Project dates: October 10 – 28, 2024

Status: Donated to hungryformusic.org

This was my second guitar build, which actually started out as a surprise. On the About page I talk about how one of my inspirations to start building and donating guitars was a website called New Joy Guitars, which I stumbled on while I was looking for charities who might be interested in donations. I have since traded a few emails with Patrick about how it was going and mentioned that I was taking a hiatus from building because we had some unexpected expenses on our home this summer. Patrick casually asked for my address and said he had “something to send”, which I assumed would be maybe a sticker or something. About a week later I was shocked to find that Patrick had actually sent me a full guitar kit! I couldn’t believe it. He mentioned that this was what his project was all about, bringing New Joy to people with guitars, and he was happy to share. I was blown away, and can’t thank him enough for his generosity.

The Kit

As this kit was a surprise gift, I don’t know exactly where it came from or what the brand is. Patrick has mentioned that he gets most of his kits from Amazon or eBay, and this one had some generic installation instructions but didn’t have a logo or anything on those, so I can’t actually give them a plug. The kit itself is a Telecaster style body with solderless electronics. I will say that overall I was pretty impressed with the quality – the mahogany body and maple neck were both in great shape and fit together perfectly. The rest of the components were what I’ve come to expect with kits – not top of the line, but good enough to get the job done for a starter guitar.

The Neck

The neck was in good shape, but after testing with the Fret Rocker there were enough uneven spots that I decided to go ahead and do another fret level. I learned a lot about these on my first build and wanted to see if it would be easier this time, and for the most part it was. The part I am still struggling with is rounding the edges, as I ended up nicking the side of the neck a bit more than I had hoped to with this one. I’ve since bought another file specifically for rounding the edges to use in the future, and I need to be better about using the little metal fret guides that can help protect the neck during filing.

I did buy a new TUSQ nut for this guitar thinking I would need it, but after reviewing the one that was already on the neck I decided to wait, as it seemed to be decent enough plastic and I wasn’t sure if it would need to be replaced.

Sanding and Staining

My initial plan with this guitar build was to go for a natural wood finished look. I had watched a lot of videos and read some online blog posts that said you could accomplish this look just by using Tru Oil, which I already had on hand after using it as a finish for the neck in my first build.

As this was my first time trying to do any kind of staining or finishing on the guitar body, I needed some new tools and materials. The first thing I bought was a storage container that is designed for under-bed storage. Since we don’t have a garage, and our outdoor space is covered by a deck but still pretty open to the elements, my thought was I could do any staining inside this container, zip it up and leave the guitar outside for a few hours to dry, without it being open to rain, wind, dust, etc. The container ended up being perfect for this use, though it was slightly too small to comfortably fit the body and neck in at the same time if they both needed to be elevated for drying (I have since bought a similar one from IKEA that is designed to store wrapping paper, and plan to use that just for the neck in the future).

Unfortunately, I learned after about 3 or 4 layers of Tru Oil that it wasn’t going to be nearly as dark as I was hoping. I knew that Tru Oil was supposed to add a bit of an amber tint to the wood, but it was not as much as I was expecting.

At this point I decided to go another direction and stain the whole guitar. I have always loved the all-rosewood Tele that George Harrison played in the famous Beatles rooftop concert, so I used that as the start of the inspiration. I found a water-based stain from Saman that had a rosewood color that I was interested in. I knew I’d need to sand off the Tru Oil that I had already applied, and I didn’t have much in terms of supplies (other than some very basic sandpaper sheets), so I decided to invest in some more equipment.

First I bought an orbital sander, using the rationale that I also need to sand and re-stain some banisters in our house, and I’ll need an orbital sander for that job as well. Next, I bought some sanding discs of different grits, some flexible sanding blocks, a drum sanding attachment for my power drill to get the sides and corners (after realizing that the orbital sander is NOT good for sides and corners, as you’ll see below), and an assortment of gloves and rags, etc. Lastly I found a small portable vacuum that I received as a Christmas present a few years ago that works perfectly with the orbital sander to collect dust (while I really like the Ryobi cordless sander, the bag/dust adapter that comes with it is terrible).

It was at this point that I missed what turned out to be a crucial step – because the body of this guitar is mahogany, it has a lot of open pores. I have since learned that the next step should have been to apply a pore filler, to help even out the surface before adding the stain. Instead, I went straight to the stain, and of course the body soaked it up way too much, and it was difficult to apply an even layer. This resulted in a few rounds of adding stain, sanding it back, adding more stain, sanding it back, etc. I forget how many rounds I did, most likely it was around 4 or 5 total.

There is one spot on the back of the guitar that looks like a defect, but is sanded perfectly flat and has just as much stain on it, that’s just the nature of that wood and didn’t appear to be fixable. It doesn’t bother me as much since I was going for a bit more of a rustic look with this guitar anyway.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to get this as dark as a real George Harrison rosewood Tele, so I stopped at a point where I felt like it looked pretty good. Lastly I added 3 to 4 coats of Tru Oil on top of the stain to use as a finish. For the neck I did a similar process to the first guitar build where I used Tru Oil, then followed that with Feed-n-Wax and buffed it, while also adding Feed-n-Wax to the fretboard to give it more hydration.

Assembly

From this point it was pretty straightforward, I attached the neck to the body and then started working on the electronics. One step I decided to skip this time was the copper shielding around the electronics area. That was by far my least favorite part of the last build, and in talking with Patrick he mentioned that he rarely uses it for his projects and hasn’t noticed a significant difference.

It was around this time that I also upgraded my indoor work area. For most of this project, the guitar parts spent downtime inside the storage container on the floor of my office, while my tools were randomly shoved into different drawers with no organization. I finally decided to add another table to my office that I could make a dedicated workspace, and am still in the process of organizing it with my different tools, etc. It’s so much nicer to have a flat surface with plenty of space to work on!

I had purchased a black pickguard to better match the George Harrison model, but the holes didn’t line up perfectly, and as I was testing the white pickguard that came with the kit I realized that I actually really liked the way it looked with this shade, so I stuck with it.

The last steps were to add my waterslide decal logo (actually got it right on the first try this time), install the tuners and the string trees, and do a full setup. I’m getting a bit better at setups and feel pretty good about this one – there was no fret buzz this time, and I’m still experimenting with lowering the action further to see how low I can go without buzz. The electronics work and sound decent, and as far as I can tell there isn’t any significant buzz without the copper shielding so far.

All in all I learned a ton on this project, mostly around the sanding and staining parts. I’m really looking forward to trying again – I have plenty of the Rosewood stain left, so I’ll probably do something similar for my next build, but this time I’ll remember to use grain filler and hopefully will see how much of a difference that makes.

Thanks again to Patrick for the kit and the inspiration! If you haven’t already please check out his site.