P-90 Telecaster complete

This guitar was built on commission from a customer. It features a two-piece ash body from Guitarbuild, an AllParts V-profile neck and P-90 pickups from Wizard Pickups. The body is finished in my dark “53” Butterscotch lacquer, and body and neck have clear satin lacquer top coats for a silky smooth feel.  

Butterscotch Telecaster with Joe Barden pickups

I put this guitar together today for a customer. The body is from guitarbuild.co.uk and the owner finished it using my Butterscotch nitrocellulose lacquer. I fitted the Joe Barden pickups, with the bridge mounted to the body, G E Smith style. There is a 4-way switch fitted, giving in-series as well as in-parallel pickup combinations, …

Close-up of the disressed pickguard

More as an experiment than anything else, I decided to have a go at relicing the body I finished in August. The first job is to add a few knocks and scrapes. I dropped a set of keys on the front and back and gently knocked the edges in a few places. Any damage on …

Butterscotch Telecaster body with hardware fitted

Will experiment with a relic treatment on the body instead. Here is the distressed Telecaster body. Here’s how I distressed the lacquer. I’ll distress the ice blue metallic Telecaster next. I gifted the butterscotch Tele to Pete (him with the freezer). Hoping he’ll let me freeze more guitar parts soon…

Wet sanding the front of the body

I’m often asked how to spray a butterscotch guitar body so thought I’d put together a bit of a tutorial. Please note that I do not offer a refinishing service. The body I’m using is by Guitar Build who offer a range of CNC machined guitar bodies. I’m very impressed with the accuracy of the shape, which …

White Blonde Esquire A re-creation of Fender’s white blonde of the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was my attempt at a 1953 replica. It uses my White Blonde nitrocellulose lacquer. Butterscotch Blonde Telecaster A re-creation of Fender’s butterscotch blonde of the early 1950s. This uses the same blonde lacquer as above but with a …