I had some leftover alder still from my earlier projects, so I decided to make a Tele body again, but this time with routes for P90’s.
Specs:
- Neck: Warmoth roasted maple neck with 12 inch radius, Dunlop 6105 frets
- Tuners: Fender locking tuners
- Body: Alder with quilted maple top
- Pickups: Suhr P90
- Bridge: Wilkinson Tele half-bridge
- Finish: Hand-rubbed dye, Tru-Oil
This was my first attempt at applying a Tru-Oil finish and I have some mixed thoughts. On one hand it was very easy to apply, but it requires an insane amount of coats to build up to a strong and high gloss finish. It also isn’t as durable as polyurethane.
One important lesson I learned on this one: use sanding sealer if you’re going to apply a hand-rubbed finish over a dyed/stained body.
This one is wired with a reverse control, which I think just makes more sense for Tele’s. The P90’s sound great and I’m happy with this build. Warmoth also makes incredible necks. Speaking of which, drilling pilot holes into roasted maple for the tuner and string tree screws was very stressful as roasted maple is known to be brittle. Pro-Tip: after drilling the pilot hole, use a bit of wax on your screws before screwing them in to avoid breaking them.