This is my attempt at building the ultimate blues guitar.

The ash body has a tone chamber on the bass side and a bookmatched, 3A-grade myrtlewood top. It is finished in teak oil, mainly because I was in too much of a hurry to play it to lacquer it properly. It does, however, mean that any minor scratches can be repaired easily by re-oiling.

The 25.5-inch scale, maple neck has a rosewood fingerboard, and features a pronounced vee-shape like a vintage Tele. The fretboard radius is a more modern 12-inches and the frets are heavy-duty, nickel silver. The dot markers are abalone.

The pickup layout is a bit unusual, and is an attempt to combine all my favourite 'blues' sounds on one guitar. The neck pickup is a vintage replacement humbucker. The middle pickup is a '62 vintage replacement Strat single coil, and the bridge pickup is a slightly hotter than standard Tele Single coil. All were supplied by Kent Armstrong. They are selected with a standard 5-way switch wired into master tone and master volume controls. The tone knob pulls out to offer some extra tones. With the knob pushed in, the humbucker is tapped all the time and the guitar operates exactly like a Strat. When the knob is pulled out, it adds the neck humbucker to whatever pickup is currently selected. This gives the option of neck humbucker + bridge single coil for those Keith Richards moments. I can also use all 3 pickups, or neck humbucker + middle single coil. It is a lot simpler to use than this description suggests, and keeps the number of extra knobs and switches down to a minimum.

I am very happy with the sounds from this guitar. The single coil sounds are full and round, unlike some modern instruments. The humbucker adds some very useful sounds to give some originality to my playing and is great for playing 'Red House' when used on its own! The tapped humbucker is very 'Jimi Hendrix' sounding, and the middle pickup demands endless renditions of 'Pride & Joy'. The bridge pickup was quite a surprise to me. It actually sounds really good, and can be used for rock as well as the country music this kind of guitar is more usually associated with.

Since building this guitar at Christmas, most of my others have been left unplayed, so I think I'm getting close to finding my ideal guitar. Now all I've got to do is learn how to play it properly!