ilovefuzz.com

So I've been wishing I had a fun summer project and then I randomly stumbled upon these set neck teles on guitarfetish:
http://www.guitarfetish.com/SPECIAL-PURCHASE-Set-Neck-Tele-with-Strat-Headstock_p_12069.html#.

And I bought one.

So far my idea is single p90 esquire with a black bakelite guard I have lying around and a cut-off 3 saddle bridge. I want this to be a basic, stripped down do whatever beater guitar. Something that straddles the line between my crazy JM and my bari telemaster.

What I'm trying to figure out is finish. My last two builds, I did tru oil on ebony stain. But I've never done a set neck build before. If I wanted to stain the body and back of the neck, would I just mask off the maple fretboard? Would that look weird? I'm not seeing too many set neck guitars with maple boards (at least not without binding) and I'm wondering if that is for a reason. I'm also toying with just going the danish oil route and calling it a day, fretboard and all.

Suggestions? Cool ideas?

The gfs page you've linked to now says that the "Product is not Available" so I'll just have to use my imagination. You could potentially stain the fretboard as well, I have seen a painted maple fretboard before which is a little weird and probably doesn't sound all that good, but since you're using stain it would probably work quite well. I haven't done it myself, I'm just assuming things based on my knowledge of stain. If I were going to stain a fretboard I'd want to go with a a subtle color, some shade of brown, so it doesn't look too weird. I could imagine that walnut stain might look quite good. What do you think? You may want to ask someone who actually knows what they're talking about beforehand if you decide to go through with it.