I have wanted to build a set neck telecaster for a long while. Buying a guitar husk from Stratosphere.com would be a great way of starting. A husk in guitar terms is usually applied to Gibson style guitars where you get a completely stripped guitar body with a set neck. Hence the term – husk.

Stratosphere.com has had the Fender JA-90 “Jim Adkins” model Thin Line Telecaster Body and Neck for sale for quite a while in several variations. I have hesitated always for a few reasons. One I did not want a set neck telecaster with an f hole. Whenever I have researched getting all of the parts to complete one out, I have never been able to find everything. I don’t want to get stuck with a husk that I can never do anything with.

Recently Stratospere.com has had a few Fender Special Edition Custom Telecaster FMT HH Tele BODY + NECK husks available and the price is good for $499. Plus, I have been able to find the needed parts to complete the build for a reasonable price so I decided to move forward.

I decided to build out my own wiring harness and also decided to substitute for the original Seymour Duncan pickups. Amazingly the new version of the guitar comes with a sweet humbucker pickup set.

Neck Pickup Seymour Duncan '59 SH-1N
Bridge Pickup Seymour Duncan SHPGP-1B Pearly Gates

I already had a set of Seymour Duncan Seth Lover PAF pickups that I thought would sound great in this guitar plus look better with the nickel pickup covers installed over the pickups.

The only thing I purchased for the build besides the husk was the bridge for this specific model of guitar. Which is basically a Fender 6 string hard tail bridge. I could have found others for less, but I wanted the color that the guitar originally had which is some sort of smoked grey and looks really cool.

So, let’s talk about this guitar if I were to purchase it new from the factory.


Here are the specifications:

Body Material Mahogany
Top Material Carved Flamed Maple
Body Finish Gloss Polyurethane
The guitar comes in three colors of Amber, Black Cherry Burst, and Crimson Red Transparent.
Neck is made of Mahogany with a Neck Shape of Modern C. The neck is a set joint and not bolt on.
With a Radius of 15.75"
Fingerboard Material Indian Laurel
Fingerboard Inlay Abalone Dots
Number of Frets 22, Jumbo
Scale Length 25.5"
Nut Width 1.625"
Nut Material Graphite

ELECTRONICS
Neck Pickup Seymour Duncan '59 SH-1N RP Humbucker
Bridge Pickup Seymour Duncan SHPGP-1B Pearly Gates Plus Humbucker
Controls 1 x master volume, 1 x master tone (push/pull coil-tap)
Switching 3-way toggle pickup switch

New the guitar sells for $999 and used the guitar sells for depending on condition and the market for $428 to $697.

This is the very closest guitar I have touched that would appear to be the offspring or prodigy between a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Telecaster. This is only a Telecaster by the shape of the body and headstock. This is where the similarities stop.

Everything else is something foreign to a Fender and close to a Gibson. The neck is set into the body. The guitar has two Seymour Duncan pickups and the wiring similar to a Gibson. The bridge is a Fender hardtail string through bridge instead of a Tune-o-matic bridge. The neck radius is very close to a Gibson coming in at 15.75 inches.

Here is where the guitar deviates from a Gibson Les Paul and moves to more of an SG – it is light as hell. My guitar comes in at 6 lbs. and 6 ounces.

For the wiring harness I built out a traditional Telecaster circuit with a few deviations. The volume and tone pots are both CTS 500k pots because of the humbuckers. The capacitor is a .047 uf drop cap and the three-way pickup selector is a Switchcraft Les Paul toggle type switch. I chose to go old school and did not do anything fancy like the original from the factory specification like a push pull tone pot that offers coil splitting.

The two pin fender tuners would not fit the holes drilled in the guitar. I ended up having to drill the pin holes before I could install my vintage style slotted tuners. I think the tuners that were on this guitar prior may have followed the Squier two pin pattern.

I keep looking at the guitar because of how distinctive she is with the quilted top and binding on both the body and neck.

Assembled she is a gorgeous guitar that really has resonance both plugged in and not plugged in.

I like the feel of the neck although the fret ends could use some filing later.

Plugged in she sings while clean in all three pickup offerings and through a distortion or overdrive pedal, she is pure rock and roll.