Newbie with an idea pickin' your experience (Tele/Strat)

[kydave]

Anybody made a Tele like this?

Order the rear routed Tele body with Strat volume and tone(singular) control holes, Strat pickup selector slot, routed for standard Tele/bridge and neck pickups...

Put on a standard Tele pickguard...

Basically ending up with a Tele, but the volume control is like reaching for the one I'm used to on my Strat...

First photo from Warmoth build images, second photoshop of what I want.

 

[rgand]

Anybody made a Tele like this?

Order the rear routed Tele body with Strat volume and tone(singular) control holes, Strat pickup selector slot, routed for standard Tele/bridge and neck pickups...

Put on a standard Tele pickguard...

Basically ending up with a Tele, but the volume control is like reaching for the one I'm used to on my Strat...

Welcome to the forum. I haven't seen anyone do that but it doesn't mean you can't, or even that it hasn't been done. It would be something a little different and cool. You may want to call Warmoth and talk with one of the sales people to see if they can do what you want. They do offer the hybrid Tele but the PG is like a Strat. You could make your own PG, though and make the upper line more Tele-like.

 

[kydave]

Thank you for the welcome and encouragement.

While I love the sound and appearance of a Tele, I've played the Strat for the better part of the past 3 or 4 decades (when not playing a D-28 - my primary).

I've owned a couple Teles, but I never got used to reaching for the controls.  My fingers just went for where they are on a Strat.  So I thought - what the heck?  Make a guitar that's Tele in sound (your two pickup standard Tele setup), 95% Tele in appearance (no control plate and controls positioned Strat-like, but still use a Tele pickguard)…

I think this would be called "Having your cake & eating it too."

Just found this forum and wondered if anyone had done something like this already.

:icon_smile:

 

[Fat Pete]

Maybe try a 'Jim Root' style guard - not sure a standard one would look right with the control plate cutout but no plate.

 

[kydave]

That pickguard is just what I had in mind, but I figured I'd have to make one to avoid the little half circle cutout.

Thanks!!

 

[musicispeace]

Welcome to the forum. I started playing again in 2010 and I've learned a lot here. As Pat Travers once said with an album title, you gotta go for what you know. Part of the beauty of this parts thing is that you can get what really works for you. I have one tele as a mostly strat guy and as much as I tend to be a purist about tele's I had the chance to try one recently with the back contour and whoa, that thing was super comfortable and cool to play. So its a big world out there in partscaster land and that is a good thing.

 

[kydave]

I wonder how many guitarists (who weren't Tele fans) would even notice right off what was different? (Photoshopped)

 

[rgand]

That looks good. I particularly like the placement of the knobs in relationship to the bridge pickup. I hope you build it. It'll be a beautiful guitar.

 

[kydave]

"I particularly like the placement of the knobs in relationship to the bridge pickup."

That is the basis of the idea.  I am SO used to barely reaching down with my little finger for the volume knob, from playing a Strat as my main guitar if I'm not playing a D-28.  After 30 odd years, that gets to be a motor memory.


P.S. Does anyone know if someone makes custom pickguards, where I could order the Jim Root style, but with a hole for a Tele pickup, rather than a Humbucker?

 

[kydave]

A suggestion of knobs in line with pickup sent me back to photoshop.  This is getting to the point where I'm seriously considering ordering the ash Tele body with normal pickup routing, but back routed for controls.  I would not have any Warmoth factory control holes put in though.  I could do that myself, drawing a line through the contacts as a reference for drilling the volume and tone controls in a parallel line.  This is what I'm seeing now (other than crude photoshop skills)...

 

[vetteman]

I like the idea, but the problem will be making a nice slot for the strat style blade switch.  It may require thinning the top where it mounts.  I've done my own slot on pickguard material using my drill press and a spare tele control plate, which would probably work for you too, but I'm not sure you would get the full range of the switch lever.

 

[kydave]

That Jim Root Tele above seems to do it.

 

[vetteman]

That Jim Root Tele above seems to do it.

Sure, but what does the inside of the control cavity look like?

 

[kydave]

I'm not sure that would matter.  I can alter the inside of the cavity without it appearing any where visibly.  It would not be a bad idea, of course, to be able to see the interior of the Jim Root model.  Maybe I'll ask over on the Tele forum.