25.5                Scale Length

42mm            Nut width

H                     Single Humbucker w/ coil splitting  14.2 ohm / 7.4 ohm

7.3 lbs.           Weight

22                    Frets

9.5                   Fretboard Radius

Rosewood     Fretboard material

Red                 Color ( Transparent Red )

1.5mm           Action at 12th Fret

Right Handed Player

X    Deep cleaning

X    Electronics cleaned / tested

X    Tuners Serviced

X    Fretboard cleaned / hydrated

X    Neck adjusted

X    Intonation adjusted

X    Setup complete

X    Body buffed / polished

Upgrades and Modifications

This Indiana Red Tell City received a comprehensive rebuild focused on correcting the neck and truss-rod condition found during intake, renewing the fretwork, upgrading the electronics and hardware, and improving the overall appearance and long-term playability of the instrument.

Neck, Truss Rod and Fretwork

The most significant work began with the neck. During the initial assessment, the truss rod showed unusually high resistance and released in sudden movements when adjustment was attempted. Inspection of the adjustment area showed that the access opening provided inadequate clearance for the Allen wrench and appeared to be contributing to the binding.

The access area was carefully relieved to provide proper clearance around the adjustment tool. A small amount of machine oil was then applied to the truss-rod mechanism and allowed approximately two days to penetrate while the neck was positioned vertically. The neck was subsequently reversed so that any excess lubricant could wick away into an absorbent pad rather than remain pooled around the adjustment area.

Once serviced, the truss rod was gradually worked through its usable adjustment range until movement became smooth and controllable. It was never forced beyond points of mechanical resistance. With the strings removed, the neck was then adjusted to a neutral, straight position in preparation for the fretboard and fret work.

The neck was progressively wet-sanded using boiled linseed oil, beginning at 400 grit and continuing through 1200 grit. Controlled heat was used between sanding stages as part of the oil-treatment process. After the final sanding, three additional applications of boiled linseed oil were applied over approximately 24 hours to further condition and finish the wood.

The fretboard edges were carefully rolled to soften the transition along the sides of the neck and provide a more comfortable, played-in feel. The fretboard itself was then progressively dry-sanded from 320 through 1000 grit in preparation for the installation of a new set of Jescar nickel-silver medium-jumbo frets. Once installed, the frets were leveled as required, crowned, dressed, and polished to produce a smooth and consistent playing surface.

A new bone nut was then individually fitted to the instrument. Each string slot was hand-cut and adjusted for proper string height and spacing before the nut was shaped and progressively polished through 2500 grit.

The original tuners were replaced with Guyker Professional 18:1 locking tuners, and new string trees were installed to complete the headstock upgrades.

After the guitar was fully assembled and restrung to pitch, the neck was allowed to settle under normal string tension. The truss rod was then used during the final setup to establish a slight amount of forward relief appropriate for normal playing. At completion of the rebuild, the truss rod was functional and capable of controlled neck adjustment.

Bridge and Tremolo

The original bridge was replaced with a Wilkinson WOV01 vintage-style tremolo bridge equipped with a 13 × 36 mm tremolo block.

The tremolo was configured for down-only operation, providing controlled downward pitch movement while maintaining a stable resting position against the body. The bridge, neck relief, saddle height, action, and intonation were then adjusted together as part of the final setup.

Electronics

The original electronics were replaced and the control system was rebuilt around a new Fleor Alnico 5 humbucker.

A new A500K push/pull volume potentiometer was installed and fitted with a custom grounding bar. This provides dedicated termination points for ground connections rather than accumulating multiple solder joints across the back and sides of the potentiometer.

The push/pull control was wired to provide the additional switching function available from the humbucker, expanding the tonal options beyond the original single-humbucker configuration. A treble-bleed circuit was also added to help retain high-frequency clarity as the guitar's volume is reduced.

A full-size Bourns A500K tone potentiometer was installed with a .022 µF tone capacitor, and the output connection was upgraded to a Switchcraft jack. Cloth-covered pushback wire was used throughout the control circuit except where the pickup's factory lead wiring was retained.

