Tele-Monster & Duff-o-Caster
The Tele was a beatup $99 pawn shop prize. Refinish/paint, route & install buckers & new bridge, make pickguard/neck pickup mount, Graph-Tec nut & string tree, 1 meg Ohm volume pot, tone pot disconnented but designed cap network that differs with each pickup switch selection. Hand prints are of my daughters Ty & Cyd. This guitar goes from 0 to hell in a heart beat. Duff-O-Caster…always wanted a hardtail strat with a maple neck…so I built one.
The Duff-O-Caster a Carvin kit? I’ve been threatening to buy one and do a swirl finish on it…
Beautiful axes Duffman! 
D
I want the tele monster.
nice set of guitars!
i want the strat to replace my strat, to be honest.
Here are some cheap kits to experiment with – not out so much is things don’t work out.
http://store.guitarfetish.com/gukibuityo.html
The parts I’ve gotten from there are actually really good. Can’t beat the prices.
I like that Ibanez…
It’s the guitars you need if you go into a session…
You’re just a nylon strung guitar short…
and … maybe one with a resonator in the body…
Well…
If I had the money … I’d send it over to you…
Well…
again…
Bill…
You did a nice job on that Strat…
Cool
Geez, I don’t trust my skills with sandpaper, even, but look at those prices! Man…
Even the ones that are already built are dirt cheap. wonder how good they are? I’d like to get a semi hollow with p90s…
Not to go off topic, but phoo- any idea how good those guitars are?
I got all the hardware for the found memphis les paul from there and some replacement stuff for a few other guitars. It was really good and on par with real gibson and fender parts. Don’t have a clue how well that stuff will hold up. The pots and jacks are on the cheap end but the pickups bridges and tuners definitely weren’t. The kits use the cheapest parts they have. At $90 for a strat or tele and $160 for an SG or LP I can’t imagine them being too good, but maybe the good part is the quality of workmanship put into the building, and replacing the cheap original parts with better stuff.
Sorry…I didn’t really answer the question…
…I don’t know.
Chances are the pots, caps, and switches are real crap. The nut I would replace as well as the saddles. I like to radius the nut and saddles to match the fretboard. The small screws most likely are just plain steel and will rust right away. A bolt on neck is easier to build then a set, a hardtail is easier then a trem, and a double action truss rod also makes lifes easier yet.
TomS why not buy a pawn shop/used something or other and use it as an experiment?
An electric guitar is nothing more then a stick with some magnets bolted to and wires across the magnets that induce a voltage in a magnetic field when they are plucked. In this day and age when electric guitars are massed produced via CNC routers the highest cost is the top cap wood and of course the name plate. Last time I checked book matched Birdseye Maple is around $3,800 a thousand board feet.
Well…I would try but for two things:
1. I am just about as lame with tools as ever a person was.
2. Time time time…
Duffman,
nice guitars, and as has been said, cool tele.
What do you use for pots?
I have tried lots of them, but they always seem to give out sooner
than I would expect (for what they cost).
pingcat,
I do believe I got my pots from:
http://www.torresengineering.com
linear audio tapers
They have lasted a long time. Tons of gigs, split beer, and sweat. The components for the Tele tone RC network came from:
http://www.mouser.com
Duffman, thanks, torress looks like a good site, already making my up my wish list.
Have you substituted for necks? I have been using Warmouth, they have an
interesting type with a “compound radius” finger board. A bit more expensive
but nicely made. I’ve rotated thru a couple now, just need to learn to re-fret
them myself.
http://www.warmoth.com/Default.aspx
Never subed necks…and frett work is the only thing I take any guitar to a luth for anymore. Warmouth makes great stuff, expensive, but really great quality. If you are going to delve into fretts you may want to look at Stewart-McDonald guitar site:
http://www.stewmac.com/
The hardtail neck is 1 3/4 at the nut with a 16" radius and jumbos. Big, wide & flat stretch for days. It is also unfinished so an occasional buffing with a super fine steel wool is in order. Rarely touch the fretboard, I like that grungy patina maple gets.
The tele is a standard neck, but I steel wooled most of the finish off.
If you swap necks you should give the unfinished steel wool buffing thing a try. You can always add a finish later.