2020s Karge B-Bender Tele-Style Electric Guitar

Update: Here's a note from the builder I received -- thank you! -- "Hello Jake, The pickups in the Karge B-Bender you have listed are both made by Nate Lord of Lord guitars. The neck is a mini humbucker speced off a Gibson ‘76 rewind he had in for repair at the time and the bridge is his take on a hot rail. Hope you don’t mind my giving up the unsolicited info. Good luck, Randy Springis"

Tone: It's clean-sounding and pushed in the mids. On a nice bright amp it will do the country twang thing, though with a sweetened edge. It seems to be a "suits all needs" loadout as it will definitely do rawk right out of the gate, too.

Feel: The neck is on the heftier side for a Tele and, while it's very close to "modern Fender" specs and feel, I think the "shoulders" of the neck are a little fatter.

Interesting features: There's a Parsons/Green-style B-Bender installed and setup to bend the B-string up to a C# when engaged. For anyone remotely interested in Clarence White-era Byrds sounds and the like, this is the device to have. It also has a "relic'd" finish with crackled-up nitro finish all over the shell pink body. The neck is finished in a yellowed/antiqued-looking clearcoat and the back of the neck has thinned-up finish to give it a faster feel. The body binding adds some class and the neck itself is awfully pretty -- it's two-piece flamed maple with a board/top stack of layers reminiscent of '20s banjo neck builds.

Repairs included: It's had a fret level/dress, restring, setup, and other minor adjustments.

• Maker: Karge (Boston-area)
• Model: T-style
• Body style: solidbody
• Weight: 8 lbs 0 oz
• Scale length: 25 1/2"
• Nut width: 1 11/16"
• Neck shape: med-full C
• Board radius: 9 1/2"
• Body width: 12 3/4"
• Body depth: 1 3/4"
• Body wood: swamp ash(?)
• Bridge: traditional 3-saddle w/compensated saddles
• Fretboard: maple
• Neck wood: figured maple (2 piece)
• Pickups: 1x Nate Lord mini-humbucker at neck, 1x Nate Lord rails pickup bridge
• Action height at 12th fret: 1/16” overall (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 46w-10
• Truss rod: adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: medium-bigger

Condition notes: It's almost a new guitar but the relic job and aged hardware makes that non-obvious. There are a couple of tiny finish chips around the cover for the B-bender rout on the back (presumably from opening it), but otherwise any wear and tear is something I'm not seeing on it. The only non-original part is the switch tip -- a '50s one we added from my parts-bins.

It comes with: Sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: CHJ