Building a Telecaster Deluxe, suggestions invited

BishBashBosh

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I want to build my own take on this:

Fender-Telecaster-Deluxe-2790.jpg


I would appreciate some suggestions on the details.  So, far I'm not really interested in the cosmetics, but I'd like to rough out the general specs.

Here is what I have in mind:

Swamp Ash Body
Pau Ferro fingerboard (on Maple)
WCR Darkburst pickups
I'm not sure about the bridge, but I want something that will work with Gibson sized pickups, would a Hipshot be a good choice?

How do you guys think this will work as a complete guitar?  Constructive critisicm is most welcome.
 
Since one of the goals of this board seems to be turning people on to raw necks... how about a full pau ferro neck?
 
Welcome to the Boards!  Sounds like a nice build. 

As far as the bridge goes, Hipshot seems to be decent and it has the 2-1/16" (TOM or Fender Am Std Hardtail) string spacing you're after.  Bill Callaham makes an excellent bridge and it would work fine, but the spacing is 2-7/32".
 
Try a canary or goncalo back for that neck! I don't have experience with canary, but it is said to sound very much like maple.

As far as replicating the pickups, well... okay, I'll tell it to you straight. You only have one reasonably-priced choice, which is the Fender reissue wide-range humbucker. Unfortunately, these share pretty much nothing in common with the originals. I gave up on wide-range humbuckers because I knew I wouldn't be satisfied except by accurate replicas or the real thing. I think there's a guy around that has made some pretty close replicas, but I can't remember his name now. I don't think he had a company, but was just making them one-off. When I searched online, I couldn't find anyone else making the real deal.

Honestly, if your only choice is the crappy reissue pickup, I think you'll be able to get much better tones (not to mention near infinite tonal choice) out of some regular-sized humbuckers. Unfortunately, they just don't look as cool! Although it would be neat to buy the cover of one of the wide-range humbuckers and re-mount the coils from another regular humbucker in there.
 
Max said:
The guy who makes the replicas is Telenator.
He's on here, and the TDPRI.
+1, you can PM him direct if you look him up via the Members' directory.

But.......the pickups he does/did were for a project that he thought about and canvassed within the TDPRI forum, and the run of pickups that he made was very limited, and mostly going to those on that forum, from what I read about the project.

They are not cheap, but definitely cheaper than sourcing original Fender Wide Range humbuckers on Ebay or the like.

The ones now offered by Fender as Wide Range Humbuckers are just your standard humbucker design put into a larger Fender cover and the space filled with wax. The originals had a slightly different design to your usual humbucker, and used different magnets to what is normally used.

 
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