MichaelW
Well-known member
Ok, just a wee little dig at those who seem to dislike the term Rocktober...... 
.
But the Tele-scapades is probably something you're quite used to seeing by now from me, heh.
So I thought I was done building Tele's, after the, whatever, 6 or so I've built the last couple years.
But my "secret enabler" whom I shall not name (but is typically in disguise as "Chris" during the day but in the evenings he dons his cape and becomes the @Guardians of the analog fighting against the tyranny of all things digital!) managed to convince me that I was lacking in a glaring way a particular flavor of Telecaster and once the notion got a hold in my noggin I haven't been able to let go of it.
I have zero experience with Seth Lover's "other" great pickup creation, the Wide Range Humbucker, that Fender poached him from Gibson to design when they were trying to get in on the harder hum bucking scene back in the early days of rock and roll.
I've been reading up quite a bit on it and it seems like MOST WRH's equipped guitars even from Fender, don't use real WRH's but rather it's a plain old humbucker inside thats glued into a WRH cover.
Although the end goal was the same, to make a more powerful, humbucking pickup, the fundamental construction of Seth Lover's PAF design and WRH design are quite different. Instead of having a bar magnet to magnetize the coils and slugs, on a WRH the slugs themselves are the magnets. So in that sense it's a lot more like a Fender Single coil. Or, two Fender single coils together. Hence, the sound of a WRH is sometimes referred to as "doubled up singles".
They are brighter, more articulate, have more clarity than a PAF. My "secret enabler" has convinced me that it's a sound that is sorely missing in my "tone library" of guitars.
SO, with that in mind, I've been keeping an eye out for an appropriate body from MJT to pop up on Ebay. I've really grown to love the use of pine for F-style guitars, particularly Tele's. I absolutely love my 50's Blackguard Tele that's got a pine body. I love the lightweight and resonance of it.
When a Tele Deluxe body from MJT popped up on ebay made out of pine and was extremely lightweight (about 2 1/2 lbs!) I jumped on it and managed to win the auction at a reasonable price. Light aging, beautiful nitro finish.
Just to reiterate my lack of experience with Tele Deluxes, there was something very wrong with this body (more on that in a bit) that I totally spaced out on.
But it's a cool body, traditional Fender 70's sunburst, with tortoise binding on the top, Very subtle. I love the grain on this body too.
So if you haven't figured it out yet, for some reason they left out the route for the toggle switch.
I went back and forth a bit with MJT about this, they insisted that this was supposed to be this way and that I could get a custom pickguard cut to locate the toggle in the control cavity. But first of all, there's no room, and second of all, I know of no Tele Deluxe with the toggle NOT on the upper horn.
So I decided to not waste any more time arguing with them, since I liked the body and decided to just route it out myself.
I used a Mini-Hum pickup route template which was the perfect size for an L-shaped Switchcraft toggle.
And voila.....
I already had a neck for it. Since the neck pocket on the Deluxe is cut for a Strat neck (with the big headstock) I couldn't use a Tele neck without modifying the heel.
I know that there are SOME people (ahem) than insist it's not correct without the big 70's CBS style headstock, but I just can't stand them. So this is getting a standard pre-CBS strat neck.
This is also the neck that I used in my fret leveling tutorial so it's pretty much ready to go.
Continued in next post.....
.But the Tele-scapades is probably something you're quite used to seeing by now from me, heh.
So I thought I was done building Tele's, after the, whatever, 6 or so I've built the last couple years.
But my "secret enabler" whom I shall not name (but is typically in disguise as "Chris" during the day but in the evenings he dons his cape and becomes the @Guardians of the analog fighting against the tyranny of all things digital!) managed to convince me that I was lacking in a glaring way a particular flavor of Telecaster and once the notion got a hold in my noggin I haven't been able to let go of it.
I have zero experience with Seth Lover's "other" great pickup creation, the Wide Range Humbucker, that Fender poached him from Gibson to design when they were trying to get in on the harder hum bucking scene back in the early days of rock and roll.
I've been reading up quite a bit on it and it seems like MOST WRH's equipped guitars even from Fender, don't use real WRH's but rather it's a plain old humbucker inside thats glued into a WRH cover.
Although the end goal was the same, to make a more powerful, humbucking pickup, the fundamental construction of Seth Lover's PAF design and WRH design are quite different. Instead of having a bar magnet to magnetize the coils and slugs, on a WRH the slugs themselves are the magnets. So in that sense it's a lot more like a Fender Single coil. Or, two Fender single coils together. Hence, the sound of a WRH is sometimes referred to as "doubled up singles".
They are brighter, more articulate, have more clarity than a PAF. My "secret enabler" has convinced me that it's a sound that is sorely missing in my "tone library" of guitars.
SO, with that in mind, I've been keeping an eye out for an appropriate body from MJT to pop up on Ebay. I've really grown to love the use of pine for F-style guitars, particularly Tele's. I absolutely love my 50's Blackguard Tele that's got a pine body. I love the lightweight and resonance of it.
When a Tele Deluxe body from MJT popped up on ebay made out of pine and was extremely lightweight (about 2 1/2 lbs!) I jumped on it and managed to win the auction at a reasonable price. Light aging, beautiful nitro finish.
Just to reiterate my lack of experience with Tele Deluxes, there was something very wrong with this body (more on that in a bit) that I totally spaced out on.
But it's a cool body, traditional Fender 70's sunburst, with tortoise binding on the top, Very subtle. I love the grain on this body too.
So if you haven't figured it out yet, for some reason they left out the route for the toggle switch.
I went back and forth a bit with MJT about this, they insisted that this was supposed to be this way and that I could get a custom pickguard cut to locate the toggle in the control cavity. But first of all, there's no room, and second of all, I know of no Tele Deluxe with the toggle NOT on the upper horn.
So I decided to not waste any more time arguing with them, since I liked the body and decided to just route it out myself.
I used a Mini-Hum pickup route template which was the perfect size for an L-shaped Switchcraft toggle.
And voila.....
I already had a neck for it. Since the neck pocket on the Deluxe is cut for a Strat neck (with the big headstock) I couldn't use a Tele neck without modifying the heel.
I know that there are SOME people (ahem) than insist it's not correct without the big 70's CBS style headstock, but I just can't stand them. So this is getting a standard pre-CBS strat neck.
This is also the neck that I used in my fret leveling tutorial so it's pretty much ready to go.
Continued in next post.....
Last edited:
