After learning my woodworking skills are not quite up to par(granted I've only ever built a birdhouse), I've decided to step back a bit and start with something simpler, a parts build. The goal is a walnut esquire that's quiet, versatile, and includes a preamp for buffering/boosting/crushing tube amps.
Walnut Studio Esquire
Neck: Maple/rosewood Warmoth tele neck, 9.5" radius, 1-11/16" nut, cream dot inlays, 6150 frets. bone nut, satin nitro finish
Body: 1-piece American walnut body from eBay
Tuners: Gotoh vintage-style, nickel
Bridge: Gotoh tele bridge
Pickups: Humbucking tele bridge(Any suggestions? Thinking hot rails, want something humbucking that'll sound decent split and fit in the standard tele bridge)
Controls: Series/split/parallel switch(or series/parallel/parallel high pass for less noise), volume/tone stack(500k, 0.022uF cap), preamp on/off, gain
Pickguard: Single ply black matte vinyl
Finish: Satin nitro lacquer over light dye burst(if results on test scraps are good, if not, no dye)
Body is on its way in the post from Canada. Hopefully the quality is good. There are a few mistakes I can see from the pictures, but they appear to only be cosmetic(initial router plunge slightly too deep, probably from a cheap router, wiring routing at a strange angle, 1st string top hole slightly off). The seller does have a return policy if things aren't good.