I've always fancied one of the Fender Korean Lite Ash Telecasters ever since playing a Lite Ash Strat quite a few years ago now when they were pretty new. The Lite Ash series were built in Korea between 2004-2009. It was by far the best sounding and playing Strat in the shop - until you got to the Custom Shop ones. However for the first few years, they only did them in a lightly tinted clear finish, which I didn't like on a Strat. Far too '70s for me.
My main Tele is a Road Worn Series one with a 7.25" radius neck, so whilst fine for rhythm, it wasn't the easiest guitar to play for solos.
Something reminded me about the Lite Ash series, so I started looking on eBay. Saw a few and hesitated and they went, then saw another one so took the plunge.
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It's got a solid 1-piece light ash body, 9.5" radius birdseye maple neck with abalone dot markers and a Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro pickup set (these were standard fitment). The previous owner had rolled the fretboard edges and added an Electrosocket jack plate. They'd also 'fitted' a bone nut - but hadn't filed it down, so the ends poked out the slot. They'd also forgotten to glue it in - which made filing the ends down and polishing it a lot easier!
All done, sorted and restrung in an hour or so. The action is good, but could be improved, so will wait 'till tomorrow for the neck to settle (as I did tweak the truss rod slightly plus it has the new strings) and then do the final fettling.
The bridge isn't a standard Fender bridge (and no fender stamp) but has holes in the back edge so that it can be top-strung if wanted, as well as the normal rear-strung method.
I'm not 100% sold on the abalone dot markers, they don't stand out that well on the maple neck, so may well swap them out for black ones at a later date.
Tinted clear poly gloss body and an all-over tinted poly satin neck finish. No sign of any fret-wear.
A web search for these guitars will show that a lot of them had twisty necks. I have seen necks with extreme levels of birdseye present which may well have contributed to this, as straight-grained maple is a lot stiffer than figured maple. Or the wood may simply not have been seasoned long enough. But I'm pleased to say that this neck is fine. It's at least 8 years old, so any problems should have shown themselves by now.
£399 (which is the general market price for these in the UK on eBay). That's currently about Aus$688 with today's exchange rate. So not cheap, but worth it in my estimation. Sounds just like a Tele should. I'm very happy with it.
Now comes the hard part - telling the wife!
