Keith

I was just reading in the 2005 "Six Decades of the Fender Telecaster" book that Fender™ makes Keith exact 'Relic' copies of all his favorite 50's Teles. This includes the neck coloring, which will eventually wear off. Dennis Galuzska from the custom shop informed me that the uses Lemon Oil to acheive this effect (vs. 50 years of hand sweat, grease, food and blood). So whereas the look is exactly the same as a 50's Tele fretboard, it doesn't wear the same after MANY hours (think Keith on stage, touring from country to country). What does Keith do... probably sends it to Fender for an oil change. I also recognized something new about my John Cruz '56 Tele copy (that I have spoken about previously)... the frets are either new frets that are lower than usual, or they have been artificially worn down. This makes sense, since the edges of the fretboard are rolled. Call me dumb, but I never noticed this before. My luthier informed me that you can generally get three or four 'dressing' jobs on the frets... over the lifetime of your original fret job...this pretty much erases those unsightly, ugly 'holes' left in the frets, from lots of play, in specific areas on the neck. To a novice, this might fool them that the frets are new... but they are not. As I say, frets can be 'leveled' a few times, before you get into the first re-fret on your beloved instrument (that you want to be buried with). So where is all this going? 'Relic' guitars are just that... I have realized that they look very close to the real things (darn close, with John Cruz and Dennis at the custom shop), but since they are artificially done, they will not continue to age the same as an original as they are played (and sweated on) by you. Is this a problem... well, not if you accept them for what they are... Keith uses them, and they sound amazing, and look amazing.. and stand in for a $40K guitar that might be not only a worry on stage to leave lying around, but slightly unreliable to play (I was at a Jeff Beck concert some time ago... and his guitar was severely acting up.. leading to a really nice guy getting down on his knees at the Hollywood Bowl and raising his fist to the sky....