"Brown Sugar" - Keith Richards (Micawber) Inspired CBG

 

After building this one, I no longer have much faith in claims of "tone woods", because this one NAILS the tone from The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up"...


I had an aging Telecaster neck pulled off an actual Tele, along with the bridge, control plate and enough other bits and pieces to put together a rough yet regal CBG that could pay tribute to arguably one of the (if not THE) most beloved Telecasters of all time.


Of course, to be right, it HAD to have the all-maple neck and a PAF style humbucker in the neck position (flipped with the polepieces away from the neck).


The middle control knob is for a hidden passive piezo "acoustic" pickup under the lid, and in addition to the 3-way switch you get a volume for the magnetic pickups and a master tone control. The deep box allowed me to use a "strat-style" jack (the "football" jack), and also was a good opportunity to use these heftier corner protectors too. I used a seasoned maple plank to make the center-block. This Undercrown box was a real booger to work with, very fibrous and difficult to cut cleanly, but turned out well. Once I had all the cavities cut out, I gave it a once-over with some tung-oil-finish to seal it, and that also gave it a slight tint as well. 


I removed the 6th string bridge saddle and tuner, as this was meant to be a 5-string, open-G tuned guitar just like Keef's "Micawber" Telecaster, but yes, I kept the parts with the guitar in case the new owner should they want to make this a regular ol' 6-string [yawn]. ***SOLD 11/18/25 - Thank you, Melissa!

Very happy to see this one go to a good home, and I may end up revisiting this platform in one way or another for a future build.

HL
Location: W4WVK Studios

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