TL Problems

[Jaime]

My neck pick up is quite a bit lower to the body of the guitar compared to the instructional videos but i've tried making it higher however i can't go any further without the screws coming fully out. Any one know how to fix this? And does the pickup need to be quite close to touching the strings? Thanks

[Simon Barden]

Hi and welcome.

There does seem to be a small mismatch in the TL kit as the scratchplate is drilled for height adjustment machine screws, but overly-short woodscrews seem to have been supplied. Maybe it's something Adam needs to look into.

Your pickguard was designed to be located so that it butts-up to the end of the neck. But maybe the position of the neck pickup slot prevented this? Have you got any pictures of the build prior to this, or can you give us some shots of the whole body from the top, with and without the pickguard fitted? If the small semi-circular cut-out in the pickguard is also butted up to, or very close to the metal control plate at the moment, then it may be that there is an issue with the neck pocket routing.

From the photo, can we assume that this is a left-handed kit, or is it just a flipped photo?

With regards to the pickup, the neck pickup in a Tele is often positioned quite low, but you should be able to raise it a bit higher than that for a stronger output and tone.

I'm not familiar with that particular kit, though I have several Teles, but I would either expect there to be some foam stuck under the pickup (to allow for body mounting), or maybe some springs or rubber tube, so that there was something keeping the pickup pressed upwards against the screws, or else some machine screws and springs/rubber tube supplied so that you can mount the pickup from the scratchplate and use the machine screws for height adjustment.

So, is there any foam rubber/springs/tube located under the pickup, or is it held purely in place by the screws being wound through the pickup's plastic baseplate? I'm just wondering if there isn;t anything underneath it at the moment, then it may sit higher if there is.

Otherwise its either a) source some longer thin wood screws and maybe add some foam or springs underneath it, or b) source some pickup mounting machine screws and springs and mount the pickup from the pickguard. An eBay search for 'Fender pickup mounting screws" (and/or springs) should turn up plenty of sources.

Or you could simply cut a piece of plywood to fit the bottom of the pickup slot (doesn't have to be perfect), stick it in and screw into that.

But I would like to know what the whole body looks like. I don't recall any major issues with the RH Tele kit, but if this is a leftie, then there may be some factory issues that Adam needs to sort out.

[gavinturner]

What does "screws coming fully out" mean exactly? Personally I would use screws int he adjustment holes either side of the pickguard route to raise and lower the pickup. Is this what you are doing? Sometimes the route is a little shallow for the adjustment screws but this is the only issue I have every seen with this method of height adjustment. Could you supply a few more photos?

cheers,
Gav.

[Simon Barden]

The 'Fitting the hardware" instruction video 10.2 for the TL-1 for the PBG site, http://www.pitbullguitars.com/videos/#mg, shows them being screwed into the pickup cavity. But looking at that video it does look like they are machine screws, not pointed wood screws, and there are springs with the kit, so it should be easy to fit the neck pickup to the pickguard.

Remove the strings, scratchplate and pickup (you'll be able to leave the pickup wired in). Fit the two screws through the scratchplate, turn the scratchplate so that it's just leaning back slightly from the vertical, then on the underside of the pickguard, put a spring over each screw. Then (slightly awkward with just two hands so it can be easier to just fit one screw/spring at a time), screw the pickup on. Once you've got the pickup held by a few threads on one screw, then move to fit the other screw.

Fit the scratchplate back on the guitar and screw it down. Restring the guitar. Now you can adjust the height of your pickup by the screws with the strings in place, clockwise for higher, anti-clockwise for lower. I wouldn't raise it any higher than the lowest of the neck's wooden edges (not the fret height), but you can now play about with it until you feel it best matched the bridge pickup.

With the holes drilled in the scratchplate and the machine screws and springs supplied, it very much looks to me like video 10.2 is incorrect for the kit and it was designed to have the neck pickup mounted on the pickguard from the start. All the body mounted pickups I've ever had, have come with proper narrow wood screws with pointed ends, or for Tele neck pup replacements, a choice of wood or machine screws for body or pickguard fitting.

[gavinturner]

Great description Simon.

cheers,
Gav.

[Simon Barden]

And thank you, Gav.

I'm still intrigued by the misplaced scratchplate. I'm wondering if Jaime located the pickup first, but located it in the middle of the pickup cavity by mistake? If the neck pocket isn't too short, then the scratchplate will be sitting over the end of the control plate.

So it's then either a question of moving the pickguard forward and trying to patch up the holes it's left behind, or getting a bespoke pickguard made up that has a bigger cut-out for the control plate and is a bit longer so that it meets the neck.

Jaime, we'd still like to see some photos!

* I've got a Tele with a home-made mahogany body that a mate of mine made years ago, but he did rout out the neck pocket too short so that it's got a gap between the pickguard and the neck like in the photo. The gap was originally (mainly) covered up by the overhang on a 22-fret neck, but that neck was very poorly fretted (I've since refretted it but have yet to quite finish it off), so I replaced it with a cheap used 21-fret neck from eBay. However, that leaves the gap exposed. Because it's a black pickguard, I simply coloured in the gap with a black Sharpie so that it was less noticeable, but come spring here, I'll be re-finishing the body, routing out the neck pocket to its proper depth and re-fitting the old neck.

