Disassembly and Destruction

Here I am slowly taking all the hardware apart. Why you ask? Because I decided on a set of pickups!

Here they are - Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups for telecaster - they emulate the original pickups from a 1953 tele. There are a ton of options here, and it was hard for me to choose, but ultimately, I decided this guitar was going to have vintage voicing. The body I got from Warmoth is built to exact vintage specs, which also meant a shallow pickup cavity, and I didn't want to chance having expensive pickups with no where to go! Plus, I think those old guitars sound killer! I can't wait to plug this thing in already!

I didn't set out to make this project a "relic" guitar, but the antiquity pickups come pre-relic-ed, so I didn't want them to look out of place. I was going to have to do a little scuffing.

Here is the bridge all taken apart.

And here is the bridge scuffed with the green scotch brite pad.

Neck plate before...

Neck plate after.

Then I threw all of the parts into a wooden box and shook 'em around to get some random dings and dents.

I also put the parts through a hydrorchloric acid treatment. You can youtube it. The trick I found was a bit of heat from the sunshine makes the process much quicker. Mid-day, you only need about 20-30 minutes in the tub to get some good results. Be sure you put the parts in a small tub, then put that tub in a larger one, and close the lid on the larger tub. You just want the fumes to affect your pieces. And don't breathe the fumes! Nasty stuff.

Next up, I try the Dan Erlewine fix for sticking, squeaking Bigsby tremolos. Custom, custom, custom - just the way I like it!