I have posted some of my other guitar build stuff here so I thought I would share this.

I always wanted a Fender Broadcaster, which was the precursor to the Telecaster. They're very rare and very expensive - the only one I could find for sale was $40,000.00 and I'm not ready to sell my 60 Les Paul Standard to buy one!

I bought a badly damaged ash table (or table top) at a flea market for $7.00. The table looked to be from the 1940s - which was good because the Broadcaster was made in 1950ish.

I made some templates using my 1963 Custom Telecaster and came up with this:



There was a knot, so I made sure it was on the back



Next, I made some stain. I wanted the dings to look like they went through multiple finishes - Fullerplast - so I did multiple coats, wiping between each.







Next, I mixed up some of my aging juice which makes it the old time butterscotch color instead of crayola yellow:





Now, a little wear to simulate the age:

The trick to not making something look fake is to think it out.

See how the finish looks like it has been worn from someone's palm touching the cutaway?



And also the light clean wear (that matches on front and back - where someone's leg would be while seated.



Some light discoloration where a strap would have been and some wear where an arm was:



A couple dings from when it was placed wrong on a stage over the years:

Next, I cut myself a pickguard out of a sheet of Bakelite.





That needed a touch of wear, so I looked at where my real Tele had worn and looked at where my fingers rest when I play:











Last, I needed a decal. Some scans from a book and some Adobe Illustrator gave me this:

You are nothing short of amazing, Noah.

She's a beaut!

Very very cool...

Holy Sh*t that is amazing!
I bow to your craftsmanship.

I have a question about the decal.
How did you convert your scan to a working decal?

I have a really old Tobias bass that was stripped and lost its logo.
It is my main gigging bass.
Mike doesn't have decals and doesn't care about it, but I want to honor his name when I gig with it.
Any advice?

Some water slide decal paper and a inkjet printer should do the trick. Just don't dip the entire decal in water - the ink won't hold up. Use a wet sponge and apply it to the back of the paper only! Once the paper has become wet enough the decal will slide off...Good Luck

Good work,

Thanks for posting. Always enjoy your craftsmanship.

Rich

Thanks guys!

As for the decal - DP has it down.

If you need some inkjet decal paper (it's kind of pricey) I can send you a sheet.

One thing I do is reverse the image so that I can use a little (VERY LITTLE) water (more like a slightly damp rag) to pull it off the paper.

There was a great pic tutorial of how to do the decal thing and I have it saved on a work computer but try to find and post...
niiiiiiiccceee work!
S

Thanks, that is a very kind offer, I will PM you.

like your workbench too. Never thought of using mixer faders this way!

After finishing the Gretsch I got back into this one.

I'm building some fake PRS Singlecuts next but this needs to be finished first:)

Now that my Gretsch project is complete I decided to come back to this one.

Today I did the following:

1- Found some period correct screws for the bridge and pickguard.

Now a lot of people will tell you ways to pre-age screws and that is not a good idea because chemicals can weaken them.

I do is just look through the jars of screws that I have saved until I find the correct type. In this case, I was looking for some older flat head screws.

It took about 10 minutes and several jars, but I came up with 4 for the bridge and 5 small ones for the pickguard.

Next, I did a little looking at my original 63 Custom Telecaster as well as some photos of older Teles online.

What I realized was that the old bridges are usually in pretty good shape.

I knocked the shine off this one behind the pickup and used some aging paste that I make to give it a light patina. Next, I added a tiny bit of wear on the top - where someone would have rested their palm and on the back - where a screwdriver may have dinged it up a couple times.

Nothing insane.

I smoothed it out a little and added some more 'patina' after these pics, but you get the idea:





Here is how it looks so far. I am pretty pleased because I have under $50.00 into the project and it's looking good.

I'm working on the neck starting tomorrow evening and it should be done in a few days. It takes about 2 hours to make a Fender neck and fret/finish it.

You can see that the bridge is not screwed all the way down because I will have to remove it to install the pickup in the bridge.

One issue I did run into was the ash body is HARD. I actually was drilling another pilot hole for the bridge screws when I snapped my bit in the hole!

Getting it out was a PITA but I did have to enlarge the hole a bit. Luckily for me this is hidden by the bridge and all the screws tighten as they should.

All in all I think this one looks really authentic. Plus all the wood, screws and bakelite parts are made from old material, so not only will this (hopefully) help the sound, it is a green project.

This post is a continuation of the one before - but this is on a new page so go back one to see the steps leading up to this:

The following pictures show how to age the maple fretboard which is easy to do.







The bridge now has an authentic Broadcaster serial number (1330) - my bday is 330 btw - in the correct font, location and size.



Coming together - bad light



Bad light - plus I need to do the clear and finish up the detail work but you get the idea.



First coat of final finish:

Finally adding the decal - Guitar Center trade in here we come:)

Noah-

Seeing that Gretch hanging next to your Broadcaster brings tears to my eyes.

Unreal.

You are insipring me to get my flippin' studio build finished so I can finally build my fretless 5.

Great job.

Thanks!

Next I'm building some PRS Singlecut copies:)

All done except for the pickups and I have to do a tiny bit more work on the nut, but I'm going to do that once the pickups are in and I do the setup.

I ended up making the saddles from a brass rod and a tap and die set I borrowed. I'm new to it, but I did manage to make three of them.

All of the screws in the guitar are old flat heads that I found by searching through my 7 or 8 tons of old screws and fasteners.

Unplugged this guitar is LOUD. It has a shimmering quality that I would like to attribute to the bridge, but I think it's from the solid old growth timber I used on this build.

The body is at least from the late 1940s (maybe older). The neck is from about 1948 or 49 because that is when the school where I got these bleachers was built.

I am now 100% convinced of this and all my builds from now on are going to be from old reclaimed wood.

You play this thing unplugged (obviously as there are no pickups) and you can feel the vibrations right through it - almost like when you play an acoustic. My 63 is like this to a degree as well. I just didn't expect it on a new build.

So far, I have about $200.00 into this. I just need to put strap buttons and pickups in.

I took an old cap out of a junked bakelite radio.

Finally finished the build.

I did get very lucky toward the end. A very close friend of mine is a well known pickup master and gave me a lot of information about the Broadcaster, as he had worked on several over the years.

The guitar is playing great. I have not tweaked the intonation, but it's pretty close and my home made saddles are working well and add to the look of the guitar.

It is LOUD - more so then a regular Telecaster and that is what I was told I should be going for with regard to material and the technical details.

All in all it has been a fun project.


Final total for the project was just under $300.00

Outstanding!!

Very nice job