Four decades of Teles from parts.....and growing.

[Cagey]

Turd-polishing is a time-honored tradition of all who aspire to raise their lot in life. You have to start somewhere; a slab guitar is as good a place as any. Telecaster improvements are easy considering the starting point and have reached a fine art these days. No reason to disparage them any more.

 

[stubhead]

As I have said before (and others confirm incl. Mayfly) that hard edge on the lower bout - the one that isn't relieved by a "comfort contour" - that edge is where your forearm goes, and I can play better on a tele than a strat as a result. You can lift your hand completely off the face of the guitar, because your arm is anchored. On a strat, I can't get my arm to settle anywhere, and picking fast and skipping strings is more tiring. But I call mine "tele-shaped" rather than Tele-"casters" because they've been deeply, profoundly perverted.... the belly contour is a good idea.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I have a tele without a forearm contour, and one with. I honestly don't notice any difference when I switch between them. I guess I'm just used to them. My next one won't have it, simply because of that fact. It'll have the belly contour though. That's nice.

 

[Unwound G]

Done, my Tele-Strat Hybrid.

Next project - Chambered Tele with piezo acoustic saddles.  Watch this space !!!

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Absolutely stunning. I hope you're proud of that; it's fantastic work.

 

[Unwound G]

Next project commissioned by a touring guitar player in a backup band who covers a lot of live shows for well known singers around the Asian Pacific Rim.  What he basically wants is a guitar which will handle both electric tones and acoustic tones.  We worked together and decided to incorporate piezo saddles on a custom built Tele.  Unfortunately, the wood finish and colour choice has to be relatively mundane so as not to overshadow the main performers.  Alder is the wood choice and probably finished in a solid colour for the chambered body.  The neck will be Maple with a Maple board.  I will update with further progress.

 

[stubhead]

But you get to make it shoot flames out the neck like KISS if the singer's a turkey, right?  :headbang1:
At least a few little bottle rockets....

 

[Unwound G]

Have not visited this forum for a while.  Here is an update picture of my last project.



The two large holes are for controls to be mounted on a 72 Thinline pickguard.  The notches at the bridge humbucker rout are for trailing piezo saddle wires into the control cavity.

It seems this Lake Placid Blue finishing is much requested after my last Tele/Strat project.

 

[Updown]

Great colour  :icon_thumright:

:icon_scratch: interested as to how you gunna wire it up, being rear routed and using a pickguard.
(I understand what your doing thou)

Suppose you feed the hum wires though, then mount pups to pickguard, with pots attached as well.
Mount / screw down pickguard.
Then wire it all up from rear control cavity.
Toggle done before all that. As to, the bridge saddle wires.

That'll be fun.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[Unwound G]

Done and shipped !!!



An Electric/Acoustic Tele with GraphTech piezo saddles and preamp.

 

[Cagey]

Very sharp! I especially like that shade of blue. Whose is it? Anybody we know?

 

[DangerousR6]

Some truly inspiring builds Unwound, but this got me all up outta my seat...This is awesome.. :headbang1:

Could be a purpose for a bridge I'm making out of ziricote.. :icon_biggrin:

Will look like this aluminum one I made when done..

 

[Unwound G]

Carved top Tele revisited.......

 

[Unwound G]

Marc Rutter Half Tele bridge machined from Billet Cold Roll Steel and Kinman P-90 Hx soapbar pickups.

 

[Cagey]

That's a beautiful piece of work! You gotta love a carved-top Tele.

 

[bagman67]

Oh, hell yes.

 

[DangerousR6]

Some great looking builds.

agreed, this is my favorite...

 

[Unwound G]

Here's a Tele/SG hybrid played by Smokin' Joe Kubek.  I love it and could well be a Warmoth before the SG body was discontinued.

 

[stubhead]

For a 22-fret neck, that's really poor fret access on that "SG." It looks like a high school wood shop thing. No shaping to it.... cutaways too small. Now, even Gibson has figured out about putting 24 frets on their newest SG's. I see no downside to having enough frets, and being able to reach them too. 

Re the shape - it's impossible to set aside the fact that you grow up looking at Les Pauls, SG's, Telecasters & Stratocasters and P-bass and jazz bass shapes and they get stuck in your head as right, but: You can see just how much time and effort Fender & Gibson put in on design when those same basic shapes still look good now. The jazz bass bodies and SG's shapes can get really ugly really fast if you dick around with just a millimeter here and there. I like ESP's "Viper" SG-ish thing, but the Wahl "jazz bass" shape is really fat and bloaty/slobby... just wrong. I'm always surprised at how many ugly guitars there are, Mosrites & Rickenbackers. Guild made a nice SG, and Gretch's 6120's and double cutaway Chet Atkins guitars were OK, but most Gretch & many Guild solidbodies were just butt-ugly. The new Guitar Player has some $2500 "luthier" custom with SG horns and now a Firebird ass - like the SG horn/flying-V ass wasn't ugly enough yet?  Made out of some basic African hardwoods they made up an exotic jungly-sound name for... :icon_scratch:

I'm pretty sure that when the Strats and SG's and jazz basses and all were in development, they printed up a few fullsize blueprints, then stuck them on the wall and left them there with a pencil & eraser, so you could nudge a line around a millimeter or two when it needed it. Because that's what works - better yet, put them up in your bedroom so you fall asleep & wake up seeing it.

I could actually take a Gibson like this pretty seriously, assuming the QC guy wasn't smoking crack under his desk that week:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SGSP14D5CH-14
And the strings go over the polepieces and don't fall off to one side or the other! Must be made in China or something. Gibson - we hardly know ya....

24 BIG frets, SET maple neck which should help with the wobblies quite a bit.... imagine - Gibson did something good this year!

 

[Slackjaw]

For a 22-fret neck, that's really poor fret access on that "SG." It looks like a high school wood shop thing.

Hey... what are you saying?? LOL

Actually, with that slab body and color, it looks like a giant guitar-shaped eraser on the end of a pencil. But hey, with the neck buried so deep in the body it's probably a lot more balanced than a real one.

And 24 frets on an SG?? Way to make an already unbalanced guitar even more so. No thank you...