# My Home Built Partscaster Tele + Sound Clips



## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

Hi there, I just wanted to share my partscaster Tele here, of which I built the body for as a project in Grade 12 tech class eleven years ago!

It has had a really great Musikraft blackguard neck on it (a 0514) ever since, but I have just recently switched to a rosewood board Allparts neck, as I have a preference for rosewood boards, and I was very happy to find a neck that sounds great with the body as well!

The body was made from a swamp ash body blank from A & M Wood Specialty in Cambridge, which my dad helped me pick out. I made a CAD drawing as part of the class project, and cut it out with the CNC machine. Having never built before, some of my work was rough around the edges, and John LaCroix of LaCroix Guitars in St Thomas ON (a fantastic luthier) polished it up for me and did the finish work.

It’s a nitro finish and he did a great job with the colour. I wanted a more transparent and yellow version of the blackguard look, and his finish work is immaculate. He did the neck too.

The new Allparts neck is finished very lightly with Tru Oil, and I really love how it feels! It’s a big chunky neck of 1” all across, whereas the Musikraft was a soft V. I’ve come to discover I like fat necks a lot! Looking to replace the saddles right now from brass to steel.

Here are some pics, including a couple of the body inside the original body blank! It’s now a rosewood board blackguard and I love it! Sound clips below.




















































Here is one sound clip with the rosewood neck, and one with the maple neck:


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

The tele looks awesome and truly fantastic playing! I'm glad you decided on the rosewood i think it looks better too


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

Mikev7305 said:


> The tele looks awesome and truly fantastic playing! I'm glad you decided on the rosewood i think it looks better too


Thank you very much for the kind words! I’m glad somebody else thinks the same thing, I thought so too! I like the way it goes together.


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## zztomato (Nov 19, 2010)

Beauty! Nice playing too.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Nice build!

Does Lacroix still do finish work? I have a tele I'm looking to get redone (nothing fancy) and St. Thomas would be a preferred drive haha.


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## polyslax (May 15, 2020)

Looks great, and definitely preferred rosewood on this one. Nice playing too. What pickups do you have in it?

My one complaint - you cut your cat's face out of the first picture!


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

zztomato said:


> Beauty! Nice playing too.


Thank you so much!


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

Budda said:


> Nice build!
> 
> Does Lacroix still do finish work? I have a tele I'm looking to get redone (nothing fancy) and St. Thomas would be a preferred drive haha.


Hey I’m sorry to say John has actually moved to Tobermory and is not doing any work or repairs. This was back in 2010. He spends his time building his acoustics, really beautiful guitars!




polyslax said:


> Looks great, and definitely preferred rosewood on this one. Nice playing too. What pickups do you have in it?
> 
> My one complaint - you cut your cat's face out of the first picture!


Hey thank you so much! I really appreciate that! Glad you preferred rosewood too, I’m super happy with that neck! I have Ron Ellis Broadcaster pickups in the guitar. Amazing stuff, I love Ron’s pickups so much. Best vintage tones I have ever heard!

Haha yes indeed she’ll be mad at me for that one 😎!


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

The playing and production values are both excellent as has been pointed out. That Tele sounds great in both clips. 

It's not really possible (for me at least) to assess differences between tones (maple vs rosewood) in those two clips with such different styles of playing and music.

I remain convinced this is largely an aesthetic choice.
Great playing and sound in both.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Lusting in my heart. Clearly, this guitar is delivering what your fingers and ears aspire to. Congrats! Wish we had "tech" classes like that when I was in high school.
Could be my imagination, but I thought I preferred the tone of the rosewood neck over the maple.


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

Milkman said:


> The playing and production values are both excellent as has been pointed out. That Tele sounds great in both clips.
> 
> It's not really possible (for me at least) to assess differences between tones (maple vs rosewood) in those two clips with such different styles of playing and music.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for the kind words! I know it’s very true, with different settings, contexts, etc it is hard to tell. I never got the chance to make a direct comparison which is tough anyway with necessary height adjustments etc, but it’s all good to me since I love the feel of this neck so much! Sounds great!



mhammer said:


> Lusting in my heart. Clearly, this guitar is delivering what your fingers and ears aspire to. Congrats! Wish we had "tech" classes like that when I was in high school.
> Could be my imagination, but I thought I preferred the tone of the rosewood neck over the maple.


Thanks so much! I think I was the only one who ever built a Telecaster in that class haha! Glad I chose to do that. Cool I know it’s hard to tell as the last commenter mentioned, with different settings and musical contexts, but to be honest it doesn’t even really matter to me since I love the feel of this neck so much. It makes me want to pick it up a lot more than before personally. And I’m so glad it sounds great! Thanks again for the comment!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Lee Valley Tools HQ is a 5-minute drive from home. Their seasonal flyers often have pics of things their customers have made that are exceptional in some way. This pic adorned one of their woodworking tools flyers about a half-dozen years ago. It shows a bunch of guitars built by high school students as part of a course. I think they were somewhere around Kingston or Belleville. Really nice work. Lee Valley liked it so much, they used it as the photo for one of their jigsaw puzzles they sell.


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## ezcomes (Jul 28, 2008)

Great covEr and great looking guitar!


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

mhammer said:


> Lee Valley Tools HQ is a 5-minute drive from home. Their seasonal flyers often have pics of things their customers have made that are exceptional in some way. This pic adorned one of their woodworking tools flyers about a half-dozen years ago. It shows a bunch of guitars built by high school students as part of a course. I think they were somewhere around Kingston or Belleville. Really nice work. Lee Valley liked it so much, they used it as the photo for one of their jigsaw puzzles they sell.


Wow, that is very cool. Those guitars look amazing! That’s some great work. I wasn’t on that kind of level of building, those are some talented kids! I can’t even imagine the work of doing a Les Paul with the carved top and everything, though that would be really cool!

Thank you for sharing that I appreciate seeing it!


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## sunburst192 (Jan 28, 2016)

ezcomes said:


> Great covEr and great looking guitar!


Thank you very much!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

sunburst192 said:


> Wow, that is very cool. Those guitars look amazing! That’s some great work. I wasn’t on that kind of level of building, those are some talented kids! I can’t even imagine the work of doing a Les Paul with the carved top and everything, though that would be really cool!
> 
> Thank you for sharing that I appreciate seeing it!


My hat is permanently tipped to the teacher they had. All of those look as professionally-made as they are different from each other. Guiding them to build guitars so different from each other - and in some cases, different from what is commercially available - takes a special kind of person; more flexible than many of us remember our own shop teachers being.


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