To help reduce unwanted electrical interference, shielding was added to both the electronics cavity and the back of the pickguard. Copper foil was used within the body cavity to create a more thoroughly shielded electronics environment than the guitar originally received.

Body and Hardware

The red body finish received a multi-stage paint correction using a dual-action polisher. The goal was not to remove every mark accumulated during the guitar's life, but to reduce lighter surface scratches and restore greater depth, clarity, and gloss to the existing finish.

New mushroom-style strap buttons were also installed to complete the external hardware upgrades.

Following completion of the rebuild, the guitar was fitted with a fresh set of Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10–46 strings and received its final neck relief, action, tremolo, and intonation adjustments.

Upgrade and Modification Summary

• Truss-rod access area relieved for proper adjustment-tool clearance

• Truss-rod mechanism lubricated and restored to controlled operation

• Neck adjusted and set for final playing relief

• Fretboard refinished and conditioned with boiled linseed oil

• Fretboard edges rolled

• New Jescar nickel-silver medium-jumbo frets

• New hand-fitted and hand-slotted bone nut

• New Guyker Professional 18:1 locking tuners

• New string trees

• New Wilkinson WOV01 vintage-style tremolo bridge

• 13 × 36 mm tremolo block

• Tremolo configured for down-only operation

• New Fleor Alnico 5 humbucker

• New A500K push/pull volume potentiometer

• Custom grounding bar

• New full-size Bourns A500K tone potentiometer

• Treble-bleed circuit

• .022 µF tone capacitor

• Cloth-covered pushback wiring

• Pickguard shielding

• Copper-foil body-cavity shielding

• New Switchcraft output jack

• New mushroom-style strap buttons

• Multi-stage finish correction and polishing

• New Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10–46 strings

• Complete final setup, action adjustment, and intonation

A Fictional History — The Guitar That Waited on the Wall

When this red Indiana Tell City arrived at Back From the Dead Guitars from Colorado in late February 2026, the first question that came to mind was not what was wrong with it, but why it was there at all. The guitar was unusually clean. Its bright red finish had survived remarkably well, the hardware showed little evidence of neglect, and visually it looked more like an instrument that had spent years being carefully stored than one that had been played hard and eventually worn out. Indiana Tell City guitars also do not appear for sale nearly as often as many other inexpensive Strat-style instruments, making it even more unusual to find one in this condition through a charity auction.

At first, I simply wondered why somebody had donated it. Then I put it on the bench. The action was high, and when I attempted to adjust the truss rod, it resisted movement before releasing suddenly instead of turning smoothly. Once the guitar was taken apart, I also found a shim in the neck pocket that appeared to have been used during an earlier attempt to change the neck angle and lower the action. That discovery began to suggest what this guitar's earlier life might have looked like.

Perhaps somebody in Colorado bought the Indiana new. There may have been no reason to suspect a problem at first. It probably looked great hanging in the store, and when first brought home it may have played perfectly well. New guitars do not always require immediate neck adjustments, and for a while there may have been nothing to indicate that anything was wrong. It was simply a bright red electric guitar waiting to be played.

Then the seasons changed. Colorado's shifts in humidity, indoor heating, temperature and normal string tension may gradually have changed the relief of the neck until the action began to rise. Under ordinary circumstances this would have called for little more than a minor truss-rod adjustment and a normal setup. Except this truss rod did not want to move.

By then, perhaps the store's return period had passed. Maybe the owner brought it to somebody who knew enough about guitars to recognize the high action but was not prepared to tackle a stubborn truss rod. Looking for another solution, they may have changed the neck angle by adding a shim to the pocket. For a while, perhaps it helped. But a shim could compensate only so far. It could alter geometry, but it could not correct the underlying problem inside the neck.

Eventually the guitar may have reached an awkward stage in its life. It was too attractive to throw away, too unusual to forget about, yet not functioning well enough to confidently sell to another player. So perhaps it went on the wall. There, the red Indiana slowly became less of an everyday instrument and more of a conversation piece. Visitors might notice it and ask what it was. Someone might occasionally take it down, play it for a few minutes, remember why it had ended up hanging there, and return it to its place.

Years may have passed that way, and that possibility would help explain the condition in which the guitar eventually reached me. An instrument that had been heavily played for many years usually tells that story through worn frets, damaged hardware, deep scratches and thousands of smaller marks accumulated through use. This one did not. It looked more like a guitar that had spent a large portion of its life simply existing, protected but waiting.

Then something changed. Perhaps there was a move, a change in employment, a downsizing of a home, or simply the point at which years of accumulated possessions finally had to be sorted. Furniture, tools and household belongings could easily be sold or given away, but the unusual red guitar presented a different problem. Selling it honestly would require explaining the neck-adjustment issue. Repairing it might cost more than the owner wanted to invest in an instrument that had already spent years hanging on a wall. Throwing it away would have seemed wasteful.

Donation offered another answer. The guitar could leave with the other unwanted belongings, provide some benefit to a charitable organization, and perhaps eventually find its way to somebody willing to take on the problem. So the Indiana Tell City entered the donation system and eventually appeared in an online auction. That is where I found it.

From the auction photographs I could see the remarkable condition of the body and knew how seldom these Tell City guitars appeared on the open market. What I could not see was the problem waiting inside the neck. The auction ended, the guitar left Colorado, and in late February 2026 it arrived at my shop in Michigan. Once the truss-rod problem revealed itself, the mystery of why such a clean and unusual guitar had reached a charity auction suddenly made much more sense.

This time, however, the answer would not be another shim and another few years on the wall. The neck was taken apart for proper evaluation. The truss-rod access was corrected, the mechanism was serviced and gradually brought back into controlled operation. The old frets were removed and replaced with new Jescar nickel-silver frets, followed by a hand-fitted bone nut. The original tuners, bridge, pickup and basic electronics were replaced with locking tuners, a Wilkinson tremolo system, an Alnico 5 humbucker, upgraded controls and push/pull coil splitting.

By the time the work was complete, the guitar that had arrived as an interesting but compromised rarity had become something very different. Its neck could once again be adjusted correctly. It could be properly set up. Most importantly, it could finally be used the way a guitar was supposed to be used.

The history before its arrival in Michigan is fictional. I do not know who originally bought it, whether it truly spent years hanging on a wall, whether a move prompted its donation, or whether the neck-pocket shim was the result of an earlier attempt to work around the difficult truss rod. What I do know is that it arrived from Colorado in late February 2026 in remarkably good cosmetic condition with high action, a difficult truss rod and evidence that somebody before me had tried to compensate for the neck geometry.

And I know what happened next.

The guitar was not discarded, and it was not simply cleaned up and passed along with its problems hidden. It was taken apart, evaluated, repaired and rebuilt so that it could once again serve as an instrument rather than an ornament.

For however many years this Indiana Tell City may have spent being looked at instead of played, that part of its life is now over.

Its next owner will not be receiving a guitar meant to decorate a wall. They will be receiving one rebuilt to finally leave it.

Initial Intake Assessment

This Indiana Tell City arrived from Colorado in mid-February 2026 and was immediately unboxed and photographed as part of the normal intake process. At first appearance, the bright red body was in surprisingly good cosmetic condition, with a clean, glossy finish and relatively little obvious wear. The headstock, however, carried a noticeable layer of dust, suggesting that the body may have been cleaned or wiped down before the auction photographs were taken rather than the entire guitar having been recently serviced.

The guitar arrived missing the high B and E strings. This is not unusual for instruments purchased through charity auction sites and, by itself, was not considered an indication of a larger problem.

Initial Setup and Playability

Once placed on the bench, the guitar showed noticeably high string action. An initial attempt to adjust the truss rod revealed considerable resistance. As controlled pressure was applied, the adjustment released in several sudden pops before beginning to move more normally. Because of that resistance, further aggressive adjustment was avoided until the neck could be removed and evaluated more carefully.

Before disassembly, the guitar was tested in the condition in which it arrived. Despite the high action, the existing frets did not produce any obvious fret buzz during the initial playing test. The single volume and tone controls also operated correctly, and the humbucker produced a clean signal without an obvious electronic failure.

