Proteus build thread (uber-tele)

[CTN]

I made the template for the mini-humbucker ring today. Just open enough to not give me any problems with fit.



Also i decided to start wearing a shop apron instead of getting my clothes all sawdusty.


Next up i shall grab a beer, throw some tunes on and begin the long, arduous task of low-grit sanding all the finish off the neck. I did some research and discovered that shecter uses polyester finishes so chemical strippers would be pretty useless. As would a heat gun, because any burn marks would remain and i don't wanna see that under clear coat.

[CTN]

Well that was eventful.

Since I posted that I managed to get all the finish off the back, and most of the front face of the headstock too. Weirdly, the finish on the back was super thin, and didn't take long at all to get it all off. But the front face of the headstock is taking ages.

After getting the black and the decal off, there was a layer of amber underneath and now i'm slowly sanding through that. It's tough going, They built it up really thick and the 60 grit sandpaper doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot. I'm gonna tackle it again on sunday, and probably rout the correct P90 cavity in the body as well. I think I might also start carving the body. Or at least the parts that I have no doubts about, like the belly contour and the contoured heel/lower horn rear section. The top will have to wait for a while still.

Also I got some hardware and the graphtech nut in. I did a test fit for the graphtech nut and did the ol' half-a-pencil trick on the frets to check how much I'd have to file down the string slots. Turns out... none. They are absolutely perfectly where they should be. And the radius matches the neck radius too, so I literally have to do nothing except maybe final shaping of the nut (but not the slots) to take off all the sharp edges and get it flush with the board on either side of the nut slot. Cool stuff.

For now I'm content with the day's progress and I'm gonna chill and catch up on Vikings.

[CTN]

Shit. This is gonna take all day.

[Securb]

It will be worth it. Looking good already.

[Agileguy]

Nice work dude

[CTN]

Rough shaping of the belly contour is done. The heel and the lower horn roundover on the back should be a lot less painful.

Next day off i'm gonna tackle those two.

Pics... You can see the depth mark of the carved top in the profile shot. It's gonna be 11/16" from the flat top.

[CTN]

Seriously, fuck polyester.

Polyester belongs in clothes, not friggin laid on top of guitars. This is ridiculous. It's so stinky when sanding it off. I'm still not done the headstock. Schecter really laid it on thick on the headstock, dunno why.

With any luck I'll finish this headstock tonight. Then perhaps I can start oiling it on my day off.

edit: cool. Neck is good to go. Just gotta finish sand it.

[CTN]

Well I decided to start oiling the neck at the same time as I start working on the finish for the body so I can set both pieces on the same finishing schedule, more or less.

In the meantime, I finished the rough shaping of the contoured heel and rear of the lower horn. I had to make a jig to rout the neck heel at 6 degrees and then I used my dremel to blend in the surrounding areas. I used the warmoth contoured heel dimensions (on my jolly roger strat) as a rough guide.

I still have to clean up the tooling marks and blend in some of the edges and slopes a bit better, but here's where I'm at now.

[kinnikuman]

[Big Flannel]

As much as I love traditional tele bodies, this thing is gonna be a beast.