May Birthdays 
I've decided to sell my "Swamp Ash Junior", which is a sweet combination of Telecaster and Les Paul Junior. The body and neck blank were made by ADH over on Offset Guitars - The body is a beautiful piece of swamp ash and the neck is hard maple w/ a maple fretboard and a swamp ash headstock veneer.
I've always had a thing for the LPJR body style and have wanted a stripped-down P90 rawker for years, so needless to say I jumped at the chance to own an ADH body. The combo of swamp ash and maple with a 25.5" scale length make it a nice nexus of twang and growl. I completed the build last year, and though I play it occasionally I've found that my surf-heavy focus doesn't leave much time for non-vibrato equipped guitars.
Body: Swamp ash finished in black nitro lacquer. I used to own a Gibson faded LP Special (very underrated guitars) and loved the feel and look of the open wood grain. I wanted to replicate that vibe with the Swamp Ash Junior, so I left the grain unfilled, shot several coats of black nitro and then buffed it down with steel wool. The resulting finish is kind of a semi-gloss - classier than a ratrod finish, but with a bareknuckle vibe that fits this guitar perfectly.
Neck: Maple/Maple finished in aged/tinted nitro lacquer. I love amber-tinted maple, and this one looks and feels great. It's a 12" radius with fairly standard frets. I carved it to a full D profile - Not a baseball bat by any means, but with a bit more heft and shoulder than the ubiquitous "modern C" profile. Similar to the body, I buffed the finish out with steel wool to give it a nice, smooth feel. Headstock matches the black nitro of the body, and I decided to get slightly fancy with a v-cut on the back that turned out pretty well.
Pickup: Actual Gibson P90. Best tone-for-the-buck in a P90, IMO.
Bridge: Aluminum compensated wraparound bridge. I forget the manufacturer, but it's a decent tailpiece with great tone and intonates well.
Pickguard: Mint green, custom cut by ADH to account for the deeper neck pocket he designed on this guitar. It's really, really close to the stock guard, but needed to be just a hair deeper as it curves under the strings.
What it needs: Not much. I got it to a point where it was playable and have been pretty content with it ever since. I left the nut slots a bit high until I knew the neck had settled in - Which it totally has, the tuning is unbelievably stable - so it could use a final shaping of the nut and a final fret polishing. I have a truss rod cover for it, which might need altered slightly to compensate for the handmade truss rod, and I never created a plastic oval to cover the control cavity.
Cosmetic notes: Some pick marks on the body and guard. There's a small spot on the back of the neck where I had a slight run in the nitro, sanded it back and it sprayed out a hair lighter. The main one to explain is a slight gap where the heel of the neck meets the body - I originally profiled it as ADH sent it to me, but when I decided to go with a wraparound bridge I needed to add a few degrees of setback to get proper action. In doing so, I had to trim the neck tenon a touch shorter, resulting in the bottom part of the neck moving inboard of flush. I thought about creating a small piece to fill this in - and I can send along a piece of wood if the new owner would like to do so - but I was more interested in playing it than looking at the neck heel.
SOLD
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Last edited: Mar 27, 2015 20:46:37
