My other "replica" hobby...

[Guest carlsbadrolex]

Awhile ago, a customer asked if it would be possible to ship him "relic series" electric guitars. Typically the owner of the company I work for would have said no... but I urged him to let me give it a try. After hours of looking at pictures of Fender Relic Series guitars I thought I could do it. THEN after going to the NAMM show and seeing them in person, I knew I could at least give it a good effort.

The first one I did was a copy of a Fender Telecaster. The bodies of the Tele style guitars that we offer are not drilled for "through body" stringing... So I changed that! I bought the inserts and created a jig for the drilling. I then used reference pictures to age the guitar to that of about a 50 year old guitar.

This included wearing at the lower bout top from a right handed players right arm. Wearing between the upper and lower bout on the bottom side from a player sitting the guitar on his knee. I aged all metal using solvents, sandpaper and steel wool. The neck was aged and bleached and the frets were worn in the common chord areas.

The bridge plate and plate covers on the one in the picture are genuine Fender parts and the pickups are also Fender originals. All wiring is cloth wrapped and even the backs of the electronics were aged to perfection (in about an hour).

This guitar is being given to the owner of my company as a gift. He is a professional player and I will let you know what he thinks tomorrow. I had it set up by a local high end shop, and they wanted to keep it. They could not beleive that this was a $100 guitar with another $100 in parts and about 8 hours of labor. I then brought it home and snapped the E string messing around with it...The owner of the music shop said he would put it up against any of the American made Fenders he had in stock.

Next is a replica Gibson gold top. It received similar treatment to all metal, the electronics and pick guards. I didnt wear this one down as much, but I think it still looks pretty good! Everything on this guitar is brand new and was not replaced. The total investment in this guitar is $150 and 6 hours.

And lastly, my personal "Fav". This is a copy of the famous Hofner Beatle Bass used by Paul McCartney. I found a shop in Wisconsin that had ORIGINAL Hofner emblems, [censored]s, electronics and some other hardware. The guitar costs me $100 and I added almost $150 in parts. Everything was aged to copy the last known pictures of Pauls bass guitar. The only thing I changed was to wear it as if a Right handed player had used it. Paul was a lefty that simply strung it upside down. I have ordered a vintage Hofner case to put it in also, hopefully that will arrive tomorrow.

I was offered $750 for this bass guitar just this evening from a tech at the music shop. He said that it was VASTLY better than the new bass guitars that Hofner was putting out. I never did tell him how little I had invested in it.

Anyway, enjoy the pics (as poor as they are) and let me know what you think!

[fendushi]

Nice...

I like the looks of the Vintage Tele... but pity single coil is not my sound. The goldtop looks like it's missing a [censored]? (neck pickup tone adjuster, the forum censored k.n.o.b )

Collecting guitars is my other hobby too... these are a few of my babies...

Yes... they are all gens...

Edited February 22, 2008 by fendushi

[rek001]

Very, very nice!

Makes me want to take up electric guitar.

I play ukulele, been taking semi-private lessons from a hawaiian lady the last four years.