Nash Guitars Keef Tele

I had Bill Nash build this guitar with a medium-V, all-maple Stratocaster neck, reshaped at the butt to fit an alder Tele body. Both were sourced from USA Custom Guitars. At first I thought of getting a swamp ash body but after consulting Jason Lollar, who made the pickups for this guitar, the three of us agreed that I'd get better, punchier tone from alder.

In the neck position Nash installed a Lollar Imperial PAF humbucker, and in the bridge pos a Lollar Tele Special. The pickup switch is a 5-way 'super strat' switch, so that the switching includes bridge only, bridge + neck in series, bridge + neck in parallel, bridge and only one coil of the HB, and HB only.

The bridge is a three-barrel compensated vintage-style Tele bridge, my all-time favorite since this style bridge breaks far fewer strings than any other type of bridge I've used - that was my main consideration, though have classic tele looks was part of the reason, too.

I chose the 'Clapton' style neck profile, i.e., medium V.

The body has a nitro cream finish, with a red tortoise pickguard, routed for a HB neck.

Everything, including the pickups, was aged to Nash's 'church gig' specifications. It's an outstanding relic job - if I didn't know this guitar was made from new parts, I'd swear it was true vintage. More importantly, it has the feel of a worn-in guitar, and I don't have that 'new guitar' paranoia where you worry about nicks and dings and such. This is my first relic axe, and I now stand firmly in the 'pro-relic' camp. (And since I own an original 57 tele and 60 strat, I can be a vintage snob if I want to be.)

The tuners are vintage-style Klusons.

Since this guitar has exactly the features I always wanted in a guitar, it rates a 10.

I play primarily blues, jazz and classic rock and this guitar covers all the bases in that range.

Neck pickup - the Jason Lollar Imperial PAF is even richer than I'd hoped for. Delivers *more* highs than any single-coil neck pup I have on my Fenders, amazing to be able to get a Fender-like 'sheen' when picking leads along with nice, thumpy palm mutes. I actually have to EQ my amp and effects to cut back on the highs in this pup more than I do for my standard teles. The bucker is very articulate at low gain, at higher gains it begins to blur notes considerably and this is where you really hear it ain't a single coil. But that's what buckers do so I welcome it.

Bridge pup -- I was getting so much out of the neck pup I haven't yet given the lead pup (Lollar Tele Special) a thorough testing but it seemed fine the few times I did use it last night.

Nice aging on both pups.

Frets - it's gonna take me a while to get completely used to the height of these (Dunlop 6105s - not 'jumbos', which I hate, but taller than vintage so when you do a serious fret level there's plenty of crown left) but they feel good, and I don't have any trouble ripping runs. I do notice the height, though, and that plays with my head a bit. That will disappear quickly, no doubt.

Nice fretwork overall, no buzzing. The action is just right, very similar to my 57 Tele as requested (I measured), low enough to 'twang' but not buzz. Another high score. I can't find any flaws at all, anywhere on the guitar. The neck pocket fit is the best of any bolt-neck guitar I own.

As I said before, the relic job is perfect. It looks like a guitar that has been played weekly for 40 years ...

Everything seems very solid on this guitar, and since Fenders are notoriously sturdy guitars, and this one was hand-built by one guy, I expect it should be very reliable and durable.

While building the guitar Bill was very communicative, and I was able to keep track of the building process via a private webpage he set up.

He delivered the guitar about one week later than promised, and I thus missed using it at a gig I really wanted it for. But he let me know well in advance that it would be late, and I certainly didn't want to rush him. All in all I was very happy with the customer support.

I've been playing electric guitar since the year the Jimi Hendrix Experience released their first album.

If this axe were lost or stolen, I'd be hearbroken, since I designed it myself and it was custom built. I would probably be too heartbroken to replace it, as there's no way even Bill Nash could build one exactly like this one.

I looked at other guitar builders, as well as a range of stock Fenders, looking for the right 'Keef tele', but in the end it was a no-brainer - no one but Nash could build what I wanted at the price he did.