NGD build White Blonde '50s white guard build with baked maple neck. Nitro and Tru-oil finish

rze99

I've just completed this build and have been putting it through its paces today. I've been posting about the neck and the body finishing, so I won't repeat it here, but in summary:

An All Parts baked maple neck 9.5 radius vintage tall frets. Finished with 5 thin coats Tru-Oil. Bone nut cut by me. Tone Pros '50s Nickel Kluson type tuners. I didn't want to use a string tree to keep the pure wood look, but it needed it. 

Used (project abandoned by previous owner) 3 part lightweight ash body. Two coats thinned white nitro, an additional coat around the edges and body applied by sponge. Fine sanded. Then 2 coats of Rothko and Frost rattle can nitro clear, one final very light spray of Rothko and Frost nitro amber as a light aging hint. Lots of 1200 paper sanding to a satin finish.

Used Fender American Vintage '50s Hot Rod bridge and compensated brass saddles. I think rolled steel would have looked better for the white guard, but I preferred to use the brass saddles for this and I think the baked maple and ash is quite a bright snappy combination and the brass keeps the top in in check. Intonation is a close to perfect as I've experienced. Used single ply white 5 screw guard.Used single ply white 5 screw guard but it also looks great with Bakelite so I might just swap out form time to time.

Used Dawgtown Custom Shop scatter wound Five / Two pickups. A5 on the wound strings, A2 on the plain strings. Punch and twang all day with no ice pick (like the man said!). I like them best when the tone is rolled back a quarter.

Oak Grigsby switch CTS 250 and Paper in oil Cap. All other parts are from www.axecaster.co.uk nickel plated parts througout.

Total build cost on this was less than £525 due to the inexpensive used parts which I reckon is top value for money. I spent a lot of hours building and especially finishing it. 

Winny_Pooh

Classy!

LastMantra

That finish is really nice!
Think I prefer the darker looking neck than the usual maple.

longjaw

Looks great.

JezWynd

That’s a beauty. Love the dark neck contrasting with the blonde body, very cool guitar.

oaf

Excellent. The time you've spent certainly shows in the finish. Impressive

hoops

Good job!

bbill335

I love that see through blond

IvisonGuitars

Lovely!!

Teyeplayer

Great work, looks fantastic!

BluesyDave

Looks damn fine!  Baked maple neck looks great with that body scratchplate combo.

Zoolooter

That’s fabulous, especially love the neck colour and finish. Well done.

rze99

Thanks everyone for your nice supportive comments, much appreciated.

timmypix

Oooft that neck. That's pretty much my ideal Tele right there! Been looking at possibly doing a parts build to get me one with a roasted neck but seeing as I have the practical skills of a toddler the labour costs just make it too prohibitive. Amazing job, well done.

BigMonka

That's a stunner!

Andyjr1515

I agree with the others - lovely job 

Zoolooter

I’d love a strat neck with the roasted maple and oil treatment.

alexh

That's very nice. I wonder how an aged, mint or parchment pickguard would look.

rze99

alexh said:

That's very nice. I wonder how an aged, mint or parchment pickguard would look.

thank you

I just went looking for my build pics where I tested different guards and I found I deleted them But, from memory:

Aged white - it would no doubt be good, but I didn't have one available to try at the time

Mint - eugh.... it just look like shit. The green clashed badly with the warm white.

Parchment - Yep, a close contender. But it was just a little too close to the body colour whereas the pure white brought out the cream in the finish better.

Tort - Yep. Looked great as an alt take on the guitar.

Aged Bakelite - Yep. Looked great. Classic. This was my original intention.

Fender AVRI Eggshell white '64 3 ply guard - looked great but the pure white just looked sharper

JezWynd

You did right. That's the exact pickguard for that guitar.