For sale is my custom Tele Custom, built a few years ago by Josh Parkin Guitars in York. Josh is now one of the head builders at PJD Guitars.
Josh made this for me using a slightly modified, contoured Telecaster body and his own neck heel adaptation. The body is 1-piece Brazilian mahogany, apparently decades old, with a nicely flamed ‘Euro’ maple and Indian rosewood neck. Rosewood on the neck is lovely and dark, with deep red/purple variation across the fretboard.
The neck has a soft v-shaped back and is finished in a nice, slick flash-coating of nitrocellulose. Measuring at the 1st and 12th fret my calipers say 20.75/22.05 mm respectively, or 0.82/0.88 inch. The flash nitro coat gives it a slinky feel too.
Star of the show is the 5A-flamed roasted maple drop top, which is stunning. So nice that the classic 3-tone sunburst is really only two-tone, utilising the natural wood colour in the centre. The same finish is applied to the rear, so you can see the darker mahogany colour there. The finish is nitrocellulose, not a thick coating so it’s not a crazy deep gloss – enough to show off the wood and make photographs a bit tricky.
I also had Josh make me a figured maple pickguard, which also looks awesome. It’s finished in a much harder-wearing polyurethane.
The pickups are in-house, wound especially for this guitar’s darker-sounding mahogany body. They sound really good, very versatile with a great tone sweep. Using my DMM I measure the neck at 9.8k and the bridge 11.4k. The rest of the electronics are top quality – CTS, Switchcraft, paper-in-oil etc.
There are a few very small signs of use, but the guitar is generally in super condition. Earlier this year I had it serviced by a local luthier (Matt Kersey). Comes with the hard case in the picture plus its original black pearloid pickguard.
With the mahogany body and maple top the guitar weighs like a Les Paul, reading 10lb / 4.5kg on my luggage scales.
Viewing/demoing is entirely welcomed, I’m based in Hertfordshire and happy to drive a short distance if needed. Collection is obviously preferred but I’m happy to ship it fully insured, with proper guitar-sized packaging.
Reason for sale is, I’m looking to make space for a couple of projects. This guitar is the most underused of mine, considering its quality.
Any questions, or if you want any more photos etc, get in touch.
Full specs:
· 1-piece mahogany body
· 5A flame roasted maple drop top
· 3-tone sunburst nitro finish, front and back (centre is the natural roast maple colour)
· Masked-edge binding to top
· Contoured body and neck heel
· Lightly flamed maple neck with soft-v profile, satin nitro finish
· Rosewood fretboard, 10” radius, 43mm nut
· 6105 ‘Narrow/Tall’ frets, 25.5” scale length
· Flamed maple pickguard
· Gotoh bridge, Kluson trapezoid locking tuners
· JPG custom wound pickup set – wide range neck humbucker and tele bridge
· CTS/Switchcraft hardware, PIO tone capacitors
· 2 x vol, 1 x tone controls, 3-way toggle switch
· Hard case
