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Lex Luthier's Flame Top Tele-ish Guitar


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Here is a link to detailed pictures of the guitar.

Here are the specs:

Birds-eye Maple neck

Scarf-jointed headstock

Compound radius Ebony fingerboard

1/4" pearl dot inlays

Jumbo frets

Scalloped upper 4 frets

Ping tuners

Scarfed neck joint

One-piece Honduras Mahogany body

What I consider a AAAAA-Flamed Maple cap

1/4" round over - 1/2" round over in waist area for comfort

Dimarzio humbuckers - Tone Zone-Bridge/Air Norton-Neck

Wilkinson Licensed stop tailpiece/bridge with adjustable A/D G/B saddles[chrome]

Master volume and tone

Speed knobs

3-way toggle switch

Recessed rear control plate

Black hardware

Hand rubbed oil finish

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That headstock rocks. I have to admit that I'm not too fond of the shape and the way the top is bookmatched, but that is purely my taste. Looks like a piece of skilled craftsmanship. What exactly are ping tuners?

so long

ace

/€dit: the shape of the guitar, of course...the heastock rocks :D

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Yeah, doesn't get much nicer than that!

Beautiful! Especially that headstock design. Really classy look.

I agree with Roli, when I see a nekkid piece of Maple like that, I cannot leave it alone, I have to give it 'the treatment'. Maybe one day I will be able to leave the stains in the drawer...

...But when I see someone else just leave it natural, I always admire and appreciate that look too, it certainly has a different kind of beauty than a 'bursted piece does, but diversity is what makes the world go 'round.

A few questions:

1) I'm guessing you used a veneered piece of the same Maple to do the accent at the top of the headstock? Nice touch!

2) Why no pkp mounting rings? (maybe of Maple or something?) I'm thinking some of those natural wood bobbin-toppers and natural wood mounting rings would go good on that?

3) Have you posted this guitar in another forum sometime back? It looks very familiar to me, like I've seen it somewhere else (the FDP maybe?)

4) I see you mounted the bridge/tailpiece with no setback on the bass side. Did it intonate OK for you, did you set the whole thing back an extra 1/16th or something?

5) Are you utilizing the scalloped frets at all?

Most excellent job. When you enter that one, I'll wait that month out! :D

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Excellent design. I was skeptical at first because you said "Tele design" and Teles are something that I'm not too fond of. But the design was great and I like the headstock shape. I usually don't like pointy and obnoxious headstocks, but there's something creative and original about yours that I can't help but love. I like the finish, too. Not too many people would just leave it natural like that. Nice job, man.

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Really clean craftsmanship. Since you have made the Ukes, do you plan on a Koa guitar?

I have a very lightly flamed set of Koa in an acoustic guitar back/side set, but I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I was thinking the back would be good as a top for my 1-piece double neck idea.

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A few questions:

1) I'm guessing you used a veneered piece of the same Maple to do the accent at the top of the headstock? Nice touch!

2) Why no pkp mounting rings? (maybe of Maple or something?) I'm thinking some of those natural wood bobbin-toppers and natural wood mounting rings would go good on that?

3) Have you posted this guitar in another forum sometime back? It looks very familiar to me, like I've seen it somewhere else (the FDP maybe?)

4) I see you mounted the bridge/tailpiece with no setback on the bass side. Did it intonate OK for you, did you set the whole thing back an extra 1/16th or something?

5) Are you utilizing the scalloped frets at all?

Most excellent job. When you enter that one, I'll wait that month out! :D

1) If you mean the truss rod slot cover, yes. The other exposed maple on the edge of the headstock is a scarf similar to the waist contour on a Strat.

2) I bought PUP mounting rings for it, but they looked to big and bulky.

3) Yes, the FDP and some others.

4) I did set the bass side back, but not by much. You can probably see that I had to adjust the bass side back more with the allen screws.

EDIT: Looking at the pictures, I guess I didn't set the bass side back, but just adjusted the bass side back with the allen screw.

5) No, I just put those in there for fun.

The reason I left it natural is because I didn't have spray equiptment to do a more pro looking dyed and tinted top. Now that I have spray equiptment I could refin it. It is currently for sale, and has a buyer interested, he just needs to get the money, $800CDN, but if the deal falls through, I think I'd refin just the body in nitro lacquer, probably with black pore filler, and pop the grain with some amber, or maybe black dye, then red, then tinted red lacquer on the whole thing, possible a black and red sunburst and maybe with scraped binding. I'd also then raise the price by $400CDN.

EDIT: I just phoned the store where it's forsale, the guy interested in it put a down payment on it, so I will not be refin'ing it.

Thankyou for the nice comments guys.

BTW, I have more of this maple is rough blocks. Enough for one arch top or two drop tops. We'll see...

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I wouldn't refin that one, it's too nice as it sits to go back and strip it all off! :D

One thing I've seen a time or two that I did like a lot on some other guitars that were done natural Maple was they did the hardware and accents in black.

It looked very cool, and I generally don't like black hardware too much, but on the clear Maple, it looked great, really accented both the black hardware and the clear Maple. I'd probably put gold on it myself, I'm a gold hardware freak, but the black really accented everything.

I remember an all natural Maple topped Archtop where the guy made his own tailpiece out of Ebony, bridge Ebony, F-holes were accented w/ Ebony strips, I think he made his own Ebony (w/ inlays) pickguard for it, it was a real killuh!

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