More than decade ago I built a telecaster with a totara body and rewarewa neck. Both these timbers grow in New Zealand. Totara was, and is, extensively used by Maori for carving while rewarewa has a stunning grain. The body was made out of an old totara fencepost and sadly, after a few years, the body split along its length due to a weakness I had not noticed.

This post documents the building of the body from scratch using a norfolk pine slab of timber for the back and top and kohekohe for the center piece and sides.

The norfolk pine slab came from the huge Walhalla tree which grew for about 140 years in Mt Albert, Auckland and was felled in sometime around 2016 I believe. This piece was about 2m long and 25mm in thickness.

I then selected a section with nice grain and cut that out as a plank. The plank was then cut in half length wise so that a book matched top and back could be made.