I like teles, but i'm not totally sold

[dNA]

I haven't had any legit playing time on a fender in years. Me and my best friend had starter-pack strats when we were like 14, and i eventually splintered that thing on the pavement when i got new guitar a few years later. But my interest in single coil sounds has lead me to investigate a little more and thinking about getting a tele was what lead me to look into Warmoth in the first place.
today I went to buy guitar strings at the local guitar shop and they had a used tele - i think it was MIK - with an ash body and birdseye maple neck. I picked it up and jammed with it a bit unplugged. The neck and string spacing felt way narrow to me, but the sound of it unplugged was workin for me. i could get some twang but it also had a nice clean strum to it too. Plugging it in i was impressed even more, especially with the middle position sound. Material that i wrote for an acoustic came out real nice on that setting.
the birdseye maple neck was beautiful. i hadn't seen an all birdseye neck in person, and the figuring was fuckin crazy! like drops of water on a window during a big storm. very busy. I really dug it.
all in all, it brought me closer to sealing the deal getting a tele (still crossing my fingers it'll be this year) and i'll certainly be going for a birdseye maple neck now. mmmm

one complaint, other than the awkwardness of the neck - i felt the strings were very close to the body - not that the action was crazy low (it was real nice) but i'm used to a little more clearance off the body and i found my picking hitting the pickguard during a lot of my playing. Does that happen to anyone else? i'm assuming it's the same kind of thing w/ a Warmoth tele which kinda concerns me because that's just my playing style.

 

[Mor Paul]

Well, here's what ya do:

Get an 1 11/16 inch nut width, probably a thicker neckback. Second part is a maybe.
Shim the neck, and raise the saddles in the bridge. This will get you more string clearance from the body, without affecting action.

May the force be with you.

 

[Schlieren]

String spacing can always be controlled at the saddle and nut, one assumes.  My own steel-string's high E string had a fraction of a millimeter less room between it and the edge of the fretboard than the low E for years, and it drove me absolutely bonkers until I finally fixed it at the nut and the saddle when I had the guitar re-fretted; one imagines it'd be fairly trivial to give your fingers a bit of space.  Also keep in mind the 1 3/4" neck width option.

Insofar as the string height as a function of saddle height / neck height off the body / nut height, I can let you know in about five or six weeks how mine feels, this with an LSR nut / Trem-King saddles / 24 fret w/720 mod and contoured heel, which I imagine will put my Tele's strings fairly close to the pickguard I'm using (a piece of Tortis thickened up with an acrylic backing).

Also: consider no pickguard, or, if you must have a pickguard, a pickguard of thinner material.

Basically what I'm saying is that there are so many variables with a 100% custom guitar that you could probably finagle any sort of string alignment / neck comfort out of it, so long as you went into it asking the appropriate questions, listening actively to the advice and recommendations given to you by those manufacturing the parts for you and possibly those you've chosen to assemble it for you (unless it's a DIY project), and making the appropriate requests when it comes time to order your parts.

 

[mayfly]

Well, here's what ya do:

Get an 1 11/16 inch nut width, probably a thicker neckback. Second part is a maybe.
Shim the neck, and raise the saddles in the bridge. This will get you more string clearance from the body, without affecting action.

May the force be with you.

+1 to what max said.  The neck can be fixed to whatever your heart desires.  The string height over the body can be tweaked as well.  Actually, in my W's the distance from the strings to the top is 1/8 or so more than the american standards I've played.  I'm happy with the distance - and I'm used to TOM style bridges.

 

[dNA]

thanks guys. i wasn't worried about the neck - I'll be going w/ a 1 11/16 nut and a 59 fatback. i just was really taken by surprise to pick up a guitar with a neck that narrow. i may never have played one. in looking back, i haven't really had much playing time on THAT many different guitars - mostly multiple models from the same manufacturer

is a neck shim going to be fairly simple? while i've heard the term "shim" a lot - is that just a thin piece of wood you add in there?

 

[mayfly]

is a neck shim going to be fairly simple? while i've heard the term "shim" a lot - is that just a thin piece of wood you add in there?

Or plastic.  Or paper.  Or beer-can-aluminum.  Or whateveryagot.

 

[dNA]

so there's nothing scientific or delicate about it? i guess i imagined somehow you could easily fudge something up that it would mess up intonation or something to that affect

 

[exalted]

Nah. Intonation is pretty difficult to mess up (to a degree that can't be re-intonated). The action on the other hand... 

 

[Mor Paul]

Put a pick in there. Then, you go to a gig, and bring screwdrivers instead of picks...
:sign13:

 

[tfarny]

There are people who'll fashion a perfect tiny wedge to put in there....but Bill Nash just sticks a pick in, so that should say something. I personally like the strings closer to the body, I'm finding, it's more like my acoustic that way. But it's just preference.

 

[dNA]

There are people who'll fashion a perfect tiny wedge to put in there....but Bill Nash just sticks a pick in, so that should say something. I personally like the strings closer to the body, I'm finding, it's more like my acoustic that way. But it's just preference.

its wierd you say that, about the acoustic. because i think a lot of my playing style comes from the fact that i played acoustic far more than electric during the first 4 or 5 years of my playing - evne though i was still playing a lot of aggressive stuff then. so i strum and pick pretty physically and i need heavy strings on electric to really feel comfortable. I never bump my acoustic with the pick.
But like, where i'm hitting is is actually right under and around the strings. like i guess i pick through really heavily? i dunno. i just know i like to dig in a lot and it was distracting.