Congratulations goes out to Adam Franklin for his guitar build, to earn him Guitar of the Month for March 2026.

Adam used our FFTCK-500 kit as the basis to create his guitar.

“After my father passed away a few years ago, I wanted to build something to honor him. Something that I could look at and use and know that it came from him. So I decided to try to mod my favorite body style, which is as classic as dad was, into more of a progressive, shredder type guitar that I can really use in multiple formats.

The tele is by far my favorite body shape but because I play on my left leg, right handed, it slides awkwardly. It’s also boxy around the edges and feels uncomfortable against my ribs and my forearm. So I brought the waist on the right side in sharper to move the center of gravity closer towards the headstock. I also brought in the left hip, making the radius of that corner larger. I brought the cut out, in, well past the 24th fret. I drew the new body shape on the guitar in pencil and cut it out. The thinning profile was done with various sanding tools and grits.

I traced the wiring cavity cover onto my birch stock and did the same with the truss rod cover. I also drew out the pickguard on the same material. These were cut out and sanded down to a 600 grit.  I traced the profile of my bridge pickup over the cutout for it. Because it’s multi-scale I had to use a 7 string pickup, a 6 wasn’t long enough. I cut it out with a router. I marked and drilled the holes for the new electronics. Block sanded the entire body down to a 600 grit.

I scalloped the fretboard using varying grits of paper and varying diameter dowels, entirely by hand. It’s what I call a variant scallop. I haven’t seen it on anything else yet. It’s deepest on the first string at the 24th fret and gets shallower, corner wise, so that at the 6th string first fret it’s basically flat. I did this because when I’m chugging along on low power cords I tend to press a little bit harder and was running the risk of bending the string out of pitch. But on the higher Legato stuff, a scalloped fretboard feels faster to me, and being able to bend notes inside of chords by pressing harder is super handy.  I shaved the neck, making it thinner. More so on the 6th string side because it fits the shape of my hand better.

All of Solo’s parts have been exceptional, but just to be on the safe side I leveled the frets with a beam down to 2000 Grit. It actually didn’t take very much at all.

Because I’m using the volume control knob as a push pull selector for the pickups I didn’t need the toggle pickup selector anymore. So I covered the hole with a piece of polished coconut shell. Removing the toggle also gave me enough room for two nine volts inside the cavity. This allows me to use the tone knob as a push pull voltage selector. You can run either nine or 18 volts. There was obviously no wiring diagram on the internet for what I wanted to accomplish but DC is not very complicated and I made my own, and installed the electronics.

The bridge pickup has three different voices and a dedicated three position toggle. The next toggle is a signal ground, essentially a Kill switch. The bottom toggle, under the tone knob, is a battery kill. This way you can leave it plugged in without draining the battery. It’s under the tone because on one of my other guitars I kept hitting it with my little finger by accident.

I stained the body with a mahogany stain also from Solo guitars. I stained the fretboard with a dark finishing oil. I stained the bevels with a water-based black stain also from Solo guitars. I polished the body with a homemade beeswax sealant. I painted the inside of the wiring cavity and the pickup cavities with a copper-based shielding paint also from Solo guitars. I oiled the back of the neck with white mineral oil.

I put the whole thing together and began the setup, action and intonation. . 03 under the sixth string at the 12th fret and 0.02 under the first string at the 12th fret. No buzz anywhere, 9-46 strings at 440 A.

All In all, this guitar is an absolute joy to play and I want to thank Solo Guitars again for providing me with a unique opportunity to remember my dad

– Adam Franklin