That looks great. Blue switch tip is a nice touch.

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Wed Sep 10, 2025 9:47 am That looks great. Blue switch tip is a nice touch.

I keep flopping between green and blue.

Those anodized purple knobs are pretty cool. I am lucky to have come across them!

I finished setting it up tonight. I've never set up a guitar before. It took me four tries, but once I nailed down the right amount of up bow on the neck, the action was easier to get to feel right without buzzing. I started with recommended height and adjusted to feel. Intonation is just tuning and that's a breeze with this bridge. Pickups were easier than I thought. Just get the poles close enough to the strings to sound like you want it to sound like, some great advice I came across.

I got some treble bleeds to play with. I don't really mind the volume darkening the tone when it goes down. I like both pickups at around 90% volume. I wonder if I should adjust the amp and save full volume to just cut through when it's needed.

I don't know if I even care about tone knobs, maybe one day I'll ditch them and just have two volumes.

Super nice looking cakes. Vintage/antique white fender style is always a nice look.

Frankie99 wrote: Thu Sep 11, 2025 9:53 am Super nice looking cakes. Vintage/antique white fender style is always a nice look.

Agreed. Nice work.

I finally got to play it at practice last night. It was pure joy, and I noticed I was playing more with switching between pickups and volume pots that was much easier than with the LP. The bridge on the LP is big and in the way, it's hard to see and get to the controls. The low profile of the Babicz bridge gives me clear access of the knobs, and the bridge pickup is so much more usable to my taste. I'm really happy with the setup, too. No cramping hands and more effortless playing. Not that the LP was bad with this (the setup was very good), but that I feel like I did a good job setting up the guitar and moving forward, I'll just take care of this myself. Time worth learning!

The guitar is similar in function to the LP and the neck pickup is very similar. The guitar overall is more "clear" sounding than the LP, but also not as "girthy" in the body of the overall sound. I assume that's the difference between alder and mahogany. I appreciate a little more clarity and EQ needs to be redialed in the amp.

The guitar itself is just easier to play. The LP feels somewhat awkward, especially in my lap, where I'm often playing guitar.

It's a huge gamble to build a guitar you don't actually know how it will sound or play, but it's worth it.

Yeah that turned out cool! I never considered a Tele Deluxe as a Les Paul alternative (with the conversion scale at least) but with the neck humbucker and tone knob options it makes a lot of sense now. LPs never felt good in my hands but Teles with some modern touches feel exactly right.