- Alder body, preferably with some nice grain
- Dark almost walnut/oak-y stain, without grain filler, so it still feels nice and natural and organic
- Black pickguard
- Maple neck, with a rosewood board
- Nice tuners and hardware
- Eventually some super slick Oil City pickups
So, I had a friendly chap on ebay who usually makes tele/strat bodies, machine me one out of 2 pieces of Red Alder, and it just so happens it had awesome grain!
Here it is -
I planned to have a really sort of rustic and antique-looking dark stain going on, reminiscent of a big old antique cupboard or wooden door or something, a piece with real character.
I bought a few bits and pieces from eBay (more sandpaper than I'll ever use, some dye, some stain, some Tru Oil, that kind of stuff) and then when it all arrived, I got going! (by the way, this light oak stain pictured below is TERRIBLE, never use it! but the yellow stuff, it was amazing and went on really easily and I only needed one coat over the oak stuff to make it look really nice!)
I spent hours watching youtube videos of people staining wood, guitars, doors, you name it. I read through a BUNCH of threads here, on TDPRI, loads of guitar forums, and once I was confident enough to start, I did!
Anyway, here's the guitar after a pretty liberal coating of the light oak stuff -
Looked pretty nice, can't really comlain, except the dye was really thin, so the end grains absorbed an absolutely ridiculous amount (maybe I was putting it on too thick?) and it kinda went really blotchy, but I thought 'hey! I can fix that with some elbow grease and sandpaper and clever oiling later on!
Comments
Lookin good this far dude. Got one 'on the go' myself. Aged LPB is the plan.
Looks fantastic - lovely job on the finish! Can I ask where you got the pickguard? I'm building a telemaster too and haven't yet found a source for one.