Guitar - Complete

[Shawn Pixley]

So I think the guitar is done (despite my scratching it today). It is assembled, intonated and plays very well. The body is one piece swamp ash with a spalted maple cap. the neck is a MIM Telecaster neck (9.25" radius) that my son was going to use on his own build. He let it languish so I put it to use.

I should have been more careful selecting the top wood as there is an annoying line in it. The guitar is double bound and the swamp ash was dyed a black red (what a pain). I should have just used colored lacquer. The finish is clear Nitrocellulous lacquer. The pickups are Lollar - Imperial Split Coil Humbucker and J-Street at the bridge. I used the SD Switchable tone ring for the HB split coils. There is 4 way switching: HB - both in Series, both in Parallel, and SC. There is a whole bunch of things I'd do differently if doing it again, but overall, i am pretty happy.
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I am thinking I'll keep this one. It is lighter than my other Teles (Orig. Tele Custom , 2 G&L's) and has some flexibility with the 4-way and split coils.

[Julie Moriarty]

Beautiful, Shawn! While the red/black was a pain, it looks very cool. I'm still taken by the spalted. Thanks to your build, I'm now seeing the beauty in it.

[John Coloccia]

I'm a sucker for Teles, Shawn! I have a lot of guitars kicking around, and I can pretty much build myself anything I want. 99% of the time when I'm just playing for me, I pick up the Tele I bought in high school. Strangely enough, despite my preference, I've only ever owned one Tele.

Lollar pickups are a great choice. That thing should sound like a million bucks. I run Lollars in my main strat (again, a high school guitar...LOL). They really made it come alive.