New Hybrid Telecaster - mine!

I've been meeting up with guitar designer Simon Raw for almost 2 months now, I guess. We share 3 common interests: The Blues, Guitars & Coffee. We regularly meet in Starbucks in Darlington while Simon shows me his latest guitar designs and I try not to drool on his laptop! Last week I tweeted randomly - "Could do with a new guitar" or some such thing. Imagine my surprise when Simon responded that he had a guitar that might just be for me. He went on to decribe a wonderful guitar - Les Paul shaped and hybrid (acoustic pickup and a humbucker) He sent me pictures and I dreamed of owning that guitar. Then, after some clarification, Simon said that he wanted me to have the guitar. Have the guitar. For Free!

I was gobsmacked and we arranged a meet up at our regular haunt. I could barely contain myself as the hour approached and my wife and I settled in some comfy seats at Starbucks. I was in the queue ordering Simon a coffee when he came in, so I beckoned him to sit with my wife. I could see that he had a guitar with him, but couldn't see any details. As I returned to our seats, Simon said "I hope you won't feel too disappointed, but when I went to collect the guitar I was going to give you, I was told that somebody wanted to buy it. So I've brought you this one instead" and revealed the Telecaster you see here. I was even more gobsmacked, as Simon had remembered from a previous conversation that I was really a Tele lover, and mourned the sale of my last guitar, an ESP Tele. So, I repeat - Simon gave me the guitar! As a gift! I was speechless in Starbucks! We gathered a small crowd of youngsters as I lost myself in the beauty of the beast and picked a few chords and riffs. The guitar is wonderful, and I am in deep gratitude to Simon.

The body is made from Basswood with book matched Flame Maple top and was made by Neil Shoemark who works near Glastonbury - Neil makes fantastic guitar bodies to order.
The neck and fretboard is made from Ebony and is fitted with Gotoh 510 tuners and was bought direct from US licensed Fender dealer, Musikraft, who are based in New Jersey and Jim Fleeting did the techie bits. The acoustic bridge has a Fishman piezo ceramic pickup underneath it, for acoustic sounds, and the humbucker is a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck model. The controls are concentric volume and tone for each pickup. At the moment the Fishman isn't working and I suspect a wiring fault, which I'll get sorted very soon. But the guitar feels great, a nice action to allow me to fingerpick when I get the pickup working, but also low enough for the small amount of bending that I do when playing electric. The humbucker sounds wonderful - beefy , singing and glorious. When both pickups are working I'll post some audio files. I can't wait to try this out with a band - I guess I'll need to sit in on a few gigs!