For those who know my situation, I haven't had much time to build guitars lately because I've been so busy with repairs. I also do not currently have a full scale shop set up for building guitars, but that won't be lasting hopefully too much longer. I have not been totally idle, though. I've had an idea kicking around in my head for some time now to put together a telecaster with some mods.
Over the last several months, I have ordered and collected choice parts and pieces to put together what I'm calling my "Super Tele". Here's the breakdown:
Body: I ordered a modified Tele body from my favorite electric guitar body company in New Jersery, Musikraft. They made me a two piece alder body with their Dakota Red finish and humbucking pickup slots.
Neck: I made my first order with Warmouth and boy was I happy. They made me a nice tele neck with 1 11/16" at the nut and a "V" neck. Maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard.
Pickups: I went to my all time favorite pickup company, TV Jones, and ordered a custom set of pickups. The bridge pickup is their Powertron Plus, which is a Filterton on steroids. The neck is their Magnatron, modeled after a DeArmond but humbucking. A beautiful warm pickup. I dug out a vintage oil filled .047 capacitor to go with the pickups and CTS pots. Switchcraft 4 way selector to split the neck coil for some extra options.
Hardware: Roller bridge, Bigsby Vibrato, Bakelite pickgaurd. I ordered a custom set of Sperzel open gear tuning machines to finish it off. Sperzel is best known for their locking machines, but I didn't want locking. These chrome beauties are open gear and just look so cool.
The guitar is reminiscent of a Tele but has other personality to it given the TV Jones pickups. It's much more versatile than a standard tele and can go from warm jazzy tone with the Magnatron in the neck to full on ACDC with the Powertron Plus in the bridge. I totally love it and I had so much fun putting it together. Who knows, maybe I'll draw up my own design and start making some from scratch in the future.
-James
