2012 TDPRI Tele Build Challenge - three days of work

Sanded the body through 220 grit. I still need to clean up the sides around the neck contours. The body is almost ready for finishing. 

Back to working on the neck. First I marked off the contours for the shaping of the back of the neck.

Cut off about 1/8" of excess wood.

Started the basic shaping of the profile at both the base of the neck and behind the 1st fret, used mainly the shredder and heavy rasp to take off most of the wood and get to a really rough shape. Followed that with a fine rasp. I tried using the scrapper at one point, but I quickly discovered that the figuring of the wood didn't care for this method. It was a little too jagged.

After I got the neck to the profile I wanted, I moved on to 120, 220 and finally 320 grit sand paper. The neck is now ready for finishing.

I cut the slot for the nut, just behind the zero fret.

I cut the slot for the 4-way pickup selector and drilled the hole for the 2-cap tone switch.

Used the Dremel with a 1.6mm grout cutter bit to cut my straight line. I had to practice on scrap wood a couple of times just to get use to using it.

Then I drilled the holes for the bolt on neck.

After bolting on the neck, it was time to position the bridge and the vibrato. I used a string attached to both E-strings and an old nut that I won't be using on this build to help line up the strings over the fretboard.

After getting the bridge and vibrato attached I couldn't resist attaching the E-strings, just to check the over-all height. 

I will need to do some adjustments after I install the frets and the nut. I'm a little concerned about the string height. It seems a little high with the thumb rollers at their lowest point and a little low with out them. But that shouldn't be a big deal in the end.