[Jaime]

And thank you, Gav.

I'm still intrigued by the misplaced scratchplate. I'm wondering if Jaime located the pickup first, but located it in the middle of the pickup cavity by mistake? If the neck pocket isn't too short, then the scratchplate will be sitting over the end of the control plate.

So it's then either a question of moving the pickguard forward and trying to patch up the holes it's left behind, or getting a bespoke pickguard made up that has a bigger cut-out for the control plate and is a bit longer so that it meets the neck.

Jaime, we'd still like to see some photos!

* I've got a Tele with a home-made mahogany body that a mate of mine made years ago, but he did rout out the neck pocket too short so that it's got a gap between the pickguard and the neck like in the photo. The gap was originally (mainly) covered up by the overhang on a 22-fret neck, but that neck was very poorly fretted (I've since refretted it but have yet to quite finish it off), so I replaced it with a cheap used 21-fret neck from eBay. However, that leaves the gap exposed. Because it's a black pickguard, I simply coloured in the gap with a black Sharpie so that it was less noticeable, but come spring here, I'll be re-finishing the body, routing out the neck pocket to its proper depth and re-fitting the old neck.

Hey so yeah this is a left handed kit, not sure if it's because of that but there seem to be a few errors with different parts of the kit. My scratch plate was actually too small to hug both the neck of the guitar a the bridge pick up (ill send a photo through). So basically i had to choose a side to it to fit to. (and the bidrge pick up is pushed as forward as i can get it)
I found a sizing problem with the neck as well. I'm not sure how high it's meant to be but the neck is a lot higher than the body of the guitar, a lot more than the video. Though i figure there's not much i can do about that

[Simon Barden]

The neck height looks OK to me. I just measured my Fender Tele, and the neck height looks about the same, with the edge of the fretboard at 8.5mm above the body (not the pickguard). Though it's a combination of neck height and neck angle that really counts as you don't want the strings so high at the bridge that you can't raise the saddles up enough or so low that there is a lot of saddle height adjustment screw showing and a poor string break angle over the saddles.

Here's my Fender Tele:



And as a comparison, here's my Tele with a body my friend made (and a neck from eBay) which has too short a neck pocket:



The Fender Tele has the neck meeting the top curve of the body at the 17th fret, the home-made one has it meeting at the 18th fret as a result of the to-short neck pocket.

But your TL-1 looks like it's joining the body at about the 17th fret, which would indicate the neck pocket isn't too short as I first thought (though I don't know if the TL=1 body shape exactly matches that of a real Tele). It may be that one or other of the routed cavities are slightly out of position.

Without reference to a right handed TL-1 body and a picture of the bare body of your TL-1, I can't say if there are any obvious pocket routing errors or not, or whether there's just been a cumulation of small positioning errors in your build.

But I'd certainly change the neck pickup fixing so it's attached to the scratchplate (like my red Tele, even though that's a Strat-sized pickup there).

[gavinturner]

The neck height looks fine to me. It needs to be at least high enough for the strings coming off the bridge at minimum height adjustment, so at least the height of each of those barrel string supports. If you lower each of the bridge supports to their lowest adjustment height and the strings don't touch the 22nd fret then you'll probably need to shim the neck. This is quite common.

cheers,
Gav.

[UpperCaseH]

I've apparently got a terrible memory, but I'm 90% sure my tele kit's neck pickup attached directly to the pick guard a bit like on a strat. (Which I understand isn't the case with Fenders? Or maybe just old Fenders?)

I'll see if I can get it apart and take some photos for you so you can compare it.

Edit:

Here you go. The neck pup on mine definitely attaches to the pickguard. The screws are quite long machine screws and were supplied with tapered (might be the wrong word) springs which now that I think about it I've probably got on upside down. Is yours similar? If it is, then an easy solution might be to grab some longer screws, or maybe appropriately sized bolts would do the trick?



Your neck looks about the same as mine. Mine was a little lower, but I needed to shim it (had 3mm string height at 12th fret with the bridge adjusted all the way down). This is after the shim, and it's all good now.



As far as I know, tele pickguards in general don't hug the bridge, but do hug the neck. I was going to install it as you did, but looking at pictures of different teles on the internet showed me several that had a gap between pickguard and bridge, but none with a gap between pickguard and neck, so I pushed it as far forward as I could. Is it possible that you've got yours so far back that the pickup isn't sitting in there properly? If that's not causing any problems with the neck pickup fitting, then I don't see a problem with having the pickguard back instead of forward if you like it more like that.

Here's mine:

Here's the Fender Standard: http://intl.fender.com/en-CA/guitars...olor-sunburst/

Hope that helps some!



Edit 2: I just realised while looking at my own pictures that I forgot to shield the bottom of the pickguard. That might explain a few things. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow!