The kit arrived well packaged with parts in divided bags. I was mocked by several coworkers who had seen the package in the office and popped into my lab and made bad air guitar moves telling me it was a long way to the top if I want to rock and roll (I was mildly impressed with the AC/DC reference)

With the kit safely home I unpacked the kit using a plastic parts tray to sort the hardware. Following the advise of most Saga builders I decided to assemble the kit before starting the
finishing process. This took the better part of three hours. The guitar went together quickly. The neck fit the pocket in the body beautify. The pick guard is out of alignment by a few millimeters but this is being replaced anyways. I ran into trouble when I tool a closer look at the electronics on the control plate.

I think it was someones first day at the saga factory:

A redundant ground wire was running from the from the volume pot to the tone pot that popped off with the first touch. Snip

A black mystery connector (another ground) had no corresponding wire from the pickup cavity. I thought this was a ground for the bridge but there was another one correctly labeled. Snip

Connections have a bullet style connector and a section of heat shrink tubing, but the ground from the pickups would have required an adapter to accept two bullet connectors. Snip

The last straw was the three way switch that was wired incorrectly the joints looked cold (dull and pitted as did all of the connections for that matter) and the leads from the pickups didn’t bridge the two terminals on each side of the switch. At this point I decided to get out my soldapult and tear all of the connections down and start over. This added about an hour but the guitar sounded 10 times better after I was done.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining at all! I have no idea how this kit can be sold this inexpensively. I was expecting two pots, a cap, switch, jack and a coil of wire in the nicely divided bags containing the other parts. I’m sure saga would have also included a small coil of solder.

I strung the guitar up with the included strings and started the setup process. I dropped the saddle height to get things in the right ballpark, the neck looks great right out of the box. I made quick work of the setup with the exception of the a small problem with the E and A saddle. Intonation on the E and A strings are still a little sharp and I’ll have to cut the tension spring down a bit so I’ll have the clearance to pull the saddle back a few millimeters.

I spent a few minutes adjusting pickup height, and got a decent balance between the bridge and neck output level. Clearance on the neck pickup might be a problem if you really layed into the guitar but I’m usually not a heavy handed player.

I missed UPS and redirected the tc-10 to work for tomorrow.

I also purchased mod podge, a gold and silver gel pen, and instant rust from Dick Blick online. $22.90

project total 142.90

Another interesting site http://www.projectguitar.com/

I’m eager to star the project, but I’m committed to taking an appropriate amount of time to do things correctly. In my case this means slow! I’ve jumped into research and design, heres some of what I’ve produced:

Design:

I decided to mock up the look I’m going for in photoshop (the base image is from fenders website, I photoshoped the pickgaurd). I landed on a fiesta red(ish) color, an lp pickgaurd that I saw online a while ago and reliced edges and hardware. I’ll cut the saga headstock to as much a tele shape as possible. Ironically I was having a hard time finding a good pattern image online and then I looked at the licensing agreement between marmoth and fender and it has a great tele headstock drawing in the PDF! I plan on using the stock hardware with the exception of new tuners and brass saddles in the bridge.

Logo:

I liked the angry angus logo. It honest in it’s appearance. I landed in between with my first name, Franz, in a Fender script. I used illustrator to create the graphic working from a photo of a tele headstock. I traced the F, moved the r, scalped the d to make an a, moved the n, and constructed a z by tracing a script font and “fendering” the edges to make it fit the design. It’s shown above in the header graphic, it’s a little rough but I think I have the right idea in place.

Research:

I started with the relic process, I found a great tutorial on youtube from howaudio.com and I took the $20 plunge to subscribe for a month to see the complete tutorial. Youtube also had several other relic tutorials that ranged in quality. HowAudio also had a good series on basic guitar setup.

GuitarAttack has several pages dedicated to TC-10 builds and I’ve started reading them picking up details on assembling the kit.

James Egold wrote a great artice in the September 2008 Premiere Guitar on building a Esquire clone “on the cheap” I found this article very helpful.

Heres a great site with info on fender finishes and custom colors.

Finishing is going to be a challenge. Fortunately I teach in a vocational high school and our auto body instructor is a wealth of knowledge. He was actually working on a cracked finish on a car when I went to ask him about technique for checking a nitrocellulose finish. Needless to say I’ll be talking with Mr. Holley in the future. I’m going to get a jumpstart searching youtube for a quick finishing “primer” pun intended.

Why Build a Relic?

Two events inspired the construction of the TC-10. I stopped by my local music store, swampdog music and I played an angry angus tele. This guitar knocked my socks off, it was a new guitar but it looked felt and sounded old, with a gorgeous checked nitrocellulose finish and heavily worn edges. The only down side was the $1500 price tag. I believe that it’s worth every penny I just can’t find room in the budget.

I’d recently read an article about Eddie Van Halen and the process he’s gone through modifying his equipment over the years. I really like the concept of playing a role in the creation of the instrument you play. The Angry Angus experience and the EVH article spun into the idea of building a guitar and an amplifier.

What Type of Guitar?

My taste in guitars goes back to 1985 when I saved lawn mowing money for a summer and bought a well used 74 tele custom from Williams music in Worthington, Ohio. At the time neon color guitars and big hair were all the rage and the tele was a steal at around $350 with case. This was my first real guitar. I spent countless hours studying the battle scars on the old guitar and even adding some of my own. A relic tele was an easy choice.

Side note: Premiere Guitar recently featured a fender custom shop “telemaster” Jazzmaster body with a tele neck and tele style electronics. That is a cool guitar, but I decided the first venture should be low budget.

I priced parts on warmoth.com and I decided that I wanted to start with a less expensive option. I wanted to develop technique with something cheap where I could experiment a little. Google lead me to guitar attack and I found the TC-10 kit from Saga. I bought it now on eBay for $120 shipped and I’ve been continuing the research waiting for it to arrive.