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I hold in my hands a made-in-China Squier Telecaster, of the Affinity series. It's a buttescotch finish and surprisingly, it doesn't look too bad, for what it is. Someone could probably use this guitar. They'd learn to play on it and it'd be their baby and their best friend.

It's too bad I'm just not that kind of guy.

I plan to do several things to this bad boy, just for the fun of it. I have a few questions, though, which I will relate at the end. My modifications as planned are:

*Replace crappy neck with '86 Fender Strat 22-fret neck.
*Replace crappy pups with something noise cancelling but not humbuckers.
*Install Hipshot or Bigsby mini.
*Replace pickguard with handmade leather replacement.
*Do something about the annoying bridge saddles.
*Body contours, maybe?

I think this guitar will be a whole lot of fun and cool looking to boot, once I'm done with it. There are a few hitches, though and I'd be grateful if anybody has got some ideas on a workaround.

1) I tried to simply switch up the neck but found out that the Strat neck is about an eighth inch wider than the chinese squier neck pocket. I'm not cutting the neck, so I'm gonna have to cut the body. Which side would be better to cut? Should I try to file both sides evenly? That'd be a real pain in the butt.

2) As much as it may seem like I want to bring this guitar all the way to it's American counterpart's specs, this is not entirely true. While I do want this axe to be a fun axe to play, I don't want to invest $200 on some Lace transducers or something over the top like that. I paid pennies for it and I'm unwilling to buy pups that cost more than the whole guitar. I caught wind of a DiMarzio Area T for pretty cheap. Has anyone had experience with this pup?

3) Has anyone ever seen a Tele with metal plate mounting for the bridge pup and a seperate strat-style hardtail bridge? As if the tele tailpiece thingy was cut into two pieces, seperating the pickup part from the saddle part. This is what I'd like, but I've looked on Stewmac and WD and can't find anything that fits the description...


That's it for now. Thanks in advance for any help that you can provide!

so what are you keeping out this og guitar? that neck plate? control plate? tuners? the pots?

robert(original) wrote:so what are you keeping out this og guitar? that neck plate? control plate? tuners? the pots?

All of the above, plus the body. I wouldn't be doing this at all, if I didn't already have the neck lying around... might as well put it to good use, right?

1. File both sides evenly. if you're gonna do it. do it right. Else your neck won't be perfectly straight.

2. Check out GFS pickups at guitar fetish. Specifically check out their neovins. They sound like they're in the range of what you're looking for.
http://store.guitarfetish.com/nenofrpifort.html

Just be aware that because of the type of magnet, pickup hight is very important with those so it may take a bit of adjustment before you nail your tone.

3. Never see what you're looking for. Sorry duder. I think there is a tele/bigsby set with something similar if you're already looking to throw a bigsby on there.

Contours, eh? I know a kid you might be able to borrow a rasp from.

what's wrong with a six saddle tele bridge? it's the same thing...

are you looking for a "hardtail" tele bridge plate?

floydian8834 wrote:are you looking for a "hardtail" tele bridge plate?

Do they make any other kind? the only non hardtail tele plate I've ever seen was the bigsby one.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... D=73933302

as opposed to a tele tremolo bridge?

d'oh, you beat me to it you trolling bastard!

troll win!

Do an ashtray bridge. Those are hand down the best looking plates.

i have this same guitar.
fantastic quality on it. i was also not a big fan of the pups.
and i swapped the neck for a conversion jagmaster.
its now sexy.

blablabla, WHERE ARE THE PIXORS?

I'm not gonna post any pics until I get something done that's worth photographing. The only thing that this guitar has right now that didn't come stock is a Hipshot B bender tailpiece that I may end up removing, as I've had tuning issues ever since I put the bastard on.

There's nothing wrong with the six saddle bridge that come on strats and higher quailty teles, but the affinity series teles come with very uncomfortable saddles, that tend to scratch up my hand when I'm playing... maybe i'll take a pic of my bridge, just to show you what I mean.

The reason that I'm looking for a bridge/seperate pup mount setup, is because I'd like to be able to rest my pinky finger on the astray sides (chickn pickn style) of the pup mount, while keeping a six saddle configuration for the bridge. Also, I'd like to experiment with a magnetic pup mount and/or bridge tailpiece to see how it alters the tone of the guitar.

I've got a new question... I noticed that the back of the neck seems to have some kind of thin poly finiih to it, but the fretboard itself doesn't (it's not one piece, obviously). Is this normal? Most maple necks that I've seen have the same polish on both the front and the back of the neck. I think I'm gonna sand this bad boy down, give it some colour and a nice nitro lustre or something similar.

The telecaster you're talking about with the pup ring and the strat hardtail bridge is the Tele plus. Johnny Greenwood's main telecaster is one of those.


Wiki article tele plus

Skiptracer1981 wrote:The telecaster you're talking about with the pup ring and the strat hardtail bridge is the Tele plus. Johnny Greenwood's main telecaster is one of those.


Wiki article tele plus

Thanks for that link but it's not quite what I'm trying to describe. The pickup ring being seperate from the bridge is perfect - as such, I could have a modern 6 saddle adjustable bridge. But I want the sides of the pup ring flared the way they are on an ashtray style bridge. I tried to cut a cheap one from a tele copy guitar last week and completely destroyed it, so I'm hoping to find a cast one somewhere... or maybe I can try to bend it myself (which more than likely wouldn't work).

more like this?

or more like this:

this is probably how i'll do mine

more like the second one...
after much exhaustive googling, I finally found the part I'm looking for. Check it out: http://www.glendaleguitars.com/halfplate__tonering.htm

On another note, I've got a '62 jaguar bridge pup sitting around... I'm thinking about trying her out in the tele while I wait for the new parts. Any thoughts?

the tone ring?
for 65 bucks you could make one yourself.


and toss the jag pup in, record it, and see what it sounds like, if you don't like it pull it out. if you do.
then its done.

Here's what it's looks like:



PERFECT!!