From the Home of Tone bench

Welcome to part two of the 10 year anniversary build article. Along with the finishing work Rob at RF Custom has done, he also very kindly accepted my request to make the neck for this one too. If you're not already aware, Rob undertakes machining for a few fantastic, highly respected guitar makers, so is well equipped for this process. There were a few unique features to the neck, and knowing the level of his work, along with the premium woods planned, I felt it was the right decision to ask for Rob's help with it....

If you follow the workshop blog you potentially may recall a series I shared back in 2023 featuring a hardtail Strat build I had started. Aside from being a fun personal project, the idea behind that article was that I wanted to share the process of making a Strat body with relatively basic tools to help those considering taking on a project like it of their own. So for this I didn't use CNC, it was done with basic templates, hand operated routers, rasps, files and so on. 

I had the pleasure of carrying out the final assembly of a really cool project, a 24.75" scale Tele partscaster for Glen. He had sourced a body from Guitar Build (in the UK) and the 24.75" scale 'conversion' neck from Warmoth in the USA, some of the hardware such as a control plate with the angled switch slot, a nice modern 6 saddle Gotoh bridge, the Fender/Gotoh vintage tuners and a lovely matte black pickguard from friends at Armstrong Music. I was asked to carry out the final assembly, and whilst we had a bit of time on our hands whilst the neck was on order from the US, and Glen carrying out the painting work himself on the body, we chatted about some of the final details like pickups and wiring decisions. Which I'll of course share in this article.