ‘musts’. You might also wonder, if you reviewed the post chronology, why so much time had passed between this and the previous blog post.  Mostly this was in order to allow the lacquer (clear coat) ample drying time - 2 weeks seemed like the expected duration, and I essentially adhered to this.  It was also given that I had little experience using dyes and preparing a surface for lacquer and polish.

Perhaps the part of the build that I'd been dreading the most was cutting the neck pocket.  This seemed to be the most critical step of all (although all parts of the build entail some degree of criticality to be sure).  If the neck was not straight then the strings were going to be hanging off the side and at best if it still worked it would look funny.  If the pocket depth was not right, the action would be too high or too low or the saddles could not be raised enough to compensate.  If too far forward or back into the body, then the saddles cannot be adjusted enough to properly intonate the strings and produce a musical instrument of any value or purpose.