I've been promising myself a lovely tele for ages - had some in the past that I've loved, and they suit the way I play perfectly. I had a Baja recently, but the neck was never quite big enough for me, and it always felt a bit stiff and lifeless to me. Played a 52ri a couple of months back, and even that neck felt too small to me (smaller than a Baja, in fact). I'm pretty particular about what I want, and had eyed up the various Warmoth options, but (corksniffer alert) I didn't want to spend all that money on a guitar with a neck radius I didn't want (can't get my specs in 7.25" radius) and a poly finish (fuck you if you sneer - I want it with a nitro finish). Flushed with my success at putting together my baritone tele, I looked at some of the various tele projects and builds around the place, and Mark Jenny from MJT Guitars was a name that kept cropping up.
Now, I'm not usually a fan of relicced finishes, but people were waxing lyrical over his painting skills, and his 'closet clean' finishes are grand - no big gouges or owt, just nitro finishes with light yellowing. So I got in touch with Mark about the specs I wanted, and he's been good as gold... He usually uses Allparts necks (same as I used on the baritone), which, word on the street is, are the same as are used on CIJ guitars. However, since I was very particular on what I wanted, he advised we use Musikraft. I also wanted the finished guitar to be very light (another beef with the Baja - I'm aiming for under 6.5lbs.), and he was able to lay his hands on a very light swamp ash body made by Wildwood Manufacturing. This was all starting to look much better than Warmoth, and cheaper too, so I went for it.
My specs run:
- - Shell pink tele with (very) light yellowing.
- Closet clean finish, no checking.
- Ash body: hoping the finished guitar will weigh in at around 6.5lb.
- Musikraft neck made to the following spec (have put in bold any changes): right-handed, 25.5 scale, 21 frets, 1-3/4" nut, standard heel, rock maple, Kluson tuner holes, single action trussrod, 7-14" radius, black markers with standard spacing, 6105 frets, flat nut, Fat C 1" to 1", slotted bone nut installed +$55, no finish (no warranty), semi rolled fingerboard edges.
- Closet clean finish on the neck too.
- Closet clean hardware too.
- White button Kluson tuners
- Compensated brass saddle tele bridge
- Three-ply mint guard, domed knobs, round string tree, round switch tip, and I plan to flip the control plate.
[/img]The neck is going to be a real caveman job: was umming and ahhing about a V neck profile (my old CIJ tele had a great neck like this) but also wanted the neck to be as thick as possible; gone for the fat C figuring that I can always shave it down/replace it with a V/have a tele custom made with this profile sometime in the future. Plus, this frankly terrifying image of a Musikraft Fat C helped me make my mind up:
... mother of god.
The only things I need to source myself are electrics (more about these another time - suffice to say, I'm a little confused) and pickups. Did a load of listening to clips, eBay scouring and so on for pickups this last week: I know I want a traditional tele sound, and I tend to shy away from overwound pickups as a rule. Fender '51 Nocasters seemed to be a good choice - traditional, but still grunty, and in the world of m@j@ pickups, not a bad price. So some of those are winging their way to me.
So that's what I've been up to: bit of a TLDR post to start with, but I'll update you as we go. Mark reckons on a 4-6 week build time, and sends pictures throughout. The guitar arrives as a kit, so we can all laugh together as I fuck up my beautiful shell pink nitro finish by dripping solder over it, then drill up through the fretboard when the time comes to attach the neck.
WHAT FUN WE'LL HAVE.
