Nathan Noel's Mary Kaye Tele

[Nathan Noel]

After a round of Tele styled guitars for comissioners I decided that I'd take some of the leftovers and build a Tele style guitar for myself since I don't have a straight up tele of my own.

Specs.
Body: Swamp Ash
Finish: Mary Kaye White (Target EM6000 Waterbourne Lacquer)
Neck: Wenge
Fingerboard: Wenge
Fretwire: StewMac #149
Inlay: Mother of pearl face and side dots and mother of pearl Logo
Bridge: Joe Barden Vintage Tele
Tuning Machines: Sperzel Locking
Pickups: Dimarzio Area-T (DP418 - Bridge, DP417 Neck)
Pickguard: Tortoise
Jack: Electrosocket

[Jason Rodgers]

That dark wenge neck is very striking on the white body! Nice, clean, tele look. And I like that headstock, too. Did you distress the edges to cut through the paint, or have you really been playing it that hard?!

[Jim Bonnell]

Nice job. I love the neck too. Gotta love that wenge.

[Mark Swanson]

I love a good telecaster and that's my guitar of choice. this looks great! but I gotta have a 6-way bridge, I just don't like the 3-way ones very much...but they do look vintage!

[Nathan Noel]

I love a good telecaster and that's my guitar of choice. this looks great! but I gotta have a 6-way bridge, I just don't like the 3-way ones very much...but they do look vintage!

Have you tried the Joe Barden bridge? The saddles are drilled and machined at funky angles and it into mates spot on. Feels good too I'm not a fan of ash tray bridges but with the treble side of the bridge plate cut away... It works well. Had I not installed this bridge on a guitar for another guy and really liked it I would have never considered it.

And yes Jason I distressed the body... Quite by accident too. I was installing the string ferrules and the brittle ass waterborne finish chipped. So I says screw it and lightly distressed the finish. It's for me.. So no biggie. I like the look.

Also here's a better shot of the headstock... You don't see a lot of non-tilt headstocks get inlaid, so I'm always proud of my inlay work. But please ignore the "first setup" strings... They've been off and on a couple of times.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Cool, but I expected pink from the name.
Hope you don't pick up any splinters from that neck. Looks like the pores are pretty open and ready to calve off some doozies.

[Mike Dotson]

Very nice all around. The color is very classy with the dark neck and tort pickguard.

I've really become a fan of wenge (aka, African Splinter Wood ) for fretboards and necks. Even have one 1/2 done with a 3-piece wenge cap.

[Nathan Noel]

Yeah, this neck feels amazing... I brought it to my last gig to try on a few songs. I ended up playing it on probably 38 out of 45 songs for the night. I have to say... I did a damn fine job on this one.