TDPRI Challenge

Been building a guitar again over the last few weeks.
It's a Telecaster for the annual TDPRI Build Challenge.
At first I wanted to go for something LP Jr inspired, but the ones I've seen inspired by Juniors always look wrong. So I figured I might as well go for something "Gretschy".

Specs:
Body - African Mahogany + knotty pine top
Neck- African Mahogany + rosewood fretboard
Hardware - Bigsby B16, CTS/CRL controls, Seymour Duncan Nocaster bridgePUP, Gretsch Filtertron neckPUP, Kluson roundback tuners
Finish - Red and orange stain, nitro clearcoat

So here we go:

African mahogany for body and neck

Sawn and ready to rout

Routed + some parts

Neck, fretboard and body

Fretboard glued + bound

Shaping the neck

Neck stained

What it looked like last friday

How it looks today

Ready for wiring

'58 Supro Belmont

I started a little contest between a professional luthier and me this weekend. This guy helped me out a lot with the Dual-Tone and drew up a plan of that guitar. He said he'd like to build himself one like it someday. Turns out there's going to be a guitarbuilders meeting in 2 months...
So we set up this build-off plan.

Here's what I did so far:

Made the templates and glued a 2 piece Yellow Pine body.

 Roughly cut out the body, neck and fretboard...

Routed out the neck and shaped the headstocktransition

 Routed out the body and beveled the edges.

Did the back with a router, the front by hand.

Still figuring out how I'm going to do the neckpocket...

Think I'm going for a modern version of the old Supro's.

 Last but not least:

A mock-up!

To be continued...

GretschCaster Pt.1

It's been a while since I last posted an update but here's the news:
I started on another Telecaster project (I dubbed it the GretschCaster)... A friend of mine wanted a guitar to fit her specific needs.  She wanted a guitar that would sound good, look good and play good for a decent price and since she's a cool person I offered her to build one for her she designed.

Meet the GretschCaster:

The specs:
2-piece Yellow Pine body: Gretsch orange up front, dark red back and white bindings
Maple neck with rosewood fretboard: 25" scale and 22 frets, abalone dot inlays and 12" radius

Duesenberg humbucker in the bridgeposition, Duesenberg P-90 in the neckposition
1x volume, 2x Tone and a 3-way switch.

What's not to like about it?

More soon!