This is my page for the partscaster I'm building for the cover and a chapter of my forthcoming Hotrod Your Electric Guitar book. It's a Strat/Tele Hybrid. I'm going to give details of all the parts as I go and explain why I've made the choices I have. I'll give progress reports and pics as I go. The only thing I can't going into detail of is the actual assembly as this is to be covered in detail in my hotrod book.

CONCEPT:
Unlike the "Nashville" Strat and Tele models from Fender, this is a little different: instead of a Tele with a Strat middle pickup or a Strat with a Tele neck pickup - this is a Strat with a Tele bridge and bridge pickup. The reason for this unusual combo is this: I love the Strat neck and middle pickup tones, but the Tele has an edge with the bridge pickup - it's more percussive, punchier and doesn't have as much tendency to being shrill when used by itself.

The original "ashtray" bridge of a Tele adds a very "acoustic" quality to the voice of the guitar, it's thinner and lighter and the pickup being mounted from the steel baseplate is one of the factors behind the Tele bridge pickup sound. As an added bonus for me, I love the way an ashtray bridge lets me rest my right hand pinkie while fingerpicking. With a Strat bridge, if you anchor, you end up picking very close to the bridge and the tone becomes quite brittle. A Tele bridge lets me anchor further forward, and lets me pick right over where the middle pickup would be.

• Index
• Body & neck - 25 November 2007
• Hardware - 29 November 2007
• Staining & neck sealer - 18 December 2007
• Finished, but not polished - 8 January 2008
• Watching paint dry - 1 February 2008
• Neck all done - 6 February 2008
• Body done! - 11 February 2008
• Finished - 25 February 2008

Also see the page with a parts and suppliers list for this guitar.