Cactus Jack
Senior Member
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- 484
Just about 4 weeks ago I purchased the body below. It is being finished in satin Tobacco Burst front and back and is being routed for Strat neck and middle pups and Tele bridge. The pickups will be Seymour Duncan APS-2 in the neck and middle, and a Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue in the bridge. I've never had an all Alnico II guitar before so I'm excited to give these pups a shot.
The body should arrive pretty quick so in the meantime I've pulled together some spare parts. My initial thought was to go full chrome, but I have a nice set of aged Callaham part's which might look good to. My gut says the body will make the decision for me, but please feel free to share your opinion on chrome vs relic.
One little hot rod touch I'm going to sneak into this build is a 10-way Freeway switch. I've been interested in this switch for a while, and I've seen Rick recommend them on several occasions. Here's what the switch looks like:
My initial observation of the switch is that it's good quality. Switching between the banks takes a nice push and produces a solid "click" so you know you for sure you're where you want to be. Unless you were absolutely pounding on guitar there's no way you'd accidentally change banks. Passing between positions 1-5 feels like a normal 5-way switch.
One key thing to note is that this switch is large. Upon test fitting on another Warmoth Tele body, using full size pots, the control plate would not fit. The square nature of the switch was pressed into the front wall, and the tone pot was about 2mm to wide the other direction. My solution to this problem is to use mini pots, which I'm fine with.
Another word of caution is that I attempted to put this switch in a rear route Strat to no avail. The switch is too wide for the factory switch cutout. As such, I widened the gap, but then ran into two other problems. First, the slot for the switch is too short for the switch. I could get position 1 or 5 to fully engage, but the slot needed widening to get both to engage properly. Second, the screws to mount the switch to the body are too short the rear route. The screws are metric with super fine thread, and while I'm sure I could find longer ones in two seconds I decided to save the switch for this build instead. I'm excited for the switch but it's probably best to test drive one in a Strat pickguard first.
Here are a few picks of the switch engaged in the two banks:
Over the next few days I'm going to wire up my harness and prep the neck(s) before the body arrives. It's gonna be another fun project for sure.

The body should arrive pretty quick so in the meantime I've pulled together some spare parts. My initial thought was to go full chrome, but I have a nice set of aged Callaham part's which might look good to. My gut says the body will make the decision for me, but please feel free to share your opinion on chrome vs relic.




One little hot rod touch I'm going to sneak into this build is a 10-way Freeway switch. I've been interested in this switch for a while, and I've seen Rick recommend them on several occasions. Here's what the switch looks like:

My initial observation of the switch is that it's good quality. Switching between the banks takes a nice push and produces a solid "click" so you know you for sure you're where you want to be. Unless you were absolutely pounding on guitar there's no way you'd accidentally change banks. Passing between positions 1-5 feels like a normal 5-way switch.
One key thing to note is that this switch is large. Upon test fitting on another Warmoth Tele body, using full size pots, the control plate would not fit. The square nature of the switch was pressed into the front wall, and the tone pot was about 2mm to wide the other direction. My solution to this problem is to use mini pots, which I'm fine with.
Another word of caution is that I attempted to put this switch in a rear route Strat to no avail. The switch is too wide for the factory switch cutout. As such, I widened the gap, but then ran into two other problems. First, the slot for the switch is too short for the switch. I could get position 1 or 5 to fully engage, but the slot needed widening to get both to engage properly. Second, the screws to mount the switch to the body are too short the rear route. The screws are metric with super fine thread, and while I'm sure I could find longer ones in two seconds I decided to save the switch for this build instead. I'm excited for the switch but it's probably best to test drive one in a Strat pickguard first.
Here are a few picks of the switch engaged in the two banks:


Over the next few days I'm going to wire up my harness and prep the neck(s) before the body arrives. It's gonna be another fun project for sure.