This guitar is inspired by The Model 1 designed by Rick Turner but was made with a body shape that is reminsicent of a Telecaster. The body was made from two separate pieces of wood. The mahogany back was radiused on the back and front, hollowed out to reduce weight, grain filled and stained to highlight the natural colours of the wood. The top is made from Poplar Burl which was steamed to bend over the radiused back. A black stain was used to highlight the grain patterns, sanded and then restained with reds, ambers and oranges before being sealed and finished with a clear polyurethane.
The neck is made from plain maple, laminated with walnut, and with an Indian Rosewood fret board. A dual action truss rod is accessed from the headstock. Metallic, eccentric fret markers are filled with epoxy and a colour matched feline motif is inlayed around the 12th fret. 3-aside Hipshot locking tuners provide excellent tuning stability and wide Nickel-Silver fret wire is used and complemented with a hand-carved bone nut. The neck has 22 frets and uses a 24.75 inch or 628 mm scale length, as used by Gibson. The neck has a stacked heel made of maple and mahogany sandwiched with ebony veneer. The neck is joined with a hidden tenon and treated with a polyurethane finish.
The Telstar 1 uses an Iron Gear Hot Slag Humbucking pickup in the neck position. It is mounted in a circular holder made from bubinga that allows the pickup to be rotated to adjust the tone. The pickup produces a beautiful warm, clean sound at low volumes but becomes filthy when the gain is increased. The pickup can be coil-tapped with a push-pull volume pot. A three-way switch allows selection between the neck pickup and a piezo pickup integrated into the tunomatic bridge. A push-pull tone potentiometer switches in a potentiometer that allows the contribution of neck and bridge pickups to be blended, allowing a huge range of sounds from heavy rock to country, jazz to 6 and 12 string or acoustic sounds. Which is nice!
