Custom Tele build scheduled for this year.

[DrNomis_44]

Those are the pickups I popped in the Teleblaster. I really like them a lot, plenty of output not thin and weedy

They are quite loud sounding pickups, well to my ears they are anyway.

[wazkelly]

I have a set in my Swampy and love how they sound.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

So next week I'm going to order the Telecaster Total Overhaul hardware kit from Realtone Music, since the order is going to be over $200.00, I'm going to take advantage of the Express Postage option that they offer, this means that my order will arrive in the post by Friday of next week, definitely getting really excited about this custom Telecaster build project cause it's all coming together, will be ordering the neck the following fortnight.

Once the hardware kit arrives in the post I'll be sure to post pics for you guys.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

Just went to order the hardware kit for the custom Tele and would you believe it, it's listed as "Out Of Stock"....looks like I'm going to have to wait till they get more in.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

I recently went to a Blues Festival event at a live music venue here in Darwin, called the Pints Club, anyway, as luck would have it, the guy who owned the Fender Mexican Tele that I fixed, was playing a gig there and I got to hear how the new Tonerider Hot Classics pickups I had installed, sounded through the big PA system they had there.....and geez did they sound sweet through the PA, so, to all forum members who are building, or are thinking of building a Tele kit, if you're after a great sounding set of Tele pickups, I would have no hesitation in very strongly recommending the Tonerider Hot Classics....they really do sound great.


The guy who owned the Mexican Tele told me that he was really happy with it, and that he is only playing it now, I'm considering that as a job well done.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Hey Everyone, it's been quite a while so it's time for an update, okay, I went to my local Cash Converters shop and bought a second-hand Fender USA Squier Telecaster guitar for parts to build my custom Telecaster, the neck is an all maple one that looks in pretty good condition, it just has a slight back-bow to it which can be easily fixed by tweaking the truss-rod, fortunately it is otherwise straight with no twists in it, the frets are in good condition too, no wear on the crowns whatsoever, I just needed to clean all the human DNA off of it that was left on it by the previous owner, the neck heel just needed a little bit of sanding on the sides to get it firmly fitting in the neck-pocket of the butterscotch blond body I'm using, I need to visit my local Bunnings store tomorrow to buy some satin clear-lacquer to spray the sides of the neck-heel where I sanded away some of the wood, should look cool, there's only one issue with the neck that needs fixing, the nut-trench needs to be deepened to bring the 1st-fret action down to Fender specs cause it's a mile high, but that should be easy to sort out, next thing to do is fit the bridge, control panel, and string ferrules to the body before wiring it all up, I'm not going to be using the pickups that came with the Squire Telecaster I bough from Cashies, they're not that great at all, I'm going to be using the set of Tonerider Hot Classics instead, there was a bonus, the mounting-screw holes in the scratchplate on the Squire Telecaster all match-up with the holes in the new Tortoiseshell scratchplate I'm going to be using, so I'll have enough mounting screws, incidentally, that gives me a choice of two different scratchplates I could use, I'll post a pic of the Squire neck fitted to the Butterscotch Body so you can see what it looks like, I think it looks only too cool if I do say so myself.


Here we go:




That's a pic of the maple squire Telecaster neck fitted to the butterscotch Blonde body I'm using for the custom Telecaster build, I think it looks cool.


Here's another pic I took of the custom Telecaster with the bridge, scratchplate, control panel, Hot Classics pickups, and jack plate put on the Butterscotch Blonde body as a trial-fit, this is to give you some idea of what the guitar is going to look like once the build-process is finished, I think it looks really cool, should sound great too:




There's one thing that's got me a bit concerned, and that is, it seems that the bridge is located a bit too far back from the neck for proper intonation, I checked it with my tape measure set to Fender's scale-length of 25.5 Inches, and the string-saddles seem to be a bit too far back by about 3/8 Inch (10mm), sorry for the mixture of imperial and metric units, I blame that on my time spent as an apprentice fitter and machinist, I've gotten so used to dealing with imperial units.


Rather than modifying the bridge-pickup routing, a simple solution that I can think of is to use some longer intonation-adjustment screws with each string saddle, together with some longer springs, or maybe see what I can order from Realtone Music.

I just came up with a simple solution to the problem.

[dave.king1]

I'd be checking those Squier pickups lot of them are apparently the same as the Toneriders.

The Affinity pickups are not but the Classic Vibe ones are and they are very fine sounding units, same as the Vintage Classics.

So don't discount them out of hand

[wazkelly]

Looks nice Doc but reckon it would look better with a single ply black scratch plate.

I'm with Dave on the Squier PUP's as usually they are supposed to be pretty good. If not, somebody will pay decent coin for them on eBay or Gumtree to help offset cost of Toneriders.

[DrNomis_44]

Looks nice Doc but reckon it would look better with a single ply black scratch plate.

I'm with Dave on the Squier PUP's as usually they are supposed to be pretty good. If not, somebody will pay decent coin for them on eBay or Gumtree to help offset cost of Toneriders.

Yeah I guess that's one option I could consider with regards to the Squier pickups, I was thinking of giving them to a good mate of mine, I just uploaded another pic of the custom Telecaster I'm building, I took it after doing a test/trial fit of all the hardware I got from the Squier Telecaster.

Both of the Squier pickups do work, but the signal-wires broke off the neck pickup and need to be re-soldered back on.


I just got back from buying a few things from Woolies up the road from where I live, including a roll of some Painter's 3M masking tape, it'll come in handy for temporarily holding things in place while I mark the locations for the mounting-screw holes.

[DrNomis_44]

I'd be checking those Squier pickups lot of them are apparently the same as the Toneriders.

The Affinity pickups are not but the Classic Vibe ones are and they are very fine sounding units, same as the Vintage Classics.

So don't discount them out of hand

Good point, cheers mate.