Guitar Of The Month – November, 2021

Written by: Kevin Strom On: Dec 6th, 2021

Congratulations goes out to Nathan Van Norman for his guitar build, to earn him Guitar of the Month for November 2021.

Nathan used our TCKA-110 DIY kit as the basis to create his guitar.

“This was the first guitar that I had built. After doing a lot of research I settled with a TCKA-110 kit from Solo, as the price and quality both seemed to be very good. My dad has been building acoustic guitars for a few years, and although I wanted to start learning from him, I also wanted this guitar to be my own project where I do all the work on it.  I had always wanted a Thinline telecaster and had some reference photos of vintage 60s guitars that I really liked the look of and used for inspiration.

The first thing I did was to dry fit all the hardware and make sure everything fit well. I purchased all the hardware through Solo when I purchased the kit, it was very convenient to be able to hand select genuine parts to build this guitar out with and get them all at the same time. 

I started out with a quick sanding of the body and neck.  I knew all along that I was going to want vintage style tuners as I really liked that look. Most kits come pre-drilled for the wider modern tuners. I ended up finding some dowels that were the same size as the hole, then using CA glue to plug the holes. Later in the build I re-drilled the holes for the vintage fender tuners I had ordered from Solo. 

The reference guitar I was looking at was double bound, and I really like that look on a telecaster. I knew there would likely be challenges with adding binding to a guitar that already had the edges routed without binding. I decided to give it a try anyway. After routing the binding slot, I used acetone to melt the binding. In a few small spots I used CA glue. The acetone seemed to create just as strong of a bond, and made things much easier to clean up and scrape. 

After the binding was secured, I started to paint the body. I had purchased some Sea Foam green Oxford nitrocellulose lacquer from Solo. While painting, I made sure to cover the small gap between the binding and where the edge of the body was originally rounded off in the factory. Throughout the entire build, I was unsure of how this would work out, I did know I would be relicing the body so if there were any imperfections, I likely could hide them in the relicing process. 

After numerous coats of clear nitrocellulose on top of the sea foam I scraped the binding. This process would have been far smoother if the body came with binding (as many Solo kits do).  All in all I was fairly happy with how the result of the body came out. Next I took it on the neck. The instructions for the kit make it very clear that you should not put finish onto the fretboard, I knew there was a good chance that it may not turn out super well, but I did want to try to get that vintage look on the entire guitar. I taped off all the frets, then lightly sanded the fretboard. I added a few light coats of shellac as I had read it can be a good intermediate between a poly type finish and nitrocellulose. I used neck amber nitrocellulose from Solo on the entire neck, including the fretboard. After letting it dry for a few days, I took some 600 grit sandpaper and sanded the center between each fret to give a nice gradient in the amber. I used a mixture of wood stain, coffee grounds and shoe polish to darken the fretboard up right beside each fret. 

At this point, it was ready for assembly. The original assembly was very straightforward. The electronics were very easy to install while following the guide on the Solo website. After the whole guitar was together, it was time to make it look old! I had done a lot of research on relicing guitars.  I completely understand that it is not for everybody, but I love the look. I started by scraping back some of the nitrocellulose with various sharp implements, it was still fairly soft and fresh so it came off fairly easily. I made sure I checked my reference photos frequently throughout the process to make sure I was not going too overboard with the relicing. After removing some of the color, I wanted to add checking to the finish. I used compressed air cannisters and turned them upside down. This immediately freezes the finish and the quick temperature change cracks the lacquer giving a really cool vintage look. 

After I was happy with the look of the guitar I did a final set up. The fretboard and frets were set up really well from the factory, when I put finish on the fretboard, it ended up requiring a fair bit of work to get it back to where it was from the factory. Luckily, I could borrow some of my dads tools to re-level, crown and polish the frets.  

All in all, this guitar plays amazing and looks great! Since building it, I have sold a few of my other guitars as I always reach for this one first. I definitely took some steps throughout the build that made it more complicated, but all in all it was a great learning experience. I have already started my second build of a 60s inspired stratocaster. 

Thanks to the team at Solo for support and such great products. The entire experience has given me much more confidence to keep building guitars and doing a lot of maintenance or upgrades on existing guitars that I own. 

-Nathan Van Norman