Prairie Custom Guitars

Still trying to come up with a fancy name for this one

How about the

"Boozer Double bound Thinline Esquire Build"

Ya,kinda long,so we will stick with Thinline Esquire Build

Actually a name has been found

This is a pretty special name for a pretty special

friend of the future owner.We will now refer to this build

from here on in as the 

Carlycaster

This build is another Tele style build that was never built by Fender

A Thinline Esquire

This one will be made of alder,single F-hole hybrid Thinline

This will still have the regular tele control plate but will still

have the thinline style f-hole and a hybrid pickguard.

This one is going to get a 3 tone sunburst and have white

binding front and back.

I had a real hard time finding some nice alder for this

Even this piece has some little knots in it,but nothing that will

cause any problems.We start with a board 8 feet long,10 inches

wide and 2 inches thick.I took the nicest end and bookmatched

it for the top.

Off to the planer

After a couple passes on the jointer it's time to glue this puppy up

I left it extra thick just in case

Layed it out and clamped it up

We will let that dry and move to the back

Same thing here,planer,jointer and then glue it up

And now we wait

 The glue is dry,lets make some sawdust

First I lay the template out and draw a outline to rough

cut it on the bandsaw.

Same process for the top

 Mount the working template on the back and head to the router

With the template on the bottom I use a 3/4" template bit

and make one pass around the body

Then I pull the template and use what I just routed as the template

I do one more pass and make some dust

I will leave the top rough cut until I glue it on

Lets move on to the f-hole

I mount my template on to the top

I take most of the material out with the drill press

and a 1/4 inch bit

Then I clean it up with a 1/4 flush trim bit and the router

We have a f-hole

Lets see what we weigh.The goal is about 4 lbs

Time for a diet.Off to the drill press to once again remove 

the majority of the material

Alder being lighter than ash,I make my cavities smaller

Now lets have a look 

By the time the pickup cavity is routed,the neck pocket,and we

will have to go a hair deeper in the control cavity

we should be pretty close  

Well Just a quick update.It has been decided that we need to 

go lighter so.......

Back to the router.I took some more from the horn,widened and

deepened the rest.As of now it sits at 3 lb 13oz

After the rest of the routing is finished,I say it will be in the 

3 1/2 lb range

I was actually planning  on gluing on the top tonight but

decided to give the lower control cavity a coat of conductive

shielding paint.Much easier to do it now.I will let that

dry over night,re-coat and then glue on the top

Did another coat of shielding paint this morning and clamped 

up the top.Ohhh,bad pic

I love clamps 

Well tonight I pulled the clamps and headed to the router

to trim up the top.And there it is 

Time for the ferrules,neck screw holes etc

 Now it's time to route the pickup and control cavities

Even though this is going to be an Esquire,we decided 

to route it for a neck pickup,just in case he ever decides

to add one.I decided to do a big enough route that he

can use a single,humbucker or a P90 if he decides to

All that is left is the output jack hole and the neck pocket

Oh ya,the binding

This is where we are at

Time to get some sealer on this thing

This will protect it for the rest of the routing

 After the sealer had cured,I give it a good sanding with

320 grit.Then another coat of sealer,let it cure out.

Now all of the pics I have looked at of a sunburst Thinline

have the edges of the f-hole painted black.Probably

to hide any overspray in the f-hole so out with the paint

I will paint this and then sand back the sealer.That way

if I go outside the lines,it will get sanded off.

Wow am I shaky  

Nothing the sander wont fix

I seem to have forgotten to do the flatspot

Better get that done too before I route for binding

Now some more sealer

Time for curing 

 Well after another round of sanding and sealer I think we are

about ready to do the binding.I will address these little knots first.

Easier to get them nice and smooth now that later,and the 

color will be more even.A few drops of gap filling CA glue

should do the trick.Let that cure,sand it back and we should

be ready to do a pass of black on the edges

 Well I sanded it smooth and it looks pretty good

Today I will do some experimenting with the amber to

get the color just right.I hope you are watching cause I will be 

asking about the color as I go

Once the amber is right I will do a coat of clear for a buffer coat

then spray some black on the edges and route for the binding

 Hmmm,just realized,I don't have the neck pocket

cut yet.Better get that done.I have templates for each

of the neck manufacturers.They are all suppose to be the same

but, everyone is a bit different.I got out my Allparts template

I guess I will have to route a channel so the neck can be adjusted

 Lets get some color on here

I want to put down the amber first

Looks pretty good.Hard to tell in this light.It is darker 

than an original Fender burst.

