DIY Jack Daniels Barnwood Telecaster Build

After years of disregarding the Telecaster as the troglodytic brother of the sleek and superior Strat, it finally hit me why the Telecaster has remained popular for over 50 years.  Trimming down the glitz of a tremolo and a middle pickup (which I always ignored anyway) leaves you with a utilitarian tool that gets you back to the fundamentals of playing with less maintenance and distracting thing-a-majigs.

Inspired by this minimalist vision and this bourbon-infused aesthetic from "Big D Guitars", I decided to build my own Jack Daniels Tele... on an extreme shoestring budget, as usual!  Looks pretty good for about $40 and some barnwood, doesn't it?

The first step to any good barnwood guitar is finding barnwood.  Okay, this wasn't wood that a barn was *built* from, technically, but it was in a barn.  Works for me.  A Tele body blank has to be about 13" by 17" if I remember correctly, but I'd definitely give it a double-check across the interwebz first if you're building one yourself.

The long board cut into thirds worked perfectly with this dirty old plywood slab.  Each had their problems, which we'll get to in a moment.

The de-warping rig

Problem 1: the plank, which is making the top of the guitar, was warped.  Not a twist, luckily, but bent in a very slight "U" shape along the short side.  (Think folding a paper "hot dog style", not "hamburger style", if that helps.)

Anyway, this meant that when I put the boards together, there was a fairly large gap between them and they wouldn't lay correctly.  Not cool!  

I think that careful and experienced people take care of this by applying a bit of water to the concave side and laying it out to cure in the sun over several months.  I smashed it under a couple hundred pounds of concrete.  Worked for me *shrugs*.

Time to get out that handy-dandy schematic - I can upload or share the file to scale at some point if anyone shows interest in it.

I decided to "chamber" the body, since the wood was pretty dense, and I like weird chambering.  The "chamber" I did was reminiscent of a Thinline Tele, although the feeblest of depths, since I didn't really want to test how questionable the core integrity of the wood was.  

The other two lines I routed in helped with wiring later on, although I forgot to route a third line, which would roughly complete the triangle and would have saved some headache later on.

With the wood de-warped, it was good enough to clamp and glue.  I used Titebond II and a couple spare planks to spread out the pressure.

After 24 hours it's one solid piece, and time to move on to cutting!

Traced around the template and put it through a table saw.  A bandsaw would've been a bit better, but the table saw certainly did the trick.

Now it's time to hit it with some files and various grits of sandpaper to smooth out those sloppy sides.

Warning - this part is terribly boring.  Search "oscillating spindle sander".  Get one of those if you can.  You probably can't, so struggle for a few hours like I did.

Remember the second problem from earlier?  Maybe?  Anyway that slightly shady barn-plywood had a layer that rotted a bit.  If you're serious about "tone wood", cover your ears and skip ahead.

Anyway, I broke apart a wooden paint stirring stick, sanded it slightly to fit snugly, and glued in pieces to fill in the gaps around the edges.  After a few hours to cure, I carved away the excess and sanded it smooth.  All better!

Most great ideas start with a lil' guitar doodle

There was a little bit more about wood filler and sanding the sides but that's incredibly boring.  On to the design!

I shamelessly copied the whiskey-barrel-top thing that I saw, since I liked the design and wanted to tame the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).  However, since I wasn't constrained by actual whiskey barrels, I combined the logo with another logo thing for some stylish variety, and scaled it pretty darn perfectly if you ask me.

To transfer the design, I rubbed graphite on the back of the paper and traced the front.  Old-school, but effective.

Took a while, but in a calming coloring-book type of way.

For the final inscription, I initially wanted to do a wood-burning finish.  This would be dope and durable.  If you've ever worked with a wood burning tool, however, especially a cheap one from the 80's, you'll quickly see that this isn't the fast track to quality detail work.  After a few terrible looking scrap attempts, I decided to go with paint instead.

I wanted a sort of vintage stamped / inked look to it, and I found that diluted black paint (about 1 part paint to 2 parts water) worked great.  A cheap brush with half the bristles cut off made for a dandy detail brush.  I have nearly no experience painting so I can confidently say that anyone can do this kind of tracing work if you have a steady hand and a lot of patience.

The scrappy looking back

Time to drill for the neck

Next came routing.  I was lucky enough to have a router, but not lucky enough to have a bit that could go the full depth in one pass.

Each pass shaved a little less off the outside edges, which isn't exactly ideal.  I also botched a little spot at the base of the "J" when setting down a router that went a little out of whack.  Noob mistake, but I can live with it for my first routing job.

Then I had to chisel out the ledges left at different router depths, but the body is very nearly finished at this point!

Drilled for the output jack.  Why do they call it an input jack?  The signal's going out of the guitar.  Good grief.

To get all the parts at once and at a super-affordable price point, I went with a cheap Tele kit from Ebay.  Top quality hardware?  Lord no.  It is, however, all good *enough*.  If I had several figures more of disposable income I'd spring for some nice locking tuners and the works, but everything in this kit worked surprisingly well, to the tune of just $70.

The body it came with was acceptable quality, if you were wondering, resonant but very lightweight, just a little too lightweight for my tastes.  Anyway, one Tele project was quite enough for me at the moment.  I resold the body and pickguard the next day for $30 back, contributing to the absurdly affordable budget of this project.

The neck pictured had 21 frets, but the included neck had 22 frets.  The difference may not matter much to most people, but that extra fret is a big plus to me, for reasons both sensible and silly.

Carving the headstock wasn't bad at all, even limited to hand tools in a small apartment at this point.

I went for the classic Tele shape because, hey, I've never had a Tele before.  Plenty of other times to get funky and creative, no need to change what's working here.

Sanded, cleaned, and Tru-Oiled the neck.  I gave it three coats for a light tint and satin finish where you can still feel the wood under your fingers, but it's still protected against the elements.

The hardware was okay, but was far too shiny for the aged barnwood body.  I used a combination of sandpaper, vinegar, saltwater, vigorous shaking in a box of screws, and (primarily) Scotch Brite pads to dull the chrome and give it more of a brushed nickel look.  No chemicals I tried did anything to the chrome, so I'd just suggest Scotch Brite and banging around with nails and stuff.

At this point, assembly was easy enough, especially sinc I was eager to hear how it sounded.  Only one last problem at this point - the neck wasn't at quite the right angle.  After adjusting the saddles I tried shimming with a dime, which sorted it right out.  It was meant to be a temporary solution but worked so well I kept it, and the tone is no worse off as far as I can tell!

It isn't exactly a shred machine, but the action is pretty good, and intonation is all well and good.

The neck pickup is okay, it has the muddiness, weakness, and warm charm that Tele neck pickups do, and the bridge is pretty hot and twangy, so there's really nothing to complain about there, cheap though they may be.  The other electronics (surprisingly?) work perfectly, and I see absolutely no need to replace them with "better" pots, which is fantastic news because I hate soldering.

This was a really fun project and turned into a stellar-looking guitar that plays and sounds pretty decent as well!  It might be a little rough around the edges (very literally, the sides are still very rough, not that I'm showcasing that here), but it's a damn neat looking instrument, and carries its well-worn barnwood look with pride.