NGD - Partscaster Tele with Rexter body - picture heavy
Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:39 am
Hi all - hope you don't mind me sharing my new guitar - we all love Teles anyway, don't we?
It's an Ice Blue Metallic lightly aged tele, approximating a 1962....
(I know IBM isn't a 62 colour, but there's plenty on there that isn't accurate anyway...)
The body is from Rexter, and is fantastic - a pretty light alder two-piece, with a great nitro paint job. It's lightly aged with some nice checking....
The IBM is lovely - going from almost silver to dark blue depending on the angle...
The neck is a Hosco - first one of those I've used, and it's ok. The slab rosewood board was quite anaemic, but after a couple of doses of scratch cover and F-One Oil, it has a nice dark colour, but with the figuring still; showing. The maple was treated with amber aniline dye, then a few coats of Tru-Oil. The finish was then rubbed back to age it, and make it feel ace!
Before:
I put a Fender repo transfer on the head - I thought long and hard about that. My previous builds have had "own-brand" transfers, but I like the look of the F-decal on there, so on it went. I'm never going to try to pass it off as a real Fender (my soldering alone would be a horrible give away, anyway!), but I put a "tell-tale" transfer on the back of the head...
I've never been into relic guitars before, but I do like the feel of it, and I love the fact that I never need to worry about chipping a pristine finish (my JM Jag has one chip on the side, and that nearly reduced me to tears!). Once I'd decided to have the body aged, I thought I'd carry it through with all the hardware, so it's all nickel plated, aged with white vinegar. I thought it wen't pretty well, for a first attempt.
The machine heads are Gotoh, the bridge is Kluson, the pickups are Fender Pure Vintage 64s. I aged the pickups with ferric chloride (didn't want them sitting in the vinegar fume box for hours on end). The mint scratch plate was from Charles Guitars, and I cut the truss-rod scoop and took the shine away with Micro Mesh.
The saddles are Gotoh titanium compensated. These are interesting - the intonation is brilliant - absolutely bang-on. The note separation is excellent, and chords really ring. But... I'm not sure I like them yet. I find the sound is a bit too hi-fi, perhaps, and maybe too bright. I'm going to live with them a bit, let the strings age a little, and give it some time. I principally chose them because I wanted compensated saddles that look like plain steel early 60s saddles. Any suggestions?
Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks!
B
It's an Ice Blue Metallic lightly aged tele, approximating a 1962....
(I know IBM isn't a 62 colour, but there's plenty on there that isn't accurate anyway...)
The body is from Rexter, and is fantastic - a pretty light alder two-piece, with a great nitro paint job. It's lightly aged with some nice checking....
The IBM is lovely - going from almost silver to dark blue depending on the angle...
The neck is a Hosco - first one of those I've used, and it's ok. The slab rosewood board was quite anaemic, but after a couple of doses of scratch cover and F-One Oil, it has a nice dark colour, but with the figuring still; showing. The maple was treated with amber aniline dye, then a few coats of Tru-Oil. The finish was then rubbed back to age it, and make it feel ace!
Before:
I put a Fender repo transfer on the head - I thought long and hard about that. My previous builds have had "own-brand" transfers, but I like the look of the F-decal on there, so on it went. I'm never going to try to pass it off as a real Fender (my soldering alone would be a horrible give away, anyway!), but I put a "tell-tale" transfer on the back of the head...
I've never been into relic guitars before, but I do like the feel of it, and I love the fact that I never need to worry about chipping a pristine finish (my JM Jag has one chip on the side, and that nearly reduced me to tears!). Once I'd decided to have the body aged, I thought I'd carry it through with all the hardware, so it's all nickel plated, aged with white vinegar. I thought it wen't pretty well, for a first attempt.
The machine heads are Gotoh, the bridge is Kluson, the pickups are Fender Pure Vintage 64s. I aged the pickups with ferric chloride (didn't want them sitting in the vinegar fume box for hours on end). The mint scratch plate was from Charles Guitars, and I cut the truss-rod scoop and took the shine away with Micro Mesh.
The saddles are Gotoh titanium compensated. These are interesting - the intonation is brilliant - absolutely bang-on. The note separation is excellent, and chords really ring. But... I'm not sure I like them yet. I find the sound is a bit too hi-fi, perhaps, and maybe too bright. I'm going to live with them a bit, let the strings age a little, and give it some time. I principally chose them because I wanted compensated saddles that look like plain steel early 60s saddles. Any suggestions?
Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks!
B