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Body Style	Body Wood	Neck Wood	Fbd. Wood	Scale	Frets	Pickups	Switching	Neck Joint	Strings	Weight	Price
Z2-T	Pine (one piece)	Maple	Pau Ferro	25.5"	24 Large/Medium *Dual Size	Neck: Fender Nocaster Bridge: S. Duncan STL1 Bradcaster	Master Volume 3-way pickup select	Screwed	ZOG 9+ RW	7 lb	$2700 with case

The theme here is simplicity, rawness. purity and living matter. No body contouring was done to give homage to the first Telecasters or even earlier Fender prototypes. Simplicity really turns me on. Just a slab of wood with a neck on it with simple wiring. Holes routed and pickups just place into these holes. Sounds easy but only a fool would thing its easy. The roughness of this piece conceals the precision of the fit of the parts, the various details in design, which may not be apparent and the workmanship under the weathered look. I used my Transparent Watercolor experience to finish this guitar being able to work with negative space, separate layers and creating texture in the finish. One of the interesting details is the pickguard, which may not be known to the unschooled but its made of the original Bakelite fibre material used by Fender for the first 4 years of Telecaster production. These early Teles and the most collectable were called the Blackguards for obvious reason. After these black Bakelite fibre pickguards, Fender switched to the more modern white plastic. Incidentally, if you are clever to notice, these Bakelite sheets are the same material used by Fender to also make the pickup bobbins and is still used for vintage reissue pickups. Quite appropriately, I chose the exact reissue period correct pickups to compliment this instrument.

By the way, have you ever seen a current Fender 52 reissue Telecaster. Its a plastic atrocity which is a total disgrace in every way. Leo would be horrified. Who buys this crap? I think circle jerks from the Telecaster and Fender forums do. They must love 'em.

A stupid circle jerk from one of these forums contacted me recently, just to tell me that the talents of Suhr, Grosh and Anderson dwarf my own talents. This is totally laughable and not even possible. I don’t mind being criticized but it must be factual or you will look like the moron your father always said you were. The only problem is that these three business owners have never actually built a guitar in their life and would not even know where to start if their CNC machines was taken away. I think circle jerks will have to find themselves other heroes to respect and worship, those who deserve adulation. In fact, these phonies don’t even work on any aspect of their guitars. Why would they, it would be absurd for them to do so. When it comes off the CNC programmed machines, some blowboy sands away the CNC tooling marks, another blowboy does the fretting, another blowboy paints them and another blowboy assembles the kit guitar for you. These three phony luthiers do make the payroll, which is a great accomplishment in itself these days. So admire them for possibly still being in business and paying their taxes but don’t admire them for any guitar making skills because that is not something they can do. Circle jerks, I can tell you this; your tired old Grosh, Suhr and Anderson kit guitars were never even touched by your heroes, whose name is on the headstock. You schmuck you, Reality is NOT something you will learn on a guitar forum. Consider yourself smarter now. You get free education from this web site once again. Show some gratitude for a change.
Do you want to see real guitar building? This web site is virtually the only place where you will ever see the accomplishments of one person actually building guitars, something very rare and what only a few people in the world can even do.
Actually, I am your Hero ... even if your small ego will not allow you to admit it. Come to think of it, I am also my own Hero. I really admire what I do and what I have done, in a world full of such ignorance and adversity. I could have become just another circle jerk but instead chose the road less traveled. Don't try this at home; you will hurt yourself emotionally.

I have to say my faves are the tele type models that are NFS on the bottom row. LOVE that design.   Phil X

Alex, You have once again out done yourself. I can only imagine the sound and playability of this remarkable looking instrument (180312). You must have a large room full of these NFS guitars. It defies comprehension that you're not getting your door beaten down by professionals the world over. Your remarkable competence (and astounding arrogance ;-D) makes me wish I could be worthy of owning such a fine guitar. Having lurked on your site for a number of years now, I guess I'll just have to settle for your fine guitar strings. A long time ago you convinced me of the futility of buying commercially produced instruments. You prove this again and again with accolades from fine players everywhere. My own luthiery experience is limited to set up. Having never had the opportunity to play one of your guitars leaves me with the frustrating idea that even that would be left lacking. Hmmm. I just want you to know that I come to your site at least once a month to see the wonderful work that you do. I envy the people that are fortunate enough to own one. You FUCKIN' ROCK! I don't care what other people say. Keep making your fantastic guitars!   Peace, Bill

Hi Alex, Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed the last two ZT pics you posted. Wonderful craftsmanship and attention to detail, I wouldn’t expect any less from you. Very thoughtful Tele’s with the “old world” aesthetic and ethic. Rough/satin surfaces (on 050312) are a nice and refreshing change on the hardware and guard.    Yordys

just dropping a line to say, nicely done. All of it.and that Fender 60th...holy shit.   Cheers.   Kip

Your Dandelion guitar is just my style. It's perfect. And I don't even like yellow. Ted Noiz

Hi Alex,   I've been a fan of your work for years, and it's refreshing to see an actual luthier who builds his OWN designs from the ground up. When I cmpare a Z2 to a Stratocaster, it makes the Strat look dated, like a '56 Chevy, cool, but not something that's going to outrun a Jaguar. And your ZT series, it's like the Tele was given a chance to evolve. The old designs are cool, and work for the most part, but I fail to see what's wrong with things progressing. For example, ask a modern fighter pilot which plane he'd rather fly in combat today, a Spitfire or a F-35 ? Keep up the fine work and innovations,
A longtime fan, Doug

Thanks for your thoughts Doug. You are of course dead on right about all your points.
The Tele really needed an upgrade. That lower horn is not only ugly, its also useless and actually limits high fret access. The ZT has amazing high fret access.
Also, many Teles are quite heavy and the ZT rear swoosh cutout drops its weight without sacrificing the feel or even the overall shape of a Tele.
The idea is to keep all the essential characteristics and signature tone of the Tele but to get rid of what is not needed or is stupid design.
Nothing about guitar consumers is rational unfortunately, this is why the large manufactures can control them so easily.

You probably know why no guitar media picked up on the new modern ZT Tele innovations and reported on it. The ZT may just wipe out the old tired Tele altogether if people were made aware of it.
Its nasty how they keep you guitar enthusiasts from knowing about certain things and only give you carefully sellected news. I wonder what they are afraid of? It makes me sick actually what is happening. It is their duty to report whatever is happening in the guitar world and the ZT is major news. You can guess who owns the guitar magazines.    Alex

 

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