From viewing my site, one can see that I am a huge fan of the Tele body style. In fact my all time favorite guitar is a beat ‘68 Telecaster that has been heavily modified.

This particular Tele started life as a pristine '52 Reissue from the Fender Custom Shop that I bought brand spanking new in 1999. I just loved the look of the '52 Telecaster and had to have one. The following year the relic telecasters were introduced by Fender and I instantly realized that I preferred the well worn look to my brand new shiny Tele. The relic'd examples just looked so damn cool and I am not a huge fan of the amount of lacquer/clear coat used on the ‘52 reissue Teles. So rather than buy a Fender custom shop relic, I simply sent this guitar to Nate at Melody Custom for relicing. I told Nate that I wanted her to look real beat (borderline abused), especially the neck. I love the look of a well worn guitar, for some reason it screams mojo to me, look how cool SRV's Strat looked!!!

Upon receiving the guitar, Nate took her apart, aged all the hardware and reliced the entire guitar. He even asked what kind of cigarettes I wanted him to use to burn the headstock. Check out the pics, his attention to detail is simply AMAZING. The guitar came out exactly as I was hoping, note the simulated wear on the fret board edge, the aged (even rusted) hardware and the dings, scrapes and chips that look very natural. This guitar is amazing and I do not regret taking a brand new (read pristine, MINT) Fender USA guitar and letting Nate work his magic. If you are considering a relic job you owe it to yourself to check out Nate and his work at www.melodycustom.com . I know a lot of people don't understand the logic of how I could take a mint guitar and beat her up intentionally but I really dig the relic vibe and have no regrets. She's way cool and one hell of a player, it does not get any better than playing the blues on a beat-to-death Telecaster.