Having multiple guitars with the same body shape and pickups seemed a bit redundant, so I decided to slap on these GuitarFetish “Metal Foil” pickups on these and I’m happy with the decision.
Specs:
- Neck: Maple with 12-inch radius rosewood fretboard, finished with Tung Oil
- Tuners: GuitarFetish
- Nut: GraphTech TUSQ XL
- Frets: Jescar FW55090 (equivalent to Dunlop 6105)
- Body: 2-piece alder with flame maple top
- Pickups: GuitarFetish Metal Foil
- Finish: Hand-rubbed 3-tone blue burst dye, with honey-colored dye in back. Hand-applied Crystalac BriteTone.
This was part of the batch of late 2020 guitars that I made and I put the most time and attention into this guitar. I sanded back and redid the finish 3 times (including 3 color changes) and it was a lot of work but at the end, it was worth it. A couple of things I put a lot more attention on in these builds was avoiding router tearout (try to route downhill or use a spiral compression bit) and making sure I was doing enough sanding before finish.
I ran into so much frustration with applying the BriteTone finish, but I learned that using a foam brush and applying a thin coat via one long thin stroke was the way to go. Figured wood tends to show a lot of blemishes when applying the clear coat and I had to redo this one several times.
I wanted to take a classic body and mix it with some modern elements to it, such as a blue burst finish and the metal foil pickups.