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Telecaster Custom Build
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:37 pm
by brandon.
I bought a natural telecaster body from portugalwillie. It was awesome. I had some plans for it.
I wated around for a neck to pop up locally, either by itself or on a $75 squier strat, but no dice. I ordered a neck from GFS as explained in my other post and it's awesome. I ordered a Warmoth pickguard a while ago and it's been sitting around. I wanted a tele neck pickup but warmoth couldnt handle that kind of customization so I went with the standard gibson humbucker so I could throw anything in there.
I love putting guitars together and tweaking them, like most of us here, so putting this thing together was a very relaxing friday night for me.
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First off, I had to drill new bridge holes. So I lined up the bridge in the rectangular outline of the old bridge and popped some screws in there:
The neck was completely hole-less, so I had to drill the mounting screw holes as well as the tuner holes. I lined up all the tuners and marked them with a screw driver dent, and then made pilot holes and put them all together. I'd say it was 95% successful, there are two tuners that are a bit squeezed together:
(Mid assembly)
I hadn't decided on a wiring scheme yet or pickup choice other than bridge at this point. I wired the bridge pickup to a volume and to an output jack. I like to have long leads when I work on my own guitars so I can easily take the pickguards off and move them around without hassle.
I don't have the time to route this badboy at this point, so I decided to use the only hole that had room.
Here's a somewhat shitty picture of my two customs, but the nat one in it's Stage 1 state.
Notice the gaping neck hole.
Without taking pictures, I decided to see if a regular Tele neck pickup would fit in there without too much trouble.
It did. I usually use my guitars with tone and volume on ten, so I don't mind this single switch idea.
(I used the always classy electrical tape to hide the wood grain.)
I don't know how you guys feel about fretboards like this, but I kinda like it.
Special thanks to portugalwillie for the body and neck pickup deals, really made this easier!
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:01 pm
by laterallateral
Looking good, man!
My recommendations:
- screw the tone/volume pots, just add a killswitch
- relocate output jack to the pickguard
- slant that neck pickup in the route
- hot pink refin
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:05 pm
by brandon.
laterallateral wrote:Looking good, man!
My recommendations:
- screw the tone/volume pots, just keep that one switch.
- relocate output jack to the pickguard
- slant that neck pickup in the route
- hot pink refin
- tone/volume = no problem
- output jack = no problem
- slant pup = I'll think about it, is it just for aesthetics?
- no dice on the refin.
(britt says hi!)
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:11 pm
by laterallateral
Oh hi, Britt!
Well the idea is that by changing where the magnets are in relation to the strings, you'll change what actually gets picked up. you're not going to get much of change out of your low strings, seeing as the pickup is already seated as far up in the route as it can go but you might get a bit more spank out of your lower strings. For the record though, yeah I think it would look great.
Edit: At least, that's my understanding of it.
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:15 pm
by paul_
Nice one. I did one of those with a GFS neck too, it was called the Bananacaster because of the awful yellow tint on the earlier GFS necks (so the headstock ended up being gradually covered with Chiquita stickers).
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 12:04 am
by SKC Willie
Very nice!
I personally am not the biggest fan of two piece maple necks. I don't really have a reason for it, in fact, some vintage teles have a two piece maple neck!
also, don't move the back to the pickugard.
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 12:24 am
by Mages
looks cool. love kerazy tele projects. the tele is well suited for it I think. I would recommend a slanted pickup for the neck position as well by way of one of these:
since you already got the routing for it, I think it would be cool to give it a tele blade switch. and I would probably route it for all 4 knobs.
also not really a fan of two piece maple necks but yes fender did make them that way for a period in the mid- to late-60s.
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:02 am
by brandon.
portugalwillie wrote:also, don't move the back to the pickugard.
what this mean?
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:07 am
by laterallateral
I think he means output jack
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:22 am
by SKC Willie
brandon. wrote:portugalwillie wrote:also, don't move the back to the pickugard.
what this mean?
don't move the input jack to the pick guard.
sometimes, my typing skills amaze me.