I’ve long since wanted a nicely relic’d telecaster, but the prices have always been out of my league. I spotted one on Facebook marketplace but was told it had someone coming to collect. Luckily for me, they didn’t show, so I made the 20 mile trek to Chapel-en-le-Frith. I turned out to be a home-brew made by an old guy who sourced the parts on the web, assembled & aged them, then sold it for virtually what it had cost him! It was his hobby and he had two others in progress in his garage.

The strings were 13s, far too thick for my delicate digits, so I swapped for 9s and had my mate Chillo at Richtone Music give it a few tweaks. It’s never gong to be a “fretless wonder”, but it looks cool to my eyes (dodgy shaped headstock notwithstanding). I broke it in on the recent Das Rad tour for a garage punk cover of “Buzzsaw” by the Turtles. I’ll be fitting a kill switch but otherwise, it’s good to go and only cost £200.