Body
The offset double-cutaway body is made from swamp ash, with a 'Burnt Open Pore' finish - the grain is darkened by burning it somehow (probably a heat gun or blowtorch). The grain has not been filled (hence the 'Open Pore'), and the finish is a thin coat of what seems to be polyester. The end result is a natural looking matte finish which feels good to the touch.

The neck join is angled and the cutaways are deeper than with a traditional Strat design, so high register access is easy and really comfortable.

Neck
The neck is maple with a maple fingerboard. The fingerboard is a separate piece of wood, which allows for a better looking piece of fingerboard wood to be used than a one piece neck and fingerboard and also makes for a stiffer, more resilient neck. The neck is finished in a satin polyester, which is very comfortable to the left hand.

Hardware
The tuners are staggered locking models. The nut is a Graph Tech Trem-Nut, which together with the locking tuners keeps the guitar in tune admirably well. The trem was originally a two stud floating design, with a brass inertia block, but I have replaced it with a Gotoh vintage spaced synchronised trem.

The pearloid pickguard and rear plates I made myself, using the old ones as templates, just replacing the bridge humbucker cutout for a single-coil size. The eagle-eyed will notice that the bridge pickup is a little closer to the neck than standard - this was intentional to warm the bridge pickup slightly.

The knobs are wood - ebony, which I have given a matt finish. I quite like the "Tuxedo" look on this guitar, with the black saddles pickup covers, knobs, switch tip and toggle switch all offsetting the white pearloid pickguard nicely. In the large pics you can also see that while the mini toggle switch is black, the nut for it is chrome, which is subtle, but quite classy.

All the screws in the pickguard are recessed - not just the pickguard screws themselves (which are the smaller Gibson size, BTW), but the switch and the pickup screws too. The recessing is fairly deep so the screws do not rise above the surface of the pickguard at all.

Pickups and electronics

The pickups were originally Lace Sensors; a blue/gold humbucker and a pair of golds. While they were fairly noise free and had tons of quack in the in-between positions, the tone was a bit sterile and tended to get lost in a mix when using slightly driven sounds.

After trying a few different sets of pickups, such as Fender Custom Shop '69 and Fralin Blues Specials, I ended up with a set of Kinman Woodstock noiseless "single-coils". Unlike most noiseless single-coil pickup designs, the Kinman pickups have no trade-off - they are completely quiet with boatloads of tone. The Wodstock models in particular are hotter and warmer than most single-coil pickups, but still very punchy. They suit this fairly bright guitar particularly well and have ended up giving it a good, strong Rock voice.

I've had a few different piezo systems fitted, although I have scavenged them for another guitar at the moment. Because of this, I have fitted the battery compartment to the rear and - although it is not shown in the pics - there are two output jacks.

Only the volume knob is connected, the second control was used for a piezo volume (and might be again). The mini toggle switch is a "neck on" switch, which gives me neck and bridge and all three pickups in lever switch positions one and two respectively.