Thought I'd try to have some fun with my current tele build and post a thread on the process.
So, my main guitar since 2006 has been a 2005 Fender Highway 1 Telecaster I got off ebay for around $500.
I loved the feel and playability of this instrument, but was never completely happy with the sound. The bridge pickup sounded good enough, but even after trying a few different pickups, I was never able to find something I really liked in the neck position. Everything was too muddy, not enough bite, and didn't balance with the bridge pickup the way I wanted it to (i.e. dialing the sound I wanted on the bridge pickup made the neck sound worse). I also decided that I wanted to add a little wiggle to it via a Bigsby. Eventually, I met a guy playing an alder Strat with 2 P-90's in it; the neck pickup sound in that thing was right along the lines of what I was looking for. About that same time, I played some of the Fender Road Worn series guitars and some other "relic'd" guitars and found myself completely sold on the feel of these instruments, if not so much the look. My '94 Stratocaster with that old polyester finish still looks and feels brand new. I can't stand it. Plus, the plastic-ey finish sticks to my arms when I sweat. Hate that too. These thin, worn down nitro finishes feel so good to me - gotta have it. So I decided I had to have a tele with a P-90 in the neck, with a Bigsby, and a thin nitro finish. No problem, right? My Hwy 1 Tele is thin nitro and I've worn it down over the years. My dilemma was that I really liked my guitar, and being the weird-o softy I am sometimes
, couldn't bring myself to desecrate this fine instrument by routing and screwing in mods other people might find useless. So I decided to start from scratch and leave my guitar alone.
A year or so ago, I came across a 1973 F-Logo Bigsby B5 for auction (the year I was born!). I low-balled the auction and ended up winning it for < $75. Sweet! The hunt begins.
After considering lots of different types Telecasters, and falling deeply in love with Fano Alt De Facto guitars, I fell into an obsession with MJT's work on the double bound black teles I kept finding in their eBay auctions. Like this:
I finally formed a solid plan. I had a '73 B5 to build the project around, I now needed to have a black, double bound, alder tele body, with a P-90 in the neck, and MJT could finish a guitar and hardware for me to roughly match the condition of the old Bigsby. I get the feel I want from the finish, amenities I've convinced myself I "need", and I can pretend that the aging process on the guitar is legit because I have a vintage part on the guitar, made the same year I was, that everything is being matched to. Check out what they did for Matt with his Clarence White tele:
http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=32066
With a plan set in stone, I viciously low-balled (yes, I'm cheap!) every black double bound MJT auction in 2011, to no avail. Every damned one of those things went for $650+ which was out of my budget. Finally, July came and the band was flush with half a dozen decent to well-paying gigs. Plus, my wife and son went on vacation for half the month while I stayed home to work, and I was able to crank out a half-dozen pedals to sell. At the end of the month, I found myself with a healthy nut to spend as I pleased, and then a couple of eBay gift certificates were awarded to me for my birthday in early August. Sweet! I bit the bullet, contacted MJT and ordered a neck/body/hardware kit straight from them.
Man, talk about customer service! Working with MJT has been an absolute pleasure! They are extremely customer oriented and will hold your hand through the entire process. I sent them photos of my B5 for matching the hardware, a Bigsby tele bridge plate to age in lieu of an ashtray bridge, and a custom headstock decal I had made up that they are going to install under the finish coats. Matt with MJT just sent me photos of the body yesterday to check that the wear pattern is what I'm looking for. Here's the actual body with no clear coat applied yet.
Perfect! I tell you, that wear pattern is nearly exactly like my 2005 Hwy 1. Same amount of fore arm rub that I wore into my guitar, no weird simulated buckle rash on the back that I never get myself. Sweet!
More to come as things trickle in. Man, I can't wait for this thing to get here.
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We got inspired after seeing these guys do the song about a month ago. I sure ain't no Scott Law on the tele though! 
My current approach is this: