The next instalment of my hand made TMI Custom guitars is the one I had in my head to make for my anniversary and the last for my 25th "silver" anniversary year, hence the finish.
I've actually been wanting to make this guitar for ages. As you well know I LOVE the Mosrite Ventures and while I've made many exact copies and close approximations over the years, I've always wanted to make a bound slab body version of the full Mk I with a ... fancy finish.
This one, like all my TMI guitars is a chambered body made from local, sustainably grown, cut and processed laminated pine that is processed for me by a local business 10 minutes from my workshop. The bodies are cut and shaped by hand with internal bracing and blocks integrated before being glued together.
This one was traced directly off one of my original '65 Ventures models and is 42mm thick with binding on the top edge. It is mostly hollow with an 8mm rim and centre block running in varying thicknesses from the neck pocket to the back strap pin. The neck, pickups and bridge/tailpiece are all anchored to this block.
The neck is my usual 5-piece mahogany laminate with a bound, 23 1/2 fret Indian rosewood fretboard with zero fret running a 16" radius. The construction is all Mosrite with large volute and thick tenon running under the neck pickup. It is a "tiny" bit thicker than a Mosrite neck (I know everyone doesn't love those toothpicks like I do) at 40mm at the string guide and 52mm at the body end and 20mm deep from 1st to 12th fret. It has fret-end binding and small dot markers in the original Mosrite arrangement. The string guide is multi laminated plastic and it has Grover style Gotoh tuners.
The pickups are my hand made Tym '64 Wosrite pickups made to exact original early 60's Mosrite specifications including wooden bobbins and segmented alnico magnets all assembled into hand formed plastic covers. The bridge pickup I wound with AWG44 and is 13.5K and the neck pickup is matched at 10.4K. Both have handmade multi laminate plastic surrounds.
The bridge is a modified aftermarket Ric style chrome plated brass bridge with a 50mm string spacing and is mounted on a handmade aluminum hard tailpiece heavily inspired by the Moseley hardtail that Semie used on some of his Mosrites.
The scratchplate is a handmade 6 ply plate with the typical 3-way selector switch and master volume and tone controls with the middle position being out of phase.
The body and neck are finished in my usual acrylic lacquer with a pearly metallic silver base coat (a Lexus colour) with a black silverburst rim and then over sprayed with a coat of course aluminium fleck under the clear topcoats. It's hard to see in the pics but the aluminium fleck really stands out under light.
Like all the TMI guitars I've made this year it is signed and dated under the finish on the back of the headstock and is serial number 0140 which is stamped into the fretboard.
This is my 4th TMI Custom this year with the LPS back at the start of the year, followed by the JRS SB75 and the CBK both in October. I have 4 more TMI Customs in varying stages of completion that will be coming early/mid next year as i find time with (hopefully) more to follow as I get time. While I can't say these will ever be more readily available as i make everything here by hand by myself, I will say that getting back into building guitars again has been great for my puny brain after the last couple of years.
This will be available on the site soon after it's settled in, and I've given it a final setup. Keep an eye on my NEWS feed for updates.
