My Lockdown Tele Build

By Andrew James Barker

In The Begining.

With guitar sales growing an average of 15% over the pandemic and Fender leading the pack at a 30% increase in sales, it’s no wonder the do-it-yourself market exploded.

What better way to avoid practicing your guitar than building one?

Since buying my second-hand early 2000s American Std Tele, I’ve been upgrading and switching parts out of it. These initial swap-outs included:

Loller pick-ups (Charlie Christian in the neck and a BS in the bridge.)
A Callaham bridge plate with brass saddles (well, that was expensive).
A black pickguard.
A bone nut.

All in all, about 1k’s worth of parts and labour. Not bad, considering I got the guitar for 1k (probably about half its value).

But was the upgrade itch scratched? No, it seems I had just scratched the surface of said itch.

There was something still calling my name. Something I’ve always wanted, and when the pandemic hit, its voice raised to the point of obsession.

What might that be?

A chambered body.

The chambering (boring out hollow chambers inside the body) lends itself a dynamically responsive, and warm tone. Great for rounding out the inherent brightness of a Telecaster (already somewhat tamed by my Loller’s). So, after a lot of forum reading (Thank you, tdpri.com), I chose chambered Walnut for the wood (sort of in the middle in terms of tone brightness) and a Dark Danish oil finish (easy to apply, just beware of spontaneous combustion.)

Come Together.

Electronics/Wiring

So, while having the thing in pieces, I figured I’d optimize the wiring and put in a five-way selector switch. That way, I could have two different humbucker configurations, parallel and series.

In simple terms, I was adding a beefier and louder humbucker. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s how I feel about the results. Here’s some more in-depth reading on the subject if you're interested.

As you can see from the pics, everything is insulated with lovely copper tape courtesy of my neighbour and guitar maintenance hobbyist, Chris.

I also used the copper tape to ground the pickup pole of the Charlie Christian (the Charlie Christian doesn't have a plate to ground to when configuring for a 5-way switch, so I got creative with some trial and error.)

Wanna hear how it sounds? most of this record was recorded with it.

pieces of a guitar under contruction on a coffee table

Here, There And Everywhere.

a guitar with pickups chambers insulated with copper tape

And in the end...

The final puzzle piece was a delicious roasted maple neck (it actually smells like maple syrup) with a compound radius neck 12-16.

So, it’s pretty flat in the first place and gets even flatter as you ascend the neck. That makes it fast and easier to bend notes on. I haven't played a neck like this since my high school metal days, and It did take some getting used to, but I love it now. I opted for the medium jumbo stainless steel frets (I’ll save the little bitty pointy frets for when I can afford a vintage Strat, haha).

Here’s a little controversy. I got the neck with a Tusq Earvana nut. You know, the ones supposed to resolve the guitar's inherent intonation problems? Ya, that one, and guess what?

It works!

Feel free to argue over the science, the physics, this and that, yadda yadda yadda, and blah blah blah!

It. Works.

I tuned Pipe Organs for 7 years (whatever that’s worth!). My ear is pretty good intonation-wise, but the only way you’ll ever know for yourself is to play one. It’s also not for everybody (a dash of imperfection can go a long way). I get that.

There’s always the old E and G chord test:

Tune your guitar.
Play an open E chord.
Play an open G chord
Ask yourself, are they both in tune?
If they are, you have something like an Earvana nut

Ok, digression over. I think that about covers it.

Please get at me below in the comments, let me know if you have any questions, and set me straight with any guitar-factoid blasphemy's I may have committed!