Mayfly and Tonar are at it again

[mayfly]

Allright folks! It's time for a review of this guitar!

First some photos:

In many ways, this guitar was an experiment.  New things tried on this guitar (well new for me anyway) were:

1 - WD music body, pre-routed for a Parsons/White b-bender, with all bender hardware supplied in the kit.  Previous to this, I built two parsons/Green bender teles, which I routed myself.
2 - Super duper Tonar finished Warmoth maple/maple vintage/modern neck, with boiled oil finish on the back.  Previous to this, I used raw canary, or W finished satin maple/rosewood W-pro necks
3 - Kent Armstrong telecaster pickups.  Previously I used Lollar special T pickups.
4 - Glendale 'halfplate' with tone ring bridge.  Previous to this I used Joe Barden bridges.
5 - steinburger funky/ass guitar tuners
6 - super "pull out all the stops and do something amazing" Tonar guitar finish.

I'll review each of these in future postings.  But the end result is a really kick ass guitar that has me spoiled.  This guitar will have its public debut at the Elmdale Tavern next saturday.  Some on down to see it in action  :headbang:

 

[mayfly]

Reviews part 1:  the WD music bender kit.

I got interested in this kit mostly because I wanted to try a parsons/white style bender.  As previously mentioned, I have two parsons/green benders, but I wanted to try something different.

The parsons/green bender is available in kit form from hipshot:

http://store.hipshotproducts.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=221

Essentially, the P/G bender has everything mounted on an aluminum plate.  To install, you route a big hole in the back of your guitar using a supplied full size pattern, and bolt it on.

The Parsons/white bender is available in kit form from WD music:

http://www.wdmusic.com/tele_b_bender_bodies.html

The Parsons/white bender is installed directly into the guitar body using bosses specially routed into the wood.  From WD you can buy the body pre-routed and the bender hardware.  BTW, I discovered later that WD Music actually buys the hardware from these guys:

http://www.benderguitars.com/parsons.html

So which one is better?

Here's a comparison:

1 - quality of body.  With the P/G bender, you just get the hardware and you need to provide your own body.  This means that you can pick whatever body you want.  For my two P/G bender guitars, I used Warmoth bodies, which were of exceptional quality with a dizzying array of woods and options.  With the P/W bender, you can only use the ones from WD music.  The range of options is limited, and WD does not finish their bender bodies.  With regards to overall quality, although both are ultimately a piece of wood, the WD music body required much more pre-finish and machining work than a warmoth body would have.  When I ordered up the body, I had it shipped directly to Tonar, who shot several photos of various parts of the raw body with questions like "are you sure you want me to use this?"  We did, but the work involved was much more.  Edit:  forgot to add that the WD music body's neck pocket was very very loose.  Finally, I found that the neck screw holes in the WD music body did not line up exactly with the warmoth neck.  To fix this I had to drill out the holes on the body by several screw sizes.  Another minus on overall body quality.

2 - quality of instructions.  The P/G bender from hipshot comes with a multi-page installation manual with many tips and photos.  It also comes with a full size drawing of the routing template.  However, you need to make the template yourself.  But if you're like me, I just went down to Home Depot and got a piece of lexan, drew the template on it from the full size drawing, and had at it with a hacksaw and drill.  Turned out just fine and I can re-use that template many times.  
The P/W bender came with no instructions.  None.  Not a word.  Not even a letter.  Zip.  Zero.  If you don't know how a bender goes together, you're screwed with this kit.  However, it's not that hard, but you have to be willing to some up with installation tricks yourself.

3 - quality of the hardware.  The P/G bender is fairly good quality and works well.  The P/W bender is also very good quality stuff.  Very different in construction, but both quality units.

4 - Effort to install.  ok, the P/G bender is nerve wracking.  You need to be very precise when you drill the tower hole, otherwise the b-string will be in a strange place and the guitar may not be playable.  You also need to route a big ass hole in the back of your guitar.  We're not talking about a new pickup route - we're talking about serious wood here.  

baby crying - more later....

 

[mayfly]

... baby back napping.  Where was I?  Oh yea - serious wood.  Once you have that big hole routed however, installing the bender is a breeze - you just bolt the sucker straight on.

The WD kit requires the installation of various pieces into the guitar body.  Some of these pieces were a very tight fit and required machining, some were very loose and I needed to build them up with a wood/glue slurry to make them work.  An example of this is the main pivot point.  This was about 50 thou too loose (the machined metal pivot just rattled around in there).  Also, since there were no instructions, I had to do some things twice, such as install the arm that goes to the front strap.  It's during this process where you understand what the special tools are for (there is a cut down box end wrench in the kit, for example).  Finally, with the WD kit you need to install that spring.  This is a serious spring.  I don't want to hear any of you strat guys whining about how hard it is to install those wimpy virbrato springs any more.  You put in one of these bender springs and then you'll win some spring respect!  When I installed the spring, I improvised with a custom spring puller made out if heavy wire and some linesman's pliers.   It was pretty difficult  - even more so when you don't want to scratch that fabulous Tonar body.  But I got it done.

5 - bender operation.  There are good bits and bad bits for each kit.  Generally speaking, the WD kit is a smoother bender.  In one of my P/G benders, I've got some stiction that makes slow bend releases a problem.  Also, in the P/W bender, you need a special wrench to tune the amount of pull - but once it's set it's unlikely to change.  With the P/G bender, the amount of pull is set with a thumbscrew.  Very convenient, but easy to knock out of tune as well.  Finally with the P/W bender, you can adjust the amount of pull the spring has by changing the location of the spring end point.  You can't do this with the P/G unless you want to drill a hole or two in the back plate.  

So which one would I do again?  Depends really.  I was reading on the bender guitars website (the guys who make the hardware for the P/W kit) that for a fee they will rout any body for the bender hardware.  This may be the ultimate solution - get a nice Warmoth body and send it to the bender guitars folks.  Of course if you're gonna do that, you could always send that body directly to Gene Parsons and have a genuine Gene Parsons bender installed.  I suspect that is the way to go for those with deep pockets and not much time.

 

[mayfly]

reviews part 2:  The super duper Tonar boiled oil neck finish.

Here's the skinny: This is the best playing neck I own.  I'm curious how it will stand up during a gig when you're really sweaty, but I suspect I won't get any of the usual stickiness my other necks get.  This is all good.  Well, almost all good.  This type of finish voids your warranty.  however, I got a pretty fat neck (a boat profile) so I think I'll be fine.  wizard profile users beware!

The vintage modern neck I don't think I would do again.  I've got it all setup, but it does move around on you.  my Pro necks are all rock solid - set and forget.  Since this is a tool for making music, I don't want to be fussing with the truss-rod all the time, but I can see me doing that with this neck.  The good news is that it has that cool skunk stripe up the back  

The bottom line:  Tonar finish neck - good.  Vintage modern neck - hmmm.....

 

[Nando Vallart]

grrrrrrreat review!

 

[OzziePete]

grrrrrrreat review!

+1. Thanx for the insights into the two different types of Benders.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

The boiled oil Maple neck is better than the Canary?  Interesting.

 

[mayfly]

Thanks folks.  The reviews are not over yet!  More stuff to come.

 

[jalane]

Thanks folks.  The reviews are not over yet!   More stuff to come.

Good!  I want to hear about how those p'ups compare to the Lollar Specials you usually use.

 

[mayfly]

Review Part 3:  Kent Armstrong vs Jason Lollar

So I decided to try some of Kent's tele pickups in the guitar.  I had good luck with his lipstick pickups in my 12 string, so I decided to give the tele pickups a whirl.

Some differences:
1 - place of origin.  Jason makes his pickups himself.  Kent designs them, then has them made somewhere else - likely the orient somewhere.  This alone makes up for the big price reduction of Kent's pickups.

2 - Materials.  Jason uses thicker bobbin material that appears to be the same as the old pickups from the 50s/60s.  The bobbin in Kent's pickups are noticeably thinner.  The hookup wire used in Jason's pickups is genuine cloth pullback.  The wire on Kent's pickups appears to be cloth covered, but is really a kind of teflon that requires stripping.  So - Jason's pickups are more period correct if that's important to you

3 - potting.  The Kent armstrong pickups are super potted.  They are potted to the point that wax gets everywhere.  When you are working with a clear pickguard, this is very very annoying.  Jason uses a moderate amount of potting, which changes the tone a bit as well.

4 - tone.  The tone of the two are different, as you'd imagine.  Kent's pickups are weaker and brighter.  Jason's are stronger and darker.  BTW  I'm comparing Jason's superT pickups, which are the loud / dark set.  For what I do, it was kind of nice having a different sound with Kent's pickups.

5 - string balance.  This is the big difference between the two.  Jason's pickups have excellent balance between strings.  With kent's pickups, the high E string is noticeably quiet.  This is quite annoying actually - trying to get that big dramatic high note and it turns out weak.  I played with height adjustment and could not get it where I liked it.  Sadly this was a 'must have' with my pickups, so:

Final word:  I pulled the Kent Armstrong pickups and replaced then with Lollars.  Much happier - even at twice the price.

 

[mayfly]

review part 4:  Glendale vs Bardon

Although I was happy with my Joe Bardon bridges on other guitars, I figured I'd try a Glendale bridge on this guitar.  Heard lots of good things, and the glendale parts are all hand made and come in several formats and different barrel material.

Both bridges are variations on the classic three barrel tele bridge, with tilted barrels to make the guitar play in tune.  For the bridge on this guitar, I decided to get the "half plate" with a separate pickup ring.  The idea is that the bridge is decoupled from the pickup to reduce the amount of microphonics generated.  Some observations:

1 - material thickness.  The glendale bridge uses thinner material.  Not sure if this is period correct or not, but it is much thinner than Joe's bridge
2 - The glendale bridge is obviously hand made to the point where there are file marks etc on it.  The Bardon is machine made and is finished in a high standard.  To me the Bardon bridge wins in this dept.
3 - barrels.  Both bridges use tilted brass barrels for intonation.  Here's the thing though - the barrels are tilted at different angles on the Glendale.  I spend about an hour working on the intonation, but I could not get that Glendale in tune.  Not sure what I'm going to try, but I have to try something - probably swapping the low and high barrels around.  We'll see.
4 - Tone.  Well folks, I must not have golden ears because I cannot tell the difference between the Bardon and the Glendale bridge for tone.
5 - Half plate ground.  With traditional teles, you don't need to ground the bridge because it's done for you via the pickup.  With the half-plate, you need to ground that bridge.  Just something to keep in mind.

The final result:
I'm not about it take it off or anything, although I still have to sort the intonation, but I would not use the glendale bridge again.  At half the price the Bardon is equivalent or better quality.  Sorry Glendale guys, but here I don't think the extra money is worth it.

 

[jalane]

Trevor, thanks so much for all these honest, detailed reviews.  It is extremely helpful and timely, as i'm fairly close to acquiring the rest of the parts i need for my tele build.  :rock-on:

 

[mayfly]

Glad to help.

Review part 5:  Steinburger gearless tuners vs planet waves tuners.

So I got a set of the Steinburger tuners for this guitar.  I fugured I just had to try them.  When they arrived I had a close look at them, saw how they operated, and in the last minute decided not to even install them.  Yes call me a lame ass.  The reasons for this were:
1 - you still need to cut the string
2 - the string end pokes out the back of the tuner where it can get me or one of my boys.  I have PW tuners on a super cheap acoustic mostly because the boys play with it all the time and I don't want a string end to poke them.
3 - you have to turn the tuner nut multiple times to get it up to pitch.  I'm all about convenience when I tune.  I want to slam that string on there and have it up to pitch right away.  This crank it forever thing did not sit well with me.
4 - I was not ready for the look.  Yep, I have this funky ass painted tonar special, and I was not ready for the look of the Steinburger tuners.  Lame lame.

sooo...

I went and did what I always do - put a set of PW lockers in there.  They work great.  :headbang:

 

[DangerousR6]

Trevor, thanks so much for all these honest, detailed reviews.  It is extremely helpful and timely, as i'm fairly close to acquiring the rest of the parts i need for my tele build.   :rock-on:

He's lying, it sounds like shyt, so he's donating it to me.... :icon_biggrin:

 

[mayfly]

Update:  Used the guitar at a gig last night.  Worked flawlessly, held it's tuning, and looked and sounded great.  A winner!

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Curious, how do the Steinberger gearless tuners still have a gear ratio?

 

[mayfly]

Curious, how do the Steinberger gearless tuners still have a gear ratio?

Perhaps a better description is "turns ratio" or "tuning ratio".  The Steinbergers work by clamping the string to what's effectively a bolt; you tune up by unscrewing the bolt out of the housing (which is on the back of the headstock). 

 

[T50]

Man... the Tele looks great!
Congrats!!!