Hot Rod Telecaster

As I am getting all excited having just ordered my second Pit Bull kit I thought I would share my Tele that I built from a kit a number of years ago and has gone through a couple of incarnations.
I am a big Springsteen fan so originally built it as supplied and with a Danish oil finish to look something like Bruces famous Esquire.

Attachment 27781

It came originally with through the bridge stringing. By the time of the photo I had drilled the body and fitted ferrules for the more Tele correct through body stringing.
I also swapped the kit pickups for a set of Artecs.

I stayed like that for a while until, inspired by Fenders La Cabronita Teles I decided to give it a makeover.
I stripped it down and sanded off the finish. Filled the string holes I had drilled :D and sprayed it with Butterscotch nitrocellulose.
I enlarged the neck pickup rout so I could fit an Entwhistle Filtertron style pup and put it all back together with a tortoiseshell pick guard and a Bigsby style trem.
I'm not really a trem guy - my strat never has the arm fitted, but I love the look of a Bigsby.
I originally made slots in the Tele ashtray bridge for the strings but this wasn't particularly successful so the final mod has been to cut the original bridge down to make a pickup ring and fit a Tunamatic style bridge.
I use the word style for all the parts as it has all been cheap ebay stuff.
I now have some more holes in the body where the old bridge was fitted and I may at some point rebuid it with a new body but I kinda like the holes as they are part of the story of how the guitar has evolved.
This also required a neck shim but everything is now sorted and to my eyes and ears she looks and sounds great.

Anyway here is the final (for now) incarnation.

Attachment 27782

Just remembered the extra hole in the control plate - it was for a switch for a failed attempt at coil splitting :)