Full front view
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Unlike the "Nashville" Strat and Tele models from Fender, this is a little different: instead of a Tele with a Strat middle pickup or a Strat with a Tele neck pickup - this is a Strat with a Tele bridge and bridge pickup. The reason for this unusual combo is this: I love the Strat neck and middle pickup tones, but the Tele has an edge with the bridge pickup - it's more percussive, punchier and doesn't have as much tendency to being shrill when used by itself.

The original "ashtray" bridge of a Tele adds a very "acoustic" quality to the voice of the guitar, it's thinner and lighter and the pickup being mounted from the steel baseplate is one of the factors behind the Tele bridge pickup sound. As an added bonus for me, I love the way an ashtray bridge lets me rest my right hand pinkie while fingerpicking. With a Strat bridge, if you anchor, you end up picking very close to the bridge and the tone becomes quite brittle. A Tele bridge lets me anchor further forward, and lets me pick between the middle and neck pickups.

Neck
The neck was originally a fine looking master grade flame maple USA Custom Guitars neck with pao ferro board. However I found that a maple board suited this guitar better so swapped with my Stratocaster clone. This particular neck is a birdseye Mighty Mite with a huge "boatneck" contour. It is sealed with tung oil to "pop" the birdseye figuring, then finished with a thin layer of nitrocellulose lacquer, buffed to a high gloss. I tinted the nitrocellulose slightly with amber to take away some of the bright, white "new maple" look. This neck is not quite up to my quality standards, with quite a few voids and small manufacturing flaws, so will likely change to a similar, but better quality neck in the near future.

Full rear view
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Frets
The 22 frets are about the same width as Dunlop 6105s but not quite as tall.

Tuning machines
The tuning machines are a set of locking Schallers. I did my usual trick of fitting a set of ebony keys from Luthier's Mercantile to bring the weight from the rear locking mechanism down. The Schallers are great tuning machines, they don't suffer from any slippage, play or lashback, and are staggered, so I don't need to use string trees.

Body
The body is a made from a single piece of swamp ash and is extremely lightweight, weighing in at 3lbs 6oz (the "standard" weight for an ash body is usually about 4lbs). It is very resonant and the deep '50s style contouring is very comfortable to play on. I

Finish
The finish is nitrocellulose and the photos do not do it justice - it's quite chatoyant, changing appearance depending on the viewing angle. I did a few unusual things with the body finish. Firstly, I not only stained it, but double stained it (something which is more commonly done with maple to accentuate figuring). The first stain was a dark cherry, sanded out to leave only the grain accentuated, then the second was a bright red. The red brought out some subtle figuring in the ash which I did not know was there.

After sealing the body I sprayed a few toner coats of transparent red and a few darker shader coats towards the edges of the body to give it a subtle burst. There is also a single, very subtle shader coat fading out from the pickup and control cavities. The edges were then done in a solid black to complete the bursting, but I kept the solid black burst over the top very narrow to show as much of the wood as possible.

The second unusual finishing technique I used was to use the nitrocellulose lacquer as a grain filler, building up a lot more coats than usual and sanding them back until level. This has two advantages: firstly the clear finish is very "deep" looking and does not obscure the subtle variation in the stain accentuated grain. Secondly, as the finish is curing more over time and getting thinner, it is sinking into the grain a little, which gives it something of a vintage look while still being high gloss.

Neck Plate
The neck plate is a thick Glendale stainless steel neck plate. While I have not done so yet, I am still planning on recessing it into the body to make for a smoother, more comfortable neck joint (which I have already done to my Stratocaster clone).

Bridge
The bridge is a  WIlkinson Ashtray style, bought from Guitarfetish. I'm not happy with the quality, so that will be replaced with a stainless steel Glendale soon.

Nut
The nut is a Graph Tech Trem nut. When I replace the neck I will fit an Earvana compensating nut, which gets the intonation of a Tele bridge  near perfect.

Pickups
The pickups were originally a pair of Kinman Woodstocks in neck and middle and a Kinman Broadcaster bridge pickup. Chris Kinman warned me that they would not match well together, but I chose to try them anyway as I wanted to set them very far from the strings and the extra output of a hotter pickup compensated well for that. It turned out that Chris was 100% right and I should have rather used a pair of his Blues pickups and the Broadcaster. The Woodstocks ended up being too warm in comparison to the bridge pickup. I now have a pair of DiMarzio Area '58s and an Area T, which is working out very nicely.

Enobs and switch cap
The knobs and switch tip are unfinished ebony which have a great feel. I am considering trying them in birdseye maple for a better contrast with the relatively dark body finish and to match the neck.

Selector Switch
I've fitted a 4-pole Oak Grigsby SuperSwitch. I've wired it to give me a similar setup to a Strat, only with the middle position changed - instead of the stock "middle pickup alone" setting of a Strat, it now gives me neck and bridge pickups together - more like a Tele. This works great with the DiMarzio Area pickups.

Note the ebony knobs and switch cap as well as the Neutrik locking socket
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The finish changes depending on the angle
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The rear. Note the wooden control cavity cover
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The headstock, complete with "vanity logo"
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Schaller locking tuners with ebony keys
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