JW Guitarworks: Telecaster Project 2014- 'Old' Nitro Finish

Completed 12/28/14

'Old Man' vibe from Eddie Vedder

Heres what happens when you
play a telecaster

The project will be to improve on the previous Tele builds with a custom Telecaster build that has special attention to finishes and is more authentic as a 50s replica. The previous builds focus more on hardware and circuits.

This will also be a heavy chunky guitar. The heavy body and neck will be a good base to stress the thin nitro finishes and it is also how many of the early 50's telecasters were built- thick profile necks and heavy bodies. Many players think a heavy body and neck improves the sustain and tone so we will see how that goes.

Body

Starting with a Fender Baja body that is on the heavy side with the poly finish stripped off. The Classic Player Baja Telecaster was designed by Fender's Master Builder, Chris Fleming, who specialises in Teles and has built instruments for many artists including: John 5, Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, John Mayer, Pete Townshend, Joe Walsh and Ron Wood.

The Classic Player Baja Tele design is based on a '52-style Telecaster with a typical ash body. The construction of the Baja is not perfect and a known small fault is the bridge pickup rout shows slightly under the curved edges of the bridges but the cut of the body and hardware size are 50s spec.

The body is a flat slab of wood with no "comfort contours", only a tightly radiused edge on the front and back. Some bodies of this example are fairly light for an ash Tele, being about 4lbs, but there have been many reports of much heavier examples, so it seems there is quite a bit of weight variance from guitar to guitar. This body is heavy at close to 6 lbs.

First step is to prep the body. The sanding started with medium then fine paper and down to #800. This took a lot of time and to keep the front and back dead flat the heavy sanding is best done with a long block of wood otherwise you can oversand and groove the body. Beer and sandpaper job.

Color and Paint

After looking at photos of guitars including Eddie Vedder's photo above and a side trip to Nashville I wanted to replicate an old finish exactly as it may have aged.

During the 50s and 60s Fender got their colors from Ford and GM since that was the base of the spray coat business and there were a limited number of choices - see old color chart below- 1960 chart with 14 colors and sunbust no extra charge. Red, white black, blue were the typical choices and the most common finish was clear (Fender blonde- Springsteen & Townsend teles). The clear coat yellowed pretty rapidly. Most of the old yellow Fenders are actually white with a clear overcoat that has yellowed. This is also true of old 'greens' which are actually blue base color with a yellowed overcoat to give a green appearance.

Here is an old clear coat blond finish and you can see how the original finish is preserved under the pickguard where the sunlight UV can not breakdown the finish. Thanks to 'better living through chemistry' this does not happen to your car or guitar finish any more.

I took the body to a special shop for the paint. I decided to go with the look of an Olympic White base and yellowed clear overcoat all in nitrocellulose. The finish was done by a pro - Curt Wilson at Old School Guitar Repair (http://oldschoolguitar.net/about/ ). Check out his work.

OK here we go. Curt had the body for a few weeks and the finish is great - 4 coats nitro olympic white sprayed with 5+ coats of a 'yellowed clearcoat' and a final clear coat over it all. Really nice effect with thinned yellow coats on the edges. The yellow matches the tone on a few of my guitars with yellowed nitro over white binding so it captures the look.

Thinned yellow top coat on the edges

Stress Relic

The idea here will be a minimum wear just to show that there is white under a yellowed clear coat. Looking at all the reference photos the two areas get worn- the outside edge of the lower left bout from arm/sleeve buffing and belt buckle wear in the middle section of the back. After some work with 220 paper and wet sanding down to 1200 microfine came up with this:

Old yellowed nitro over white binding

Next steps are buffing it out to high shine and weather checking or spider cracking

Weather Checking

Weather checking the finish is the most important part of this project. I have worked with overcoat nitro finishes and the checking works ok but it is not as complete as authentic old weather checked finishes. The reference finish I have is on a 69 stratocaster that came as a second hand guitar from a NYC bar band player and it had a rough life when I picked it up in the 90s. The sunburst finish is weather checked and shown below:

Front horn

Back

The checking is fairly complete except on the sides with areas of horizontal dominant lines. It is also subtle and only noticeable close up under a bright light.

This telecaster body is a dense heavy ash so the stressing should produce dramatic differences when cooling the thin nitro (see the 'Relic Techniques' section of this blog in this case the body was not heated before cold treating). The body is left to stand for a little over two months before doing the weather checking to make sure it is fully cured.

The results were better than expected and the photos show it pretty well.

Electronics and Final Assembly.

Neck pickup is a Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele and the bridge pickup is a Fender Custom Shop 51 Nocaster. Get it - the 51 pickup in a 52 body design.

The circuit is the same as the 'Telecaster Project' (see Telecaster Project 2013). 5 position switch for neck, neck+bridge series/hum canceling, neck+bridge parallel, neck+bridge out of phase, bridge. The tone knob pushed in is 0.47uF capacitor and pulled out is a 0.10 uF capacitor for a thinner tone. The volume knob in goes to the tone control and pulled out is hot to the output jack bypassing the tone control and circuit impedance.

Finally it is also a 'greasebucket' circuit having the tone control roll off highs but not going 'muddy' by also rolling off some lows. This works for both the 0.47 and 0.10 caps.

Final Assembly

Neck is a U shape also called the baseball bat since it is large, The profile is preferred by players with large hands but some find vibrato much easier on a thicker neck. It is also a common early 50s profile so it matches the body and pickup. Neck has creme dots, aged back with light relic and weather check on the head with vintage tuners, All metal is lightly aged- acid faded. Bakelite pickguard.

The goal was to make a tele with better finishes and it came off as a early 50s partcaster light relic that challenges Fender Custom Shop $5000 guitars. The wear is right and will improve as it is played for years with a ding here and there and wearing through the thin nitro. Circuit is solid with 15 tone options on board (5 with 0.47 cap, 5 with 0.10 cap and 5 bypassing the tone control).

I will post video and sound checks if I have time.

Final Specs

Brand: Toneworks
Model: Fender Replica Nocaster
Type: Nocaster
Year: early 50's
Aging: Light Relic
Finish Type: Nitrocellulose Lacquer 'yellowed clear' over white
Body Wood: Heavy Ash
Neck Wood: Maple
Neck Shape: Nocaster "U"
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Fingerboard Radius: 9.5" Radius rather than "10" Radius found on Fender Customshop
Inlays: Dots
Scale Length: 25.5"
Width at Nut: 1.650"
Nut Material: Corian rather than Bone
Frets: Dunlop 6105
Pickups: Fender Custom Shop Twisted Tele Neck, 21 Nocaster Bridge
Controls: 5-Way Switch with Tone & Volume Push Pull including Greasebucket Circuit with 15 tone options rather than Fender 3-Way Switch & Modern Wiring with 3 tone options
Hardware : Nickel/Chrome
Bridge: 50's
Tuners: Vintage Nickel Tuning Keys
Pickguard: Black Bakelite 5 Screw Hole

Note: Body is on heavy end of Fender specs. Total weight 8.5 lbs