The Fire and Ice Telstar is reminiscent of the classic Telecaster but it features a set neck and shorter scale length. The body is made from a single piece of mahogany with a poplar burl cap and ivory binding. The mahogany is hollowed out to reduce the weight of the guitar and grain filled and stained to highlight the grain and natural colours of the wood. The poplar burl cap is stabilised with epoxy, sanded, and then stained with a green blue burst to emphasise the beautiful figure. The mahogany behind the f-hole is stained and finished before fitting the cap. The sealant is cyro-treated to produce a crackled ice-like effect of the polyurethane sealant. The body is then finished with a clear polyurethane.
Our standard model has a plain maple neck and maple fretboard with the dual action truss rod fitted under the fretboard. The example here has a flamed maple neck and a scultped back at the neck pocket to improve access to the upper frets. The truss rod access hole is decorated with aged copper leaf. Mother of Pearl or metallic rod fret markers with epoxy fill are used. Hipshot locking tuners provide excellent tuning stability and wide Nickel-Silver fret wire is used and complemented with a hand-carved bone nut. The fret board comes with or without an inlayed gecko motif. The neck has 21 frets and uses the standard fender scale length of 25.5 inches or 647.5 mm. The neck here is treated with a polyurethane finish to protect the fretboard and provide a silky feel to the neck. A Satin oil-based finish is also available.
The Telstar-ice features pickups from Iron Gear as standard. The neck pickup is a P90 and the bridge pickup is from the twin II series. The neck pickup produces a beautiful clean sound, and the bridge pickup gives a characteristic tele-twang that can be tamed with the tone pot. A 5-way switch is used for 'Bill Lawrence' wiring that enhances the range of tones available. Positions 1,2 and 3 switch between neck, neck+bridge and bridge. Position 4 puts the two pickups out of phase for a Stratocaster sound and position 5 gives a bass cut. The volume control is a push pull potentiometer that allows the additional windings of the bridge pickup to be engaged for a high output boost to the sound. A Gotoh bridge has 3 compensated brass saddles that allow good intonation of each string.
