I am working on a batch of special new Telecasters. About a half dozen or more have been in the pipeline and are now reaching final gestation.

A couple of Hipshot’s most versatile (and complicated) bending units will be in the mix, along with some of Callaham’s fine hardware.

There is a Bigsby model and some more embedments in pickguards.

Others will be more straightforward but all feature my signature non-adjustable reinforced necks in quarter sawn rock maple with nice deep headstock drops. Thick 5/16” fretboards lend enough “tread” to get several centuries of hard playing and refrets in. Tonality, Stability, and Longevity are the hallmarks of a Specimen neck.

“Wide Range” humbucking pickups made by Lindy Fralin will adorn a couple of soft shoulder CBS style Customs and Deluxe’s. Additionally, I believe we have produced the worlds first Wide Range humbucker mounting ring. Fender simply never made one. Neither did anyone else. Now I have. They are precision machined from aluminum and are chrome plated. They will soon be available for purchase.

The Tele is the original mass produced electric guitar. I have no love of mass production, but it does speak to an urge to create the everlasting and iconic. Something that cannot be erased. I doubt this was Leo Fender’s motive. He was probably just trying to sell a product but who knows. I see both love and detachment in his designs. Also a slight awkwardness, kind of an outsider feeling.

This may be why so many musicians have gravitated to his lines and geometries. I try to honor his work, conjecture and manifest the direction he may have taken if driven only by tenets of engineering and play, not corporate business models.