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Tigercaster 2015
This
guitar had a long, grief-stricken birthing process; further details are
included below for those who are interested. Basically,
it’s a 3-pickup Telecaster variation, using noiseless
pickups. The bridge pickup gives a very bright Tele bridge sound. The
middle pickup has a great crunchy sound with a little distortion, which
is often more useful than the crystal-bright bridge pickup. The
neck pickup is also a useful, non-muddy sound. The in-between
sounds are fairly hollow; potentially useful as rhythm sounds in some
context, but not all that similar to those you hear on a Strat.
This is probably because I placed the middle pickup closer to the neck
instead of at the midpoint. I did this because it annoys me how I
often tap the middle pickup with the pick when I’m playing, so I
figured I’d move it up to avoid that. But if I had to do it
over again, I’d use more conventional placement.
The body is basically a Telecaster body that I got really cheap from a
GuitarFetish.com warehouse blowout. It was only partially routed,
and was covered in dents, stains, markings, and globs of glue.
The wood is incredibly light, and dents if you point at it; even pine
is harder than this. I got it just to use for a testing/practice
body blank. After getting it I wasn’t even sure anyone even
intended to use it for a guitar body, since was so very light and so
abused.
The neck is a nice rosewood on maple neck with distinctive pearloid inlays and the Jackson 3+3 style headstock that I got on Ebay. It was supposed to be a 24.75 inch scale, but when I received it I found it was 25.5. The seller kindly said to keep it, and he later sent the correct neck.
So now I had a more-or-less Tele body and a more-or-less Tele neck. I decided to assemble these together, and finish it as a graduation gift for my daughter. At this point I proceeded to get way too clever for my own good at multiple levels.
I ordered all the hardware and electronics from GuitarFetish, and added a bone nut I had on hand. The bridge pickup is their Noisefree Neovin Pure Vintage Tele pickup, while the neck and middle pickups are from their Neovin Noisefree Pure Vintage" Strat set, with appropriately-sized pickup rings. I replaced the 3-position switch with a Strat 5-poistion switch. I routed a cutout for the middle pickup, adapted the neck pocket to fit the neck, and (frustratingly later) discovered I would also need to route the instrument cavity wider, since it was inexplicably not standard Tele-sized.
Finishing was a nightmare. First came tons of patching, grain filling, sanding, and priming just to make it usable. Then I sprayed a pretty nice 2-tone blueburst with Rustoleum rattle cans.
Next, I really wanted the tiger on there. I am not nearly talented enough to airbrush it freehand. I tried making a very intricate stencil and airbrushing that. While simple examples worked in practice, the final product was a mess, so it all had to be sanded out to start over again.
So I decided to decoupage a tiger print onto the surface. I tested a dozen different techniques, found the one that seemed to work best, and even did a graphic on the back to confirm it would work. But when I did the tiger on the front, it was a nightmare. It kept coming unattached and developing air bubbles. I tediously used a syringe and needle to extract the air and inject more glue, and finally got it pretty well attached, though at some cosmetic cost.
I put several layers of clear enamel, followed by clear polyurethane spray on top of that. Unfortunately, this still left a pretty fragile finish that is easily scratched, & parts of the clearcoat even peeled up at times while I was working on installing the hardware. There was a lot of patching, leading to further cosmetic compromise. But I eventually had to declare it as good as it was going to get.
So if you really learn the most from your mistakes, I should be an expert luthier by now. (Unfortunately, though, that does not seem to be the case.)
The neck is a nice rosewood on maple neck with distinctive pearloid inlays and the Jackson 3+3 style headstock that I got on Ebay. It was supposed to be a 24.75 inch scale, but when I received it I found it was 25.5. The seller kindly said to keep it, and he later sent the correct neck.
So now I had a more-or-less Tele body and a more-or-less Tele neck. I decided to assemble these together, and finish it as a graduation gift for my daughter. At this point I proceeded to get way too clever for my own good at multiple levels.
I ordered all the hardware and electronics from GuitarFetish, and added a bone nut I had on hand. The bridge pickup is their Noisefree Neovin Pure Vintage Tele pickup, while the neck and middle pickups are from their Neovin Noisefree Pure Vintage" Strat set, with appropriately-sized pickup rings. I replaced the 3-position switch with a Strat 5-poistion switch. I routed a cutout for the middle pickup, adapted the neck pocket to fit the neck, and (frustratingly later) discovered I would also need to route the instrument cavity wider, since it was inexplicably not standard Tele-sized.
Finishing was a nightmare. First came tons of patching, grain filling, sanding, and priming just to make it usable. Then I sprayed a pretty nice 2-tone blueburst with Rustoleum rattle cans.
Next, I really wanted the tiger on there. I am not nearly talented enough to airbrush it freehand. I tried making a very intricate stencil and airbrushing that. While simple examples worked in practice, the final product was a mess, so it all had to be sanded out to start over again.
So I decided to decoupage a tiger print onto the surface. I tested a dozen different techniques, found the one that seemed to work best, and even did a graphic on the back to confirm it would work. But when I did the tiger on the front, it was a nightmare. It kept coming unattached and developing air bubbles. I tediously used a syringe and needle to extract the air and inject more glue, and finally got it pretty well attached, though at some cosmetic cost.
I put several layers of clear enamel, followed by clear polyurethane spray on top of that. Unfortunately, this still left a pretty fragile finish that is easily scratched, & parts of the clearcoat even peeled up at times while I was working on installing the hardware. There was a lot of patching, leading to further cosmetic compromise. But I eventually had to declare it as good as it was going to get.
So if you really learn the most from your mistakes, I should be an expert luthier by now. (Unfortunately, though, that does not seem to be the case.)