Tremolo and Bridge

The tremolo system was functional in principle but was poorly set up for normal use.

The combination of the original plastic nut, high action and incorrectly adjusted bridge screws made smooth tremolo movement difficult. The tremolo arm was also threaded unusually deep into the bridge assembly. When I attempted to raise its resting position by backing it out, the arm began to bind after only a few turns.

Taken together, the bridge and tremolo required more than a routine setup before I would consider the system dependable for regular use.

Tuners and Existing Hardware

One of the more positive surprises was the original tuner set.

The tuners had a very good mechanical feel, with appropriate resistance while turning and no noticeable slop or backlash in either direction. There was no visible pitting or corrosion, and the mounting hardware showed little indication that the tuners had previously been removed.

Although they would ultimately be replaced as part of the planned rebuild, their intake condition suggested that the guitar had not suffered from prolonged exposure to excessive moisture or poor storage conditions.

Neck Pocket and Construction

Disassembly revealed a shim installed in the neck pocket. Its position appeared intended to alter the neck angle in an effort to bring the action into a more usable range. Considering the resistance found in the truss rod and the unusually high action at intake, it is possible that an earlier owner or technician had attempted to compensate for the neck condition through neck-angle adjustment rather than addressing the underlying cause directly.

The body itself revealed another interesting feature. The electronics cavity had been routed into an almost complete bathtub-style opening, providing considerably more open space beneath the pickguard than the simple single-humbucker configuration requires.

There are visual indications that the cavity may have been enlarged or reworked from an earlier routing pattern. Whether this occurred during factory production or during later work cannot be confirmed, so I would not represent it as a known manufacturing correction. What can be stated is that the routing is unusual for such a simple electronics layout.

The body wood visible inside the cavity appears to be a particularly attractive and substantial piece of wood, making preservation of the original body worthwhile.

Original Electronics

The guitar arrived with a single ceramic humbucker measuring approximately 8.9 kΩ.

The control system was extremely simple: one volume control, one tone control and no pickup selector switch. Both potentiometers were small dime-sized units with no visible manufacturer identification.

The electronics were clean and operational, with no significant corrosion or evidence of moisture intrusion. Although functional, the components were consistent with the economical hardware expected in an entry-level instrument and left considerable room for improvement.

Overall Intake Assessment

The most significant issue discovered during intake was the condition of the neck and truss rod.

The guitar was technically playable when it arrived, but the combination of high action, a previously installed neck-pocket shim and substantial initial resistance in the truss rod meant that I did not consider the instrument ready for resale in its existing condition.

At the same time, the guitar presented an unusually strong foundation for a more extensive rebuild. The body was attractive and well preserved, the basic structure remained sound, and Indiana Tell City instruments appear on the used market far less frequently than many other inexpensive Strat-style guitars.

For that reason, the decision was made not to perform a minimal repair.

Instead, this guitar would receive a comprehensive makeover. The plan included resolving the neck and truss-rod concerns, refinishing and conditioning the playing surfaces, installing new frets and a bone nut, replacing the electronics and major hardware, improving the tremolo system, and completing a full professional-style setup.

The objective was to preserve the identity and unusual character of the original Indiana Tell City while rebuilding the instrument into a guitar capable of dependable everyday, recording and stage use.

This Indiana Red Tell City is a used instrument that has received an extensive rebuild and now presents in very good overall cosmetic and playing condition. It is not being represented as mint, factory-original, or untouched. The purpose of the restoration was to preserve the identity and distinctive appearance of this uncommon guitar while substantially improving its playability, reliability, hardware, and electronics.

Cosmetic Condition

The bright red body remains in very good condition for a used guitar. A multi-stage finish correction was performed with a dual-action polisher to reduce lighter surface scratching and restore depth and gloss to the existing finish.

Minor random scratches and signs of normal handling remain when the guitar is examined closely or under direct lighting. Most are difficult to see from approximately an arm's distance and do not significantly detract from the overall appearance of the instrument.

The guitar should therefore be considered a very well-presented used instrument rather than a flawless or new example.

Neck, Frets and Hardware

The neck and playing surfaces received extensive restoration work. The fretboard was refinished and conditioned, the edges were rolled for a more comfortable feel, and the original frets were replaced with new Jescar nickel-silver medium-jumbo frets. The new frets were crowned, dressed, and polished as part of the final setup.

A new hand-fitted bone nut was installed with individually cut string slots. The original tuners were replaced with Guyker Professional 18:1 locking tuners, and new string trees were installed.

The original bridge was replaced with a Wilkinson WOV01 vintage-style tremolo bridge with a 13 × 36 mm tremolo block. The tremolo is currently configured for down-only operation to provide controlled downward pitch movement while maintaining a stable resting position.

Electronics and Sound

The original ceramic humbucker and basic electronics have been replaced.

The guitar now uses a Fleor Alnico 5 humbucker with a stronger output and fuller response than the original pickup. It is connected to an A500K push/pull volume control, allowing the humbucker to operate normally or be coil-split for an additional brighter, lower-output tonal option.

A full-size Bourns A500K tone control, .022 µF tone capacitor, treble-bleed circuit, cloth-covered wiring, custom grounding arrangement, additional shielding, and Switchcraft output jack were also incorporated into the rebuild.

These modifications give the guitar considerably more tonal flexibility and upgraded electrical components compared with its original single-humbucker factory configuration.

Because of these changes, this guitar should not be purchased by someone specifically seeking an original or historically untouched Indiana Tell City. The modifications are intentional and form an important part of what this particular instrument has become.

Important Truss Rod Disclosure

The truss rod deserves specific disclosure because it presented a known issue when the guitar arrived.

During the initial intake assessment, the truss rod was unusually resistant to adjustment and would release in sudden movements rather than turning smoothly. The guitar also arrived with high action and a neck-pocket shim that appeared to have been previously used to compensate for the neck setup.

The original truss rod was not replaced.

Instead, the problem was addressed by carefully relieving the wood around the truss-rod access opening to provide proper clearance for the Allen wrench. The mechanism was lubricated and allowed an extended period for penetration, after which the truss rod was gradually worked through its usable adjustment range until controlled adjustment was restored.

The neck was then set straight for the fretwork and later readjusted under full string tension during the final guitar setup.

The truss rod is currently functional and was successfully used to establish the neck relief on the completed guitar.

However, its previous resistance remains part of the documented history of this instrument. Although the corrective work has resolved the problem during the restoration and final setup, I cannot guarantee that the truss rod will never become resistant again at some point in the future.

Should unusual resistance ever be encountered during a future adjustment, the truss rod should not be forced. It should be evaluated before additional adjustment is attempted.

This disclosure is not an indication that the guitar currently has an unresolved neck-adjustment problem. It is provided so that the next owner knows that a truss-rod issue previously existed, was repaired rather than corrected through truss-rod replacement, and is presently functioning properly.

Current Condition

Following completion of the restoration, the guitar was fitted with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10–46 strings and received a complete setup including neck relief, nut-slot adjustment, bridge and saddle adjustment, tremolo setup, action, and intonation.

The combination of new frets, a fitted bone nut, 18:1 locking tuners, Wilkinson tremolo bridge, upgraded Alnico 5 humbucker, push/pull coil splitting, upgraded controls, improved wiring, and shielding makes this a considerably different instrument from the basic guitar that originally arrived at the shop.

Its original Indiana Tell City identity and red body remain at the center of the instrument, but much of the equipment responsible for its sound, adjustment, and everyday playability has been renewed or upgraded.

Final Disclosure

This guitar is being sold as a used, extensively restored and modified instrument.

Its body retains minor cosmetic evidence of previous ownership, but overall presentation is very good. Its major playing surfaces, hardware, tremolo system, pickup, and electronics have received substantial restoration or replacement.

The previously resistant truss rod is specifically disclosed because it is an important part of the guitar's history. The original rod remains installed, corrective work was performed, and it is functioning at the completion of the restoration.

The intention of this disclosure is simple: the next owner should know both what has been improved and what was discovered along the way.

The guitar is being offered based on what it honestly is today, rather than what it may have been when it originally left the factory.