MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Looks like Hurricane Milton is taking a more southerly track, leaving us outside of the cone. I'm not expecting much more than losing power later on,
In the meantime.............heh, I started working on this re-build yesterday and got it wrapped up today.
This Seafoam Green MJT Tele body was one of the first ones I got from MJT off eBay and I I got it for a song as I recall.
This was before I figured out how to tell the weight of the body if it's not called out in the auction description. (It's penciled in the neck pocket).
As you can see from the pics, this was a pretty heavy alder body. Way heavier than I typically like. This started out as my 60's style Tele build but I wound up swapping out the body for a much lighter swamp ash body in a light burst. (I can't seem to find a pic of that guitar in any of my build pictorials.) Then later I swapped out the neck for a non-roasted maple with a rosewood board for a more traditional look.
Long story short, I had an extra tele body and a couple of extra necks. When we moved I had to pack all that stuff up and it got me thinking about doing something with my "spare parts". Thus was seeds of the idea that would become the Sparepartscaster.
I was originally thinking about doing an H-H Tele, but then decided to go with a Firebird tele. I love the sound of Firebird pickups but I don't like the way Firebirds play. Feels weird to me. You may recall I also have a Firebird project that I documented here. As much as I love how it sounds, it's just not a guitar I pick up very often because of the aforementioned "weirdness" of how it sits in my lap, the position of my arms, etc.
So I wasn't sure how the 'Bird sound would translate into a Tele, so before buying any pickups for this project I decided to "borrow" the pickups from my Firebird to test. This is a set of Onamac Windery "Vintage Plus" Firebird pickups. He builds his FB pickups completely vintage correct. Meaning he uses vintage correct bobbins, alnico bar magnets and most importantly, the two "reflector plates" that were part of the original Firebird pickup design.The reflector plates create a more powerful magnetic field and one of the two plates is a small strip of metal that sits roughly under the "B" string and ties the two coils together. This small plate is what gives the pickup that traditional treble "bite" that Firebird pickups are known for. It's much more prominent on the bridge pickup.
The neck pickup of a good vintage Bird pickup has a "fat single coil" quality to it and the Onamac pickup does justice to a vintage sounding pickup.
Since this body was routed for a standard tele pickup configuration I had to think about how get away with fitting the FB pickup into the bridge position and still be able to cover up the gaps that would be left. I've seen the Tele bridges with the integrated pickup ring but I really don't like how those look. Plus the majority of these integrated bridges are wider than a standard Tele bridge plate to accommodate the wider Humbucker pickup and that looks a bit strange to me. So I decided to use a standard Tele bridge plate and cut it so that it meets the pickup ring and covers up the gap. Like most things in life, this too is a bit of a compromise as it looks a little cramped to me as well but it looks better to me than the alternatives. Tonally, I much prefer the sound of a plain Jane Tele bridge plate with brass saddles over a bridge with individual saddles (like a Strat).
And just as an aside, yes, I have been building pedals too....
I've got a few build reports to post but I haven't been able to find my cameras to do some demo's of the pedals yet. So not quite set up to record yet. As soon as I get that stuff unpacked I'll post some pedal build reports.
Here's the body prior to being molested.....
Laying everything out to see if it's do-able. I had previously broken off two pick guard screws and had to gouge out the wood a bit to get a pair of pliers on them to get them out.
Kinda sucked that I needed just enough length that included one of the pickup mounting holes.
Cutting the bridge plate down "old school" with a hack saw.
Tidying up the edges and putting a radius on the corners on a belt sander.
Not a lot to route in order to fit the mini-hum/FB pickup. After I routed out the bits that needed to come out, I overlaid a regular HB pickup routing template to route out the mounting screw legs.
So far so good.
Fitting everything together after routing out the neck pickup route. I actually routed the neck to accept a full size Humbucker if I ever decide to do that on this body. Plus every little bit of weight relief helps....hahaha.
Continued in next post.......
In the meantime.............heh, I started working on this re-build yesterday and got it wrapped up today.
This Seafoam Green MJT Tele body was one of the first ones I got from MJT off eBay and I I got it for a song as I recall.
This was before I figured out how to tell the weight of the body if it's not called out in the auction description. (It's penciled in the neck pocket).
As you can see from the pics, this was a pretty heavy alder body. Way heavier than I typically like. This started out as my 60's style Tele build but I wound up swapping out the body for a much lighter swamp ash body in a light burst. (I can't seem to find a pic of that guitar in any of my build pictorials.) Then later I swapped out the neck for a non-roasted maple with a rosewood board for a more traditional look.
Long story short, I had an extra tele body and a couple of extra necks. When we moved I had to pack all that stuff up and it got me thinking about doing something with my "spare parts". Thus was seeds of the idea that would become the Sparepartscaster.
I was originally thinking about doing an H-H Tele, but then decided to go with a Firebird tele. I love the sound of Firebird pickups but I don't like the way Firebirds play. Feels weird to me. You may recall I also have a Firebird project that I documented here. As much as I love how it sounds, it's just not a guitar I pick up very often because of the aforementioned "weirdness" of how it sits in my lap, the position of my arms, etc.
So I wasn't sure how the 'Bird sound would translate into a Tele, so before buying any pickups for this project I decided to "borrow" the pickups from my Firebird to test. This is a set of Onamac Windery "Vintage Plus" Firebird pickups. He builds his FB pickups completely vintage correct. Meaning he uses vintage correct bobbins, alnico bar magnets and most importantly, the two "reflector plates" that were part of the original Firebird pickup design.The reflector plates create a more powerful magnetic field and one of the two plates is a small strip of metal that sits roughly under the "B" string and ties the two coils together. This small plate is what gives the pickup that traditional treble "bite" that Firebird pickups are known for. It's much more prominent on the bridge pickup.
The neck pickup of a good vintage Bird pickup has a "fat single coil" quality to it and the Onamac pickup does justice to a vintage sounding pickup.
Since this body was routed for a standard tele pickup configuration I had to think about how get away with fitting the FB pickup into the bridge position and still be able to cover up the gaps that would be left. I've seen the Tele bridges with the integrated pickup ring but I really don't like how those look. Plus the majority of these integrated bridges are wider than a standard Tele bridge plate to accommodate the wider Humbucker pickup and that looks a bit strange to me. So I decided to use a standard Tele bridge plate and cut it so that it meets the pickup ring and covers up the gap. Like most things in life, this too is a bit of a compromise as it looks a little cramped to me as well but it looks better to me than the alternatives. Tonally, I much prefer the sound of a plain Jane Tele bridge plate with brass saddles over a bridge with individual saddles (like a Strat).
And just as an aside, yes, I have been building pedals too....
I've got a few build reports to post but I haven't been able to find my cameras to do some demo's of the pedals yet. So not quite set up to record yet. As soon as I get that stuff unpacked I'll post some pedal build reports.Here's the body prior to being molested.....
Laying everything out to see if it's do-able. I had previously broken off two pick guard screws and had to gouge out the wood a bit to get a pair of pliers on them to get them out.
Kinda sucked that I needed just enough length that included one of the pickup mounting holes.
Cutting the bridge plate down "old school" with a hack saw.
Tidying up the edges and putting a radius on the corners on a belt sander.
Not a lot to route in order to fit the mini-hum/FB pickup. After I routed out the bits that needed to come out, I overlaid a regular HB pickup routing template to route out the mounting screw legs.
So far so good.
Fitting everything together after routing out the neck pickup route. I actually routed the neck to accept a full size Humbucker if I ever decide to do that on this body. Plus every little bit of weight relief helps....hahaha.
Continued in next post.......
