My dovetail fanned fret Tele build

[Edward Taylor]

Laying out the neck pocket.


Routing the pocket.




Neck heel fitted to pocket.


Routed the pickup cavity and heres a mockup of the guitar.


Thats it for now. Thanks for looking.

[Lefty]

Very cool.

Lefty

[DaveWhite]

Edward,

That's looking really good and my hat is off to you making those dovetails - impressive. Next time you are doing a multiscale fretboard check out this cool little jig for hand cutting the slots.. Very simple to make and using magnets to keep the saw perpendicular is a touch of genius.

I'm looking forward to seeing the bridge - I made one of my daughters a fanfret electric last year and ended up making my own bridge as I didn't have a source for individual saddles - she has small hands and so it was a narrow string spacing.

[Edward Taylor]

Thanks guys.

Dave- Thats a nice little jig indeed. The magnets must be pretty weak to allow sawing. I was wondering whether there would be any way to modify it to allow use of the plexi depth stop on my fret saw... so far I've got nothin.

Any information or tips you could give me on how you made your bridge would be much appreciated. I have never really worked with metal before let alone made a bridge.

Here is roughly what I want to make:


These are the saddles I have:


I have roughly 0.70 thick rolled steel for material. I am thinking of either finely welding or soldering the "steps" together at the back. I have a good hacksaw but thinking of getting a metal cutting blade for my bandsaw... I can cut metal on it with the proper blade right?

[Dennis Leahy]

Pretty dang cool, amigo!

A fine execution on that zipper!

Dennis

[DaveWhite]

Edward,

I don't do metal work so did it in wood. It's very simple and I'm quite ashamed to show it but it works. I took the individual saddles from a strat bridge and sanded them on a belt sander to make them slimmer to make the reduced string width I needed. I then cut a thin steel plate and superglued some East Indian Rosewood with pear/black/pear purfling around the outer edges (this was the same binding/purfling scheme as on the plate covers for the pickups etc) and put double sided tape on the bottom - the ground wire underneath was in contact with the plate. I made an EIR "bridge" and drilled slots for the adjusting screws and holes for the ball end strings and then simply screwed it to the top. This is the result:





As I say, crude but so far it works very well. Sorry for the poor picture quality

[Edward Taylor]

Thanks Dennis!

Dave thats a clever solution to the whole bridge problem. Great looking guitar too, thanks for the pics.

Not much really happened this weekend, major shop cleanup and botched my nut slot. I really need to get some decent files, just have no luck when it comes to chisels and nut slots. I had a 1/8" nut, going to order a 3/16" and sand it until it fits.

[Edward Taylor]

Went at the bridge yesterday...

Yours truly doing some grinding.


The result of a lot of hacking, grinding, pounding and swearing.


Theres lots of excess length still which will be ground off. Borrowed my friends mig welder to weld the seems, but still dont have the right 220 outlet.



This is the next big challenge. I am really set on veneering the headstock with a dovetailed piece, but there is that curve near the nut to be accounted for. When I tried bending a couple of pieces that were already glued together, it just de-laminated. I was hoping to bend them individually and then glue together when veneering the headstock, but when I try to bend the pieces the dovetails do not follow shape. Do I need a spring steel slat? Any ideas?