Hey! It's a guitar!
Chip does not look so bad when the strings are on. I mean, the fingerprints on there look worse under the flash:
Still to do - the pickguard and the truss rod cover. The ones I have I'm not that sure about. I'll look around for others that fit better.
I spent the weekend setting up the guitar. The nut was cool - It's my first time with a bone nut and it was no problem to work with. I got it fairly close to the right height by filing down the back, then I tweaked it from the top with the nut files. Action and intonation was a piece of cake. With the compensated bridge, the intonation is not terrible; It's pretty close on all strings. Well, close enough for Country music anyway
The guitar itself is wonderful. Now, I know we're all used to throwing these kinds of words around the things we make, and the things we see others make, but this guitar really is something special. Acoustically, it really zings. It has a brilliant bright sound that's really chime-y and piano like. Loads of harmonics. Plugged in, it has a LOT of power and tone. With the super fat neck, it's super comfy to play and overall it begs to have leads played on it.
Interestingly, it's not nearly as precise as a telecaster. With a telecaster, if you make a fretting mistake or a picking mistake, you'll hear it through the amp. Teles are pretty unforgiving with respect to technique although that also makes them very expressive. Not so with this guy - make all the small slips you like and it keeps chugging out a big ass woofy tone. It's pretty cool and it begs you to play endless lead guitar. Now you can still get pinch harmonics etc out of it, they are just not so, er, immediate as with a tele. It's really great.
I used to own a 78 LP goldtop. This guitar is everything that the 78 should have been. It's a heirloom instrument that I'll be proud to hand down to my kids. After I'm dead of course
