Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Philly Q on July 19, 2010, 10:06:00 PM
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I've actually had this a week but I've been keeping it under my hat until the Croydon meet at the weekend - which was difficult, as there have been a couple of threads about these (and the pickups) in the last few days.
It's a Fender Road Worn '72 Telecaster Deluxe. My first tentative step into the world of relics.
I haven't played many real vintage Fenders (or new Relics), so I'm no expert, but I was surprised to find the ageing seems a lot more authentic than I was expecting. Yes, the big patches of "wear" on the edges have obviously just been whacked out with a sander. But there's a lot of detail you don't see in pictures - little dings around the jack socket and on the top edge of the headstock, dirt and rust on the knobs and switch, pick marks all over the scratchplate, very real-looking ageing of the pickup covers. Even the fake wear on the fingerboard is more convincing than anticipated - I think the guitar must have spent a long while in the shop after this pic was taken, because the board's a lot dirtier now.
The neck's reasonably chunky, not that deep but a nice rounded shape. Workmanship's really good - the neck's a close fit (by Fender standards) and installation of the (surprisingly complex) 3-bolt neck hardware is very clean indeed. The bridge was a bit wonky, but they'd used undersized strap button screws to fit it - I replaced them with some bigger screws and the bridge is nice and straight now.
Soundwise? Acoustically, I was disappointed to find it a bit dull and lifeless... but thankfully a simple string change improved things a great deal. I can't really comment on these notoriously awful "Wide Range" pickup reissues, I've never tried the originals, but these sound like perfectly decent low-output humbuckers. I need some time to get used to them.
Anyway, I like it. And it looks $%&#in' awesome. :lol:
(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p216/phillyq/FEND013-1412-3061.jpg)
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Very cool Mr Q, very cool indeed. Blackout Teles can't help but look like the absolute business. I like it.
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Congrats Philly! :D
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Oh that was yours Philly! It looked nice. I wish I'd had a go now.
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LOL!! :D
As soon as I get mine, the pups are coming out and going to Tim to be transformed into Nailbombs!
Looks nice. Warmoth has a private label 2-1/8" bridge for that if it gives you any more fits.
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Nice one mate!
Those Tele's are very "cool" at the moment 8)
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Those Tele's are very "cool" at the moment 8)
I've always loved the look of these (and the Tele Custom, and '72 Thinline), ever since I first saw them decades ago, and I've never changed my mind about them. But I've never - for some reason - seriously considered the various reissues. It's mildly irritating that they've become associated with bands like Franz Ferdinand etc, but I don't really care. It just seemed like time to get one at last! :D
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That does look great. The neck looks Start like. I don't know much about these Teles but am I right in remembering that they did put some Start necks on some versions or am I imagining that?
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Thanks Steve. Yes, apart from the headstock decal it is indeed a Strat neck, early '70s style with the bullet truss rod adjuster and 3-bolt fixing. The body's neck pocket is curved like a Strat's, too. It was from that CBS period when Fender would introduce "new" models but use as many parts as possible from existing models to keep the costs down!
The Tele Custom and Thinline from the same period also have the Fender humbuckers and big scratchplates, but regular Tele necks.
(Warmoth also make this kind of Tele Deluxe body and they come with the Strat neck pocket as standard)
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I played this one briefly on Sunday.
Before I saw it, I was expecting not to like it... but it is righteous and gorgeous. :D
I can't really comment on the pickups, I'm not familiar with them or their ancestors anyway, and I played (I think) through the fabulous HTH 10 watter - at that moment, the way I had the amp set for me, almost anything would have sounded good to my ears :lol:
And... off topic... Fernando!! What's happened??! You seem to have had the top of your head "roadworned" in celebration! :lol: :wink:
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Congrats Philly,
That looks a nice one.
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That's nice. I wouldn't mind one of those myself :D
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Ah, so I wasn't the only one who was celebrating NGD at the meetup :) It looked like a cool guitar, glad you like it.
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I've always loved those (the original ones), yours looks great :D
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That guitar looks really cool.
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And... off topic... Fernando!! What's happened??! You seem to have had the top of your head "roadworned" in celebration! :lol: :wink:
I'm getting bald, so I made a effort to see how I'll probably look in the future... Aslo paying homage to Sneijder for making football a favor and taking his cr@p brazilian team from World Cup... :)
I was making half as fun this, but the female answer has been very nice, thinking in keep it :D
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It does look pretty good actually (sorry Philly, de-railing your NGD topic for a hair discussion :lol:)
After seeing the pics from the meet the other day, I must admit I'm thinking of getting mine all cut off again - not quite as short as yours, but nearer to the version on my soundclick page.
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nice! :D
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After seeing the pics from the meet the other day, I must admit I'm thinking of getting mine all cut off again - not quite as short as yours, but nearer to the version on my soundclick page.
I think you should carry on rocking the Rory meets Yngwie (.....meets James May) look!
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I can't beleive I wrote Start instead of Strat twice!. Thank you Philly for being too diplomatic to point it out.
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lovely, although personally i'd pay more for one without scratches :D
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lovely, although personally i'd pay more for one without scratches :D
I think they're actually about £70 less without scratches :lol: . But you don't get the nitro finish, if such things float your boat.
I'm enjoying having a guitar that - at last - I don't have to be paranoid about putting that first scratch on!
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Drummers beware! Your hardware is not safe!!!! :lol:
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That's a real cool looking Tele, it reminds me of Hugh Cornwalls? with the exception of the headstock. 8)
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Soundwise? Acoustically, I was disappointed to find it a bit dull and lifeless... but thankfully a simple string change improved things a great deal. I can't really comment on these notoriously awful "Wide Range" pickup reissues, I've never tried the originals, but these sound like perfectly decent low-output humbuckers. I need some time to get used to them.
Anyway, I like it. And it looks $%&#in' awesome. :lol:
I like the Tele Deluxe/Custom look as well. Considering one as my next purchase, next year, actually.
I think part of the reason the reissue "wide range" humbuckers get a tough time from some is the fact that Fender uses 250k pots (I think), giving it a darker tone that maybe some people see as "un-fendery". The WRHB reissues are actually more like conventional humbuckers than the old ones. Some people like to put 1 meg pots in which brightens up the sound making it a little closer to the originals.
The thing is, the originals uses Cunife magnets as opposed to Alnico or ceramic magnets. That stuff is expensive now, even for boutique pickup makers to do clones of.
That said, Curtis Novak makes a Wide Range-style humbucker (but gibson sized) that allegedly sounds close:
http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/hum-WR.shtml
If you can get a new pickguard designed to take "regular" sized humbuckers (the