post your MONSTER TELES!

[mynameisjonas]

Changed it up again:

[bdf83]

Not a huge fan of gold foils or strat bridges on tele's but that looks incredible!

[Fenderguy]

My favorite telecaster!

[Maggieo]

Some of you will remember that I sold my Guild Starfire III. This is what I bought with that money:


Bowery Pine Tele With Paduk Neck, November 26, 2016 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

The body is a single piece of pine from the roof beams of Jim Jarmusch's NYC Bowery loft, which started life as a warehouse in the early 19th century. The neck is a giant piece of Paduk wood with a truss rod slipped into it. Fralin pickups round it out.

I thought the neck on my shellacked Bower Pine Tele was big, but it suddenly feels crowded after playing this beast. It's super resonant and sings even unplugged. Bill Frisell has one that's nearly exactly like it, except he's got a CC pickup at the neck.

[PJazzmaster]

... it started out as a random squier cabronita, I did a neck refin with nitro, changed the bridge PU and added a stainless bridge base plate (strider), a nice 1 ply tort guard from sneakyT + a spare vintage witch hat knob. Oh, and a new decal (HNB) and added an early 50's style string tree in the proper position

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Blacktop Filtertrons installed with custom-made chrome rings. Looks great & sounds great!!...



My Gretsch/Telecaster hybrid is finally complete.

[mijmog]

A complete stunner Mark congratulations! Those pickup rings are fantastic, its the little hard fought details such as those, that over time make you bond with the instrument more. Great stuff, you should be really proud.

[shadowplay]

Mark it's like a Telecaster that's been to the big city and picked up some fancy uptown habits! Your tele saga was even longer the my Maser saga and I hope you are as pleased with Black Beauty as I am with my silver lady.

D

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Thanks, guys!

[Maggieo]

Absolutely gorgeous, Mark!

[mynameisjonas]

[noisepunk]

That's absolutely stunning. I love the Gibson/JM style switch and the CBS headstock. Did you use a strat neck and just not bother yourself with the heel not sitting perfect, or is totally custom?

[PorkyPrimeCut]

That's absolutely stunning. I love the Gibson/JM style switch and the CBS headstock. Did you use a strat neck and just not bother yourself with the heel not sitting perfect, or is totally custom?

Well.... TLDR ....Longest. Project. Ever.

It's one of the Source Nation B & B Strat necks that started cropping up on eBay a year or so ago. Great for the price but it needed a fair bit of work to get it to a comfortable, playable state. Ben (theworkoffire) levelled the frets which were pretty bad in places. Also, I took off the "fake tan" poly & used a whole load of products (sand paper, oil paint, scotch-bright pads & Tru-oil) to get it as close to my Jazzmaster neck in look & feel as possible.
I also dyed the fretboard with Fiebers Leather Dye & oiled it to give it a more rosewood/ebony look. It was originally quite pale wood & bugged the hell out of me.

The body was custom built from Guitarbuild in the UK. The pickup rings were also custom made as the body was originally cut & drilled for humbucker-sized surrounds (my first choice of pickups were Surf 90s). Everything else is a mish-mash of parts. Kluson tuners, Gretsch knobs & strap buttons, Blacktop Filtertrons, an old Yamaha bridge, Bigsby B5, Switchcraft toggle with the all important amber switch tip (heheheheh).....

A lot of work & I'll never build another guitar again but it was worth it. It's so comfortable to play.

[noisepunk]

Sorry, I see now the body has a strat neck pocket.

Glad to see this finally finished- I remember way back when you initially posted concept designs.

[mynameisjonas]

Less monster-like than when you last saw it (this is the one that used to have a thinline style pickguard and a Teisco Gold Foil in the bridge):