Tobacco Burst F Hole Tele

[Cactus Jack]

Just about 4 weeks ago I purchased the body below. It is being finished in satin Tobacco Burst front and back and is being routed for Strat neck and middle pups and Tele bridge. The pickups will be Seymour Duncan APS-2 in the neck and middle, and a Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue in the bridge. I've never had an all Alnico II guitar before so I'm excited to give these pups a shot.

The body should arrive pretty quick so in the meantime I've pulled together some spare parts. My initial thought was to go full chrome, but I have a nice set of aged Callaham part's which might look good to. My gut says the body will make the decision for me, but please feel free to share your opinion on chrome vs relic.

One little hot rod touch I'm going to sneak into this build is a 10-way Freeway switch. I've been interested in this switch for a while, and I've seen Rick recommend them on several occasions. Here's what the switch looks like:

My initial observation of the switch is that it's good quality. Switching between the banks takes a nice push and produces a solid "click" so you know you for sure you're where you want to be. Unless you were absolutely pounding on guitar there's no way you'd accidentally change banks. Passing between positions 1-5 feels like a normal 5-way switch.

One key thing to note is that this switch is large. Upon test fitting on another Warmoth Tele body, using full size pots, the control plate would not fit. The square nature of the switch was pressed into the front wall, and the tone pot was about 2mm to wide the other direction. My solution to this problem is to use mini pots, which I'm fine with.

Another word of caution is that I attempted to put this switch in a rear route Strat to no avail. The switch is too wide for the factory switch cutout. As such, I widened the gap, but then ran into two other problems. First, the slot for the switch is too short for the switch. I could get position 1 or 5 to fully engage, but the slot needed widening to get both to engage properly. Second, the screws to mount the switch to the body are too short the rear route. The screws are metric with super fine thread, and while I'm sure I could find longer ones in two seconds I decided to save the switch for this build instead. I'm excited for the switch but it's probably best to test drive one in a Strat pickguard first. 

Here are a few picks of the switch engaged in the two banks:

Over the next few days I'm going to wire up my harness and prep the neck(s) before the body arrives. It's gonna be another fun project for sure.

 

[rgand]

That Freeway switch should be cool. As to chrome/relic I lean towards chrome but, as you said, the body may show you the best choice.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Nice! I had a Jerry Donahue in the bridge of my Tele Special for a very long time, phenomenal pickup.

 

[ragamuffin]

Great grain on that body!

 

[MikeW]

Just my $0.02, but over Tobacco Burst, I'd prefer the relic'ed Nickel and (is that Pao Ferro or Rosewood) the neck on the left. Looking forward to seeing it come together.

 

[Cactus Jack]

Just my $0.02, but over Tobacco Burst, I'd prefer the relic'ed Nickel and (is that Pao Ferro or Rosewood) the neck on the left. Looking forward to seeing it come together.

The neck on the left is Pao Ferro, and the neck on the right is Rosewood. One small nit that I have with the necks is the tuners should be swapped. The vintage tuners should be on the Vintage Modern and the locking should be on the Modern. Both necks are awesome, but it's a detail I overlooked at the time.

Because the body is satin I think the aged hardware might look better. However, I'm looking for an excuse to use the Shroeder bridge because it's too darn pretty to leave in the parts bin.

 

[rgand]

I do like that Schroeder bridge. I'm looking forward to seeing that on a build.

 

[stratamania]

You could always swap the tuner buttons on the VM neck for something that looks more like a vintage button and retain the actual tuners.

 

[Cactus Jack]

You could always swap the tuner buttons on the VM neck for something that looks more like a vintage button and retain the actual tuners.

I might be in the minority, but I really like vintage tuners. I like the feel, I like the look, I like pretty much everything about them. As such, if I were to swap them I'd just use conversion bushings on the VM neck and call it good. 

 

[stratamania]

You could always swap the tuner buttons on the VM neck for something that looks more like a vintage button and retain the actual tuners.

I might be in the minority, but I really like vintage tuners. I like the feel, I like the look, I like pretty much everything about them. As such, if I were to swap them I'd just use conversion bushings on the VM neck and call it good.

Yes, plenty of options there.

 

[Cactus Jack]

I ordered a few Bourns mini pots, and really like them. They have a great feel, and the resistance is more CTS than Bourns. Another thing I liked is that they are available in both audio and linear taper. Boy are they small!

Full size CTS vs mini Bourn:

The minis save a TON of space on a Tele plate:

While they read lower than 250K, both pots were within 10% of spec and consistent. The pots aren't labeled audio/linear, but all you need to do is put the multimeter leads on lugs 1 and 2 then slowly roll the pots on. Linear will be roughly 125K at 50% while audio will be roughly 60k. Quick easy way to know what pots you're working with. 

Best part is they fully solved my problem and the Freeway switch now fits in a standard Tele cavity.

Before:

After:

Last comment for now. Soldering to a circuit board requires way less solder and heat than soldering to a metal lug. Less is more in this situation as you need just a bit to make the connection.

Wired the harness up, just need the body to arrive! Still learning so not much to look at, but the sake of adding pics here's the harness so far:

 

[PhilHill]

Seems like a good fix to a pain in the butt problem, well done Sir. :icon_thumright:

 

[Rick]

Looking good!

 

[Verne Bunsen]

The pots aren't labeled audio/linear...

Looks great, a perfect solution! Just FYI, the taper and resistance is stamped on top of the wafer on Bourns pots. In this picture, you can see “B250k” stamped behind the shaft. “B” is a linear taper while “A” or “D” will be log tapers.

 

[Cactus Jack]

Thanks for the heads up, I dint even think about that. It’s amazing I’ve survived this long while missing the obvious so often in life .