my recent re modding of my partcaster tele (pics)

Keira-WitherKay

as many know ... i always been a telecaster fan .... and thats against the grain for the music i play ...which is jazz............ well i have some nice vintage jazz guitars ...BUT always owned at least one if not more tele's be they Fenders or partcasters .........

this is my partcaster ..... which i update/mod as parts fall into my lap ............

as for partcasters i love them and as far as tele's go i like em dead simple .... so a nice neck .... 1 good pup in the neck .... tuners that don't slip and a slab body ....

also i am a Jim Campilongo fan so i like toploader teles(rare...only made in 59/60 for a while) as it changes the feel ...... and i like the neck to have what Jim calls a 'deep dish" which means there's lots of space behind the nut to do "behind the nut bends" and i like vintage white ,,,,,,

as for pups i need 1x good warm neck pup ...as i seldom use the bridge at live gigs ...and only use that bridge tone for studio sessions .....so i like to have a "biting" twangy bridge pup...BUt a fat warm neck ...

ok so recently i decided to put together a lot of parts i been collecting for a while and get closer to my ideal telecaster

so i had bought a brand new maple replacement "strat neck" ( NOT A TELE) from icecream man .... because it had that "deep dish" design i mentioned above...(see pics below) . took it to a student of mine who is fabulous at woodwork and loves working on guitars....... and asked him to cut the strat headstock to look as close to a tele as the wood allowed ....... he did a fab job (see the pics) ...the neck was brand new never been fitted (we still had to drill the holes for the neck screws....) so it had perfect /new frets .... and it came with new kluson style tuners ......

the body was originally from an old sx tele (alder) and was originally sunburst ..which had been removed by someone and left raw wood..... so i got ozi (my student/friend/co conspiritor in this exercise) to spray it vintage white ...

i had a fat P90 type single coil which came from a 60's japanese jazz guitar but sounded real vintage and fat ........ so i decided to pop in in the neck ..ozi had to rout out the body to fit it ......

and we made a new scartchplate BUT from wood ...cut for the fat pickup..... and sprayed white to look like plastic as i wanted to use the scaratchplate for my percussion technique .......

so yesterday it all came together ..... and got assembled.......

end result .... i'm smiling ....... pup sounds great ...neck fitted , paint looks good ... tuners don't slip and my partcaster now has a new lease on life .....

thanks to ozi for his hard work ( he was paid too ? )

and this was put together on a shoestring ....... more as a hobby project ...that a serious build .... with the risk of course that it would fail ...... tonally or structurally but it did not ...guess i got lucky

the new cut tele headstock ...which was a strat before ?

the headstock from behind all cut by hand

the 'deep dish" behind the nut that allows bends behind the nut.... (my recent USA tele had a far shallower cut)

more pics to follow

evolucian

Guys, don't see this as ignorance because I am actually colour blind. That vintage white in the top picture, is it the same as blonde?

Nice git Keira ?

Keira-WitherKay

more pics

the toploader bridge .... makes the tension lower to the 'feel'

and being a top loader NO string thru holes in the body ...so it makes a great 'writing desk " when teaching ?

that old pup from 60's sounds fat .....

Psean

Very cool ? That neck pickup look interesting.

studmissile

evolucian wrote: Guys, don't see this as ignorance because I am actually colour blind. That vintage white in the top picture, is it the same as blonde?

A buddy of mine is color blind so I know it's a little difficult to explain, Blond and vintage white are different in hue and transparency.

http://www.fender.com/support/color-chart/

Lovely telecaster Keira, but then again I'm Tele bias.

evolucian

thanks stud... lots of black squares in that chart though. Guess they don't do some of them anymore... or my eyes are really screwed

Wizard

Hi Keira and other tele lovers.
On that bridge ... where the strings terminate at the bridge rather than going through the body.

Conventional wisdom says you'll get more tone by the strings going through the body.
How noticeable or real is that effect?

About to (finally) put my tele together and am wondering which way to go.

AlanRatcliffe

Wizard wrote: Conventional wisdom says you'll get more tone by the strings going through the body.
How noticeable or real is that effect?

I used to think that too, but experimentation revealed that any differences is more down to other features of the bridge - specifically the thickness of the steel plate it is made of and different saddle designs. Even then the pickups have by far the biggest influence on the sound and a Tele with a modern flat bridge still sounds like a Tele.

Wizard

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I used to think that too, but experimentation revealed that any differences is more down to other features of the bridge - specifically the thickness of the steel plate it is made of and different saddle designs. Even then the pickups have by far the biggest influence on the sound and a Tele with a modern flat bridge still sounds like a Tele.

Thanks Alan.
I have an old donated tele bridge.
Maybe I'll start by pummeling some holes through the back and try it out as a bridge-terminating-design.
Then try some proper brass saddles.

Nicholas-L

Very beautiful Keira.