Author: Marni Underwood

Kay Guitar Neck (1960s–1970s)

Vintage Kay Guitar Neck (1960s–1970s) – SG Style

A relic from the golden age of guitar craftsmanship, this vintage Kay neck is ready for restoration, reinvention, or reverent display. Originally paired with a Kay SG-style body, it likely dates from the late 1960s to early 1970s—a period when Kay was known for bold design and solid build quality.

Finished in a deep, Heritage Cherry-style gloss and adorned with the original Kay logo, this neck carries the patina of decades while retaining its structural integrity. The original tuners are still fitted (though replacement is recommended), and the heel-adjust truss rod remains fully functional.

Whether you’re rebuilding a vintage Kay, crafting a custom piece, or curating a collection, this neck offers a rare blend of character, playability, and provenance.

Specifications

  • Era: 1960s–1970s
  • Frets: 19
  • Scale Length: 24.5″
  • Nut Width: 1.656″ (42 mm)
  • Heel Width: Approx. 54 mm (± 0.5 mm)
  • Truss Rod: Heel-adjust, fully functional
  • Finish: Original gloss, dark cherry tone
  • Hardware:
    • Original string retainer
    • Original strap button
    • Original tuners (recommend replacing)
  • Mounting: Heel holes pre-drilled
  • Condition: Good used condition
  • Logo: Original Kay headstock decal

Kay guitars from this era are prized by players and collectors alike for their distinctive tone, rebellious spirit, and enduring build. This neck is more than a part—it’s a fragment of musical history, waiting to be reawakened.

Mythology and Wood

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

Bodies in the North Devon 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.

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.

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.

More than just a local material, Exmoor Spruce is a statement. It’s the sound of wind through trees, the weight of rain on gorse, the echo of hooves and history. When carved into a guitar body, it doesn’t just resonate—it growls. It’s not about purity or polish; it’s about presence. And in the hands of a player, it becomes a voice for the untamed.

The mythology of Exmoor runs deep—feral, windswept, and defiant. These bodies channel that outsider energy: rough silhouettes, raw finishes, and a stance that feels more like a weathered figure on a moor than a polished showroom piece. They wear the look of the land—scarred, elemental, and proud of it. The guitars don’t just echo the landscape; they embody its folklore.

The Beast of Exmoor

Lurking in the shadows of local legend, the Beast of Exmoor is said to roam the hills—a phantom predator with glowing eyes and a taste for livestock. Descriptions vary: a black panther, a spectral hound, a creature born of fog and fear. Whether myth or misidentification, its presence haunts the moor’s psyche. These guitar bodies carry a whisper of that gothic energy—feral outlines, claw‑like grain, and a sense that something untamed lives within the wood. They’re not just shaped by tools, but by stories. By the idea that even in the age of algorithms, something wild still watches from the bracken.

 

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

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.

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

 

Bargain Barnwood Telecaster Body

Telecaster Body – Routed for Standard Tele Hardware

This is a genuine Rat Bait Guitar body, built in October 2025 from salvaged materials and shaped in a rat‑infested shed in North Devon. Its silhouette nods to the quirky Woolworths guitars of the 1960s and ’70s—Japanese‑made, budget‑friendly instruments that have since become cult classics. Hardware (pickups / neck etc.) shown in images are for example and not included in the sale – the item is the body only.

The body carries a raw, rugged finish with visible dents, scratches, and scars from its past life. Every mark is part of its story. Please see the photographs for detail on its texture and character.

Materials & Origin

  • 1970s Austrian dining table
  • Old roofing timber
  • Exmoor Spruce
  • Sections of an Ikea bookcase
  • All reclaimed and reimagined in the UK

Specifications

  • Style: Telecaster Type
  • Routed for: Standard Tele neck pickup + Tele bridge pickup
  • Approx. Thickness: 43mm
  • Neck Pocket Width: 56mm
  • Weight: 2.3kg
  • Finish: Raw, unfinished – ready for your fettling and final touches

Why Choose This Body?

This is not a factory‑perfect blank—it’s a piece of reclaimed history, reborn as a guitar body. Its barnwood aesthetic makes it ideal for a unique Partscaster build, offering both sustainability and individuality. Designed to fit standard hardware, it’s a versatile foundation for luthiers and players who want an instrument with soul, grit, and a story to tell.

Reviews

Rat Bait Guitars
Rat Bait Guitars is a defiant celebration of imperfection, rebellion, and resurrection. Based in North Devon, this small operation crafts electric guitar bodies from salvaged materials—roofing timber, shattered Strat bodies, broken furniture, and discarded fence posts. Each piece is a one-off, hand-built in a shed that smells of glue and sawdust, not sterile factory polish.

Example 1: Take the Barnwood Hybrid Telecaster, for example—a Frankenstein lovechild of a Japanese Jedson and Strat. It fuses a Telecaster silhouette with Stratocaster guts, built from reclaimed roofing wood and a shattered Stratocaster that refused to die. The result? A 3.3kg slab of raw tone and rebellion, with a 22-fret maple neck, HSS configuration, and a finish that’s unapologetically imperfect. (SOLD)

Example 2: Or the Hardtail Stratocaster-style body, made from old roofing timber, bits of a bookcase, and a broken Strat. It’s routed for single coils, partially loaded with new electrics, and finished in rugged red and black hues. It’s not pristine—it’s punk, rebellious and looks cool. (SOLD)

Rat Bait Guitars doesn’t chase perfection. It builds relics with soul, instruments that wear their scars proudly. Whether you’re a DIY builder or a tone-chaser looking for something different, these bodies offer a chance to plug into something real, raw, and resolutely unpolished.

Photos and listings are updated regularly, with some builds appearing on eBay. Every guitar is a story—stitched together with defiance and solder.

Our bodies are crafted from reclaimed wood sourced from a mix of origins—old furniture, fence posts, salvaged roof timbers, worn flooring, broken guitars and more. Each ‘Rat Bait’ body carries its own history, marked by dents, scratches, and imperfections that embody the raw, relic aesthetic we embrace. These aren’t showroom pieces—they’re outsider art. As with any custom build, a bit of fettling may be required to fit your components—but you already know that.

Customer Feedback

  • “Item was very well packed, as described and arrived very quickly. A good transaction, with excellent comms all round. Very happy – thanks! :)”
  • “Lovely Telecaster copy in scavenged wood, looks great and plays beautifully! Rat Bait are great luthiers!”
  • “Arrived on time very good guitar best I’ve ever had. Sound is very deep all perfectly set up.”

The Phoenix Rises

Salvage, Soul & Sonic Rebellion

‘When you pick up a guitar, you’re not just holding wood and wire—you’re gripping history. Not just the hands that played it, but the scars it carries, the timber it was born from, and the battles it survived. Rat Bait Guitars don’t chase perfection. Each component has its own previous life story, resurrection and metamorphosis. If you’re interested in an instrument with a story, Rat Bait Guitars are worth considering.’

Built from Ruin, Made to Scream

Take the body featured above: a Frankenstein of salvaged wood—fence post, roof offcut, shed panel, and the carved heart of a guitar once devoured by woodworm. Treated, reshaped, and reborn into a retro 60s/70s silhouette inspired by Teisco and Kay designs, it’s a slab of tone with old-world charm and unapologetic grit.

  • Neck Pickup: from a Manson Guitar (Matthew Bellamy)

  • Bridge pickup: early 2000s ceramic single pole.

  • Tailpiece: retro chrome clamshell, because why not?

This isn’t a museum piece. It’s a relic with soul. Read more here…

Imperfection as Identity

Rat Bait guitars are built in a shed that smells of glue and sawdust, not sterile polish. Parts are from the 1970s to the 2020s, mixing eras to create instruments that sound better than the homogenised clones flooding the market. They’re rugged, battle-scarred, and ready to scream.

  • Reclaimed materials: furniture, fence posts, roof timbers, flooring.

  • Custom-built bodies: Telecaster, Stratocaster, and the occasional Japanese oddity.

  • Body prices start at £35.00. Each one is unique. Each one is alive.

What Players Say

  • “Lovely Telecaster copy in scavenged wood, looks great and plays beautifully! Rat Bait are great luthiers!”
  • “Arrived on time—very good guitar, best I’ve ever had. Sound is deep, all perfectly set up.”
  • “Item was very well packed, as described and arrived very quickly. Excellent comms all round. Very happy—thanks! :)”
  • “A really nice guitar, unique and obviously made with great care. Exceptional value. A great addition to my collection!”
  • “Awesome, I would deal with again… lovely looking guitar, leaving to settle and look forward to playing it.”
  • “Perfect little Telecaster body.”
  • “Lovely Telecaster copy in scavenged wood, looks great and plays beautifully! Rat Bait are great luthiers!” 
  • “Arrived on time—very good guitar, best I’ve ever had. Sound is deep, all perfectly set up.”
  • “Item was very well packed, as described and arrived very quickly. Excellent comms all round. Very happy—thanks! :)”

These aren’t just guitars. They’re outsider art. Punk relics. Sonic protest pieces.

Why Salvage Matters

Every salvaged guitar is a strike against waste. A nod to sustainability. A celebration of character over gloss. By repurposing discarded timber and broken parts, a voice is given to materials that would otherwise be silenced.

Each guitar built is a story stitched together with defiance and solder. And if you’re the kind of player who values raw tone over showroom shine, welcome home.

Because each guitar body is handcrafted, genuine Rat Bait Guitar products are few and far between. Their rarity is why purchasing one of these creations should be seen as an investment.