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Below are several pics of my main personal guitar. It is a tele-style guitar made with a semi-hollow construction, with two f-holes. The body is of Honduran mahogany with a 1/4" top of figured California redwood. The top is bound with cream binding. The control cavity is rear-routed. The neck is traditional, with quartersawn mahogany construction and an attractive rosewood board free of face dots. The body was finished with many coats of tung oil, hand-rubbed into the wood. The mahogany took on a striking golden hue with the finish, and the figuring of the redwood (mostly in the area behind the bridge) took on impressive depth. Note the distinctive grain pattern of the wood is not what I refer to...it has a beautiful semi-quilted figuring to it on part of the topwood similar to quilted maple, but obviously much darker and richer. There may be some scratches and dings visible in the photo; two years of hauling this thing around in a cheap gig bag 4 nights a week take their toll...but I see it as character! ;)
The pickups are handwound Lindy Fralin pickups. The traditional 3-saddle stamped steel bridge combined with the Lindy Fralin Blues Special Tele pickup in the bridge offers a traditional Telecaster tone with lots of bite, snap, and twang, but slightly overwound with a little more midrange and output like the first early 50's Tele pickups, making it more versatile for rock and blues. It can sing sweetly with country twang, or bite with snappy transient response for funk, or wail with sweet sustain for rock. The neck pickup is a Lindy Fralin Alnico P90. Realizing that the neck pickup is often the achilles heel of a nice Tele, it generally being muffled, weak, and lackluster, I decided to depart from the vintage design with an interesting new pickup from Lindy Fralin, who had already much impressed me with his brilliant P90 soapbar pickups. His Alnico version does away with the traditional Gibson construction that uses bar magnets underneath the coil and steel screw polepieces, and uses instead the traditional Fender construction, using Alnico V magnets for the polepieces, resulting in a pickup that still retained the authoritative girth of tone the P90 is known for, but with a sweeter midrange and a more detailed and clear tone. The result is a neck pickup that blends wonderfully with the bridge pickup, and sounds full and clear on its own, *perfect* for jazz with its rich woody clarity and mellow but detailed voice, yet still has the power and fat midrange to make an overdriving amp scream for mercy. The warm-toned (aesthetically and sonically) woods contribute to this guitar's warmth of tone, and it balances wonderfully with the pickups, which were voiced just slightly to the brighter end of the spectrum. The semi-hollow construction means that this mahogany guitar is LIGHTWEIGHT, a rarity in most guitars of this medium-heavy wood, and it also gives it an acoustic sparkle that breathes air into your tone: the same harmonic complexity that is epitomised in such classic guitars as the Gibson ES-335 and the Epiphone Casino. The switching is ultimately very simple, designed with pure performance in mind. A 3-way Gibson style switch selects the pickups, and a traditional master volume and master tone give you basic control without over-cluttering the guitar face. The guitar can do it all, in the right hands. Rock of all shapes and sizes, funk, jazz, blues, alternative, rnb, pop, whatever. I've even used it for metal, but that's stretching things beyond its natural realm I think. Although recall that most of the early Led Zeppelin albums were cut on a Tele, and I can say from experience, stick a Tonebender fuzz in between this one and a cranked up tube amp, and it is time for a Communication Breakdown, to say the least! Think of the tone on "The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair".
I can personally build this guitar for you for a negotiable price $1100. Obviously, everything is customizable, so different woods, pickups, hardware, etc., can also be had, which could either reduce or increase the price. Contact me to inquire and to work out a price quote for what you would like, or to simply discuss tone, guitars, and possibilities.