I let this cure overnight

Now it's time to mask off the center and get 

the first of the black sprayed.This should make it

easier to get a nice joint between the binding and

the wood,I hope

Shoot the ring,let it cure for a couple minutes

pull the paper and carefully feather the edge so it's 

not so sharp.It will get sprayed over later.

Here is a picture in natural light

Finally I am back to getting some things done

Back to full health,camera working,lets get at it

I got the binding route finished.I got some different binding

from Allparts.I will use that.It has much smoother edges 

so it will be easier to get a good joint.

I think we are ready

I really don't know how guys like Ron Kirn do it

Doing the binding after all the color has been done

I can see that most of the color will be gone by the time

I get the binding cleaned up.I kinda figured that but thought I

would try it this way.It does stop it from soaking 

into the wood though,thats a good thing

One side finished.I will let that sit a few hours

to let the glue cure(and rest my fingers)

Then pull the tape and do the other side

I did a little cleanup before I hit the other side

Unfortunately just as I though,to get rid of

all the glue I lost most of the color.No big deal

It turned out great though.Every time I do 

laminated binding I say I will never do it again,until I see

the results.

No sense cleaning up the sides until I get the 

back finished.I was just going to do single binding 

on the back,but I think that would look funny now so...

Another round of laminated binding 

 Well back to the binding board

Man I tell you,doing laminated binding on the back is not fun.

Those tight corners under the neck pocket SUCK

After the tape was removed,and scraping and sanding

It looks pretty good.I figured I would loos all my color

No big deal to shoot it again

There are a couple small issues I have to address

Nothing major.Like the joint on the back under the neck

 Better get at the neck for this

This neck is going to be finished in TruOil

I did the first tinted coat tonight

I will let it cure overnight and see how the color looks

Lets get this masked and the amber back on

Now for the initial black burst ring

 Gives me something to go by for shooting the middle ring

After I do the middle I will finish the black

Well kinda forgot to take pictures of the rest of the burst

 But I did the middle ring,then the black again

Then I mixed up some more,a bit more brown and

then did a light shot over the reddish middle ring

I let it cure for about a half hour and then pulled the tape

Here are a few pics 

With the flash 

OK,for some reason I have been having trouble updating the page

So I think it had something to do with the pic of the neckplate so I took it off

Now where were we

Oh ya,scraping the binding,fun fun

Got it all scraped and then hit it with it's first clear

After a few more coats it was time for a mock-up

Still undecided on guard color

3 ply black might make it a bit busy where the guard and binding meet but....

It would look great on the other side.

Just a look with a 1 ply black

It has been decided that the guard is to go all the way down the horn

And of course there will be no neck pickup route

Time for some more clear,give it a couple more coats today

After it cures for a couple hours I will give it another and let it cure overnight

 This lacquer is funny stuff.You can see when it is wet it has a cloudy look

After it is dry however,it is clear 

After an hour the cloud leaves

Not too sure just how many coats I have on here

I don't go by coats anyway.I just go until I am happy and know it will be protected

In the effort to keep this finish thin,and to get rid of a couple little bumps

I decided to give it a good wetsanding today.

We are getting pretty close

A couple more coats

Looking pretty good.Just a couple little spots along the binding

A couple more coats should do it 

Lets get the logo's on the headstock

They will need time to cure

Now a couple coats of lacquer over them 

Time to get this back on track and finished up

The pickup should be here by the end of the week

I did a wet sanding on the headstock and it is good to go

I slipped the neck into the pocket to make sure it fit

Lets see where we are sitting

Total weight,body and neck

Well the clear is finished.Just needs to cure for a few days

Received the pickup for this bad girl.

Custom wound 60's replica from Tex-Tone Pickups

Now for the wet sanding

We start at 600 and go up to 2000

Looks pretty good.Just need to polish it up now

Before I go any farther I need to get the pickguard figured

It needs to go down the horn and be a 3 ply B/W/B

Only thing,being the binding is so thick,a stock guard actually almost

covers some of the binding and it looks really busy.

To overcome this I will need cut a guard.

I made the template from an original Fender guard

Then,before I removed the guard I used as a template I changed

the bearing on the router bit.I put a 1/2" bearing on a 5/8" bit

Then I run the bit from the neck pocket on the guard,around the horn

and along the bottom of the guard.The smaller bearing let the bit remove

more material from the guard while keeping it the correct shape.

Now I just need to tweak the template on the sander and then

use it to cut out the guard