I want to build a guitar, but have no experience doing so

[mathias]

In my opinion, stick with a Tele. The bridge is easy to set up and intimate and the hardtail will give you more sustain. You can mix and try pickups to get the sound you want.

For the body and neck, some ideas
- Warmoth
- MJT, especially if you're looking for pre-finished / reliced.
- Bodies off Reverb / EBay in various states of loaded-ness, and necks similarly. From what I can tell, there's companies that buy blemished / showroom-damaged guitars and tear them down for parts. Often there's a tiny chip on these bodies that wouldn't bother me, and so you can get an American-made body, painted and loaded with pickups+electronics, for fairly cheap in some cases, if you can live with a dent or chip.
- Saylor guitars - they made me a great Telemaster semihollow a few years ago that I sanded and finished with tung oil. If you want a Telemaster shape, or want fancy woods, I'd contac Saylor before Warmoth.

I'd avoid the knock off $99-ish kits on EBay and Amazon imho. You don't have to use Fender-licensed parts, but those kits are the cheapest mass produced parts they can make. For a first build, my opinion would be to use some relatively nice but not extravagant stuff, primarily licensed by Fender or made by Fender. Just my opinion, though.

[Muff_Diver]

That all makes sense. I like my tone extremely bright, but also full-sounding, with as much sustain as I can get. I play both clean and heavy parts, and I don't like when my heavy tone gets muddy, but I also don't like it thin.

Sounds like you want a les paul

[Benn Roe]

Thanks again! I'll check out those builders. Anyone have any experience with USA Custom Guitars ( http://www.usacustomguitars.com/ )? Their prices seem reasonable but they also seem to offer a fair amount of options. I'm leaning toward a hard maple telecaster body with an EGC tele-style neck (if I haven't missed the preorder; I inquired with them this morning), and maybe a black knight satellite and meteorite from Blk/Tri.

Sounds like you want a les paul

Yeah, I like Les Pauls a lot. My current guitar is a 2002 Gibson SG standard, which I play through a Fender quad reverb. I've long considered a telecaster anyway, though, so I'm happy to give that a go for my first build.

[kosta]

Sounds like a standard Tele with a 4-way switch would be great for you. (The 4th position gives you both pickups in series for a big, thick, awesome tone.)

[Benn Roe]

Ooh, that's a great idea. If I'm doing that, though, I probably want to replace the switch with two jaguar style switches that run the pick-ups in parallel with both 'on' or series with both 'off'. How hard is it gonna be to find a tele hot dog plate setup for jaguar switches? It's kind of the opposite of what most people seem to want.

[kosta]

The 4-way switch is more usable in my opinion. It's a standard Tele-style blade switch that fits in standard Tele-style control plates and control cavities (so it doesn't require any extra routing, etc.) It gives you neck only, neck + bridge in parallel, neck + bridge in series, bridge only. Essential Tele mod in my opinion.

http://www.guitar-mod.com/rg_4wayinfo.html

[Benn Roe]

Oh, I've no doubt it's more usable for people with a great deal more skill than me, but on-the-fly precision has never been my strong suit. There's just zero chance I'll ever successfully switch from one setting to another, in one motion, while playing, unless I'm switching from one extreme position to the other. On top of that, I'm pretty anal retentive, and I know that a linear switch that isn't gradiating from one position to another will bother the shit out of me. I like the disambiguity of the jaguar controls. I'll be able to quickly see what position I'm in and know what it means, and the fact that it could take multiple motions to change settings won't make a bit of difference to me. Thanks for the suggestion, though! It's a great idea.

[kosta]

That all makes sense. You could also do the same wiring mod with a push/pull pot on the volume or tone control. I love Jag switching too actually, but I don't like having to move multiple switches on the fly while playing. Many ways to achieve this stuff. A Tele with Jag pickup switches would be pretty sweet looking.

[Benn Roe]

Anyone have any bridge recommendations? I don't know anything about bridges.

[mathias]

If you're building a Tele, then a Fender, Callahan, or a Wilkinson bridge will be fine. Your main choice is whether you want the vintage 3 saddle or 6 separately-adjustable saddles. I prefer the 6 saddle design myself, but the vintage 3 brass saddles can work fine. Also, you'll want to decide if you're going to have a Tele bridge pickup or a humbucker in the bridge position.

[Benn Roe]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of those bridge types? I definitely don't need a tremolo bridge. I was going to go with single coil in the bridge position, but I'm open to a humbucker. I'm used to humbuckers in my SG, but everything I've read about the differences indicate that single coils are usually brighter, and the bridge pick-up is normally the more trebly, right?

[mathias]

those are all companies that make a Tele bridge. Your choice basically is between vintage 3 saddle or modern 6 saddle and whether it has a hole for a Tele bridge pickup or a humbucker. I'd say stick with the Tele bridge pickup shape since you can get a stacked humbucker there if you want.

[Benn Roe]

Man, this project is getting expensive fast... This is what I'm currently thinking for the main components:

EGC telecaster neck
Warmoth telecaster body, hard maple, unfinished, no binding, tummy cut
BLK/TRI black knight satellite neck pick-up
BLK/TRI meteorite bridge pick-up
2TEK bridge

[Benn Roe]

It's also probably going to be the heaviest guitar ever made, but I honestly prefer a heavy instrument.

[morange]

Having put together a couple partscasters with parts from fender, callaham, saylor, and warmoth, it frustrates me to no end how things almost but not quite fit together perfectly. Neck heel too fat for slot, strings too close to one side of the neck, bridge slanted a little, holes in body don't match holes in neck or hardware. Never again, for me. Will only buy whole guitars. You'll spend a lot on parts and still have to finesse them together, is my point. I'll be kind of amazed if you can just slap an egc neck into a warmoth neck slot and it fits perfectly and the holes line up, no issues. I don't think that level of precision modular standardization exists between companies. Could happen though, I guess. I haven't read up on how well those necks are working in people's guitar bodies, yet.