~New~ Spalted Maple Over Alder Telecaster

[Drak]

I just finished up this heyah guit a few days ago.
Here is a breakdown of the parts and fixin's...

Spalted Maple Top over 2-Piece Alder body
Spalt incursions filled in with Blue Sparkle tinted 2-part epoxy
Spalted top pore-filled with CA glue
Finish - Nitro Lacquer. I added a VERY slight amber tint to make the body match the factory-tinted Amber neck, I think it matches quite nicely and is a very subtle shading, almost not noticable.
Neck - Warmoth Triple-A Birdseye Maple neck
Tuners - Gold Schaller
Bridge - Glendale bridge that I had gold plated locally, a one-of-a-kind since Glendale doesn't offer this option.
Saddles - Glendale Heat Treated Steel Compensated Saddles.
Bridge pkp - Harmonic Design S-90 Tele Bridge
Middle and Neck pkps - Lace Sensor Hot Golds.
Controls - Volume, Tone, EMG Afterburner Pre-Amp, EMG EXG tone pot, EMG SPC tone pot
Selector Switch - Stew-Mac special designed 5-way, which is neck, neck + middle, neck + bridge, middle + bridge, bridge, in that order, it eliminates the middle only position in favor of a typical Tele neck + bridge option, which works great on a Tele of course.

Hope y'all like it.

[IMG][/IMG]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...ullFront-1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...yCloseup-1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...poxyLeft-1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...oxyRight-1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...tockRear-1.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...RearShot-1.jpg

[maestrovert]

That's tasty Bro' !
nice work !

[jazzguitar14]

Sweet! blue sparkle in the worm holes is a great idea!

[Arlo]

Wow that is a great looking guitar Drak! Great job!! And where did you have the gold plating done I need that for one of my Glendales too??
Are the EMG's the passive ones?
Excellent work.

[SteveY]

Beautimous work of fine art!
I like that a lot!
The shot of the bridge looks like one of those vocanic "thunder eggs" cut in half. Y'know, where the crystal has been polished up?

Nice work. You should be proud.
The blue is a great concept too.

[Drak]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments

Arlo, I can't remember the name of the plater, but most towns have a plating service company, some do it locally, some send it off somewhere, but you should be able to find a local guy to do it for you.

The pickups aren't EMG's, but most of the wiring harness is. The pre-amp (Afterburner) and 2 EQ pots are EMG products.

I should probably say a little something about those EMG pots for clarification.

The Afterburner is a variable pre-amp that can boost the signal up to 25dB when rolled all the way up. Think of it as a clean boost pedal, but on-board. It doesn't alter the tone of the guitar any, but it sure will hit the front end of a good tube amp nice and hard and send most tube amps into clipping/overdrive even with the mildest or cleanest pickups (even a 6K pkp with the A-burner rolled up will give up long singing sustain) when the pot is engaged and rolled up. Not engaged, the signal is stock, unaltered.

The EXG pot reduces mids while accentuating highs and lows. I call it the Fender Pot, it glasses up the sound like crazy, and would be used on tunes like 'Wicked Game' or anything that has a really glassy clean tone, it really enhances that sound.

The SPC does sort of the opposite, I call it the Gibson 'Bucker Pot. It accentuates the mids while rolling off the highs and lows, and is great for leads, crunch, meaty tones, or just a fatter, more ballsy sound.

So you can have a guitar that will do bone stock Tele sounds, Super Glassy sounds, and Mean Overdrive sounds, all from the onboard controls, it makes for a really versatile guitar, while retaining our right to use whatever pickups we want, we don't HAVE to use EMG pickups if we don't want to. A Hybrid setup if you will.

The volume pot and tone pot are normal 500K/500K pots to interact properly with the standard variety pickups. If you were using EMG pickups, you'd be using 25K pots (typically anyway)

I'll probably swap out the Lace Sensors, while I like them, they're a bit too smooth and dark for a Tele, probably better suited for a Strat. I might throw in a Barden or two in a few days, or maybe some of the new Lawrences, but I like the S-90 in the bridge.

I really like the combination of the Glendale bridge and saddles coupled with the Harmonic Design S-90, the Glendale parts gives it the twang, but the S-90 gives it a nice throaty punch too. Yeah, she do twang

[jwells393]

Excellenté . .

[tweeddeluxe]

Beautiful

[BruceH]

When I looked at that guitar I could feel chemicals being released into my brain...

[mojocasterman]

That is one sweet tele, and so NOT traditional, from the obvious - the finish - to the less obvious - the pots and electronics... great looking guitar. Can't wait for some sound clips!

[chickenpicker]

Unique.

Did you get the inspiration for the headstock shape from Abe Simpsons head?

[Legato]

Beautiful work! I'd love to hears some clips too.

Dan

[Sarge]

The spalted maple cap makes it look very old. I think you need a few more knobs! Reall, it looks very nice. I like the way there appears to be a "hole" where the bridge is. That's definately not your every day run of the mill tele..cool!

[CrazyManAndy]

That is an amazing Tele. I think I almost cried when I first saw it. You've got my vote in the October GOTM. Definitely inspiring work for when I build my own Tele. I think I have a much greater appreciation for spalted woods now, as well!

CMA