Two Telecaster‑Style Bodies in Barnwood

 

Rat Bait Guitars: Two Telecaster‑Style Bodies Born from Salvage and Spirit

Bodies in the workshop, waiting for their final touch. Soon they’ll be finished off, waxed, and dropped onto eBay—two Telecaster‑style bodies are more than wood, they bring history to the party. These aren’t factory‑fresh slabs of tonewood; they’re fragments of forgotten lives, reshaped and reimagined into instruments with battle scars, and soul.

Each body is a genuine Rat Bait Guitar Body, built in October 2025 from salvaged materials and shaped in a rat‑infested shed in North Devon. They’re not showroom pieces—they’re artefacts of survival and reinvention. Their silhouette nods to the quirky Woolworths guitars of the 1960s and ’70s: Japanese‑made, budget‑friendly instruments that were once dismissed as cheap knock‑offs, only to become cult classics decades later.

This is the same spirit—taking what the world throws away and turning it into something that screams.

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Materials & Origin

Every body carries its own layered history:

• 1970s Austrian dining table – once a place of family meals, now a resonant slab of tone.

• Old roofing timber – beams that sheltered lives, now reborn as the backbone of sound.

• Exmoor Spruce – local wood with a wild edge, grounding the build in Devon’s landscape.

• Sections of an Ikea bookcase – mass‑produced flatpack, now carved into something utterly unique.

All reclaimed. All reimagined. All finished in natural beeswax, giving the wood a warm, tactile glow that honours its scars rather than hiding them.

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What Is Exmoor Spruce?

Exmoor Spruce is a native softwood found in the rugged uplands of Exmoor National Park, known for its resilience and character. Grown in harsh, wind‑beaten conditions, it develops tight grain patterns and a distinctive tonal quality that makes it ideal for musical instruments. Unlike commercial spruce varieties, Exmoor Spruce carries the imprint of its wild environment—each piece tells a story of survival, shaped by the moor’s unpredictable weather and ancient soil. It’s wood with attitude, and it fits the Rat Bait ethos perfectly.

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Specifications

• Style: Telecaster Type

• Routing: Standard Tele neck pickup + Tele bridge pickup

• Finish: Hand‑waxed, raw, and ready for players who want character over perfection

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Why Rat Bait?

Because these guitars aren’t about sterile precision. They’re about defiance. About taking discarded scraps and proving they still have a purpose. About building in a shed where the rats scuttle in the corners, and still managing to carve something that can make you look good on stage.

Each body is a reminder that music has always thrived on the margins—punk, blues, garage rock, DIY scenes. These guitars belong there too.

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Two bodies. Two chances to own a piece of reclaimed chaos. They’ll be up on eBay soon—raw, handmade, and unapologetically imperfect.