Telecaster Neck Pickup Route - Too Small?

[mycroftxxx]

An update on my summer Telecaster build (documented in the build forum), but I’m creating a thread here because I’m curious if anyone has had similar issues with the neck pickup route and I couldn’t find an existing thread:

I’ve been auditioning new pickups because there are some things about the Fralin split blades that I’m not too happy with, but…of the two different neck pickups I’ve tried - the Fender Ultra Noiseless Vintage Telecaster pickup and a Wilde L280TN - neither fit the Warmoth Tele neck route without a LOT of hassle. The Fralin split blade neck pickup was pretty tight too, but I thought I was going to have to hog out an extra 2mm to get either of the others to fit. I finally just barely managed to get the Fender Ultra Noiseless to fit, and on the Wilde, I ended up very gently and time-consumingly shaving a couple of millimeters off the ends of the bottom bobbin, where the screw holes are.

Hence my question: Anyone else had what are supposed to be standard sized Tele neck pickups require heroic measures to fit in the Warmoth Tele neck rout?

(FYI, the combo of the Wilde neck and Fender Ultra Noiseless bridge seems to have the sonic qualities I was shooting for; my only gripe with the Fralins was the there was a noticeable volume difference between the D and G strings, which is where the two split rails overlap, and I was unable to dial that out by any combination of string heights or pickup height/tilt. I’m happy with the new combo though.)

 

[stratamania]

Anyone else had what are supposed to be standard sized Tele neck pickups require heroic measures to fit in the Warmoth Tele neck rout?

No, but the thing is Fender Noiseless "Vintage" for example are not dimensionally the same as an actual traditional vintage size Tele pickup or especially supposed to be. Warmoth's Tele neck pickup is based on a vintage type tele pickup rout, so more modern Tele neck pickups which are different in size may or will require adjustment of the rout.

 

[Spud]

I hava a Wilde/Bill Lawrence blade Tele lead pickup and it fits in route fine and a Wilde/Lawrence strat blade style in strat style and they both fir great.

 

[teleme01]

I took me 2 years to get here but yes I am whittling at the tele neck pickup route now

 

[Rick]

Nope, no trouble. Like spud I used the real bill Lawrence pups. Also I've used dimarzio s . Also no problems.

 

[mayfly]

I used lollar (on 8 different telecasters) and they all fit no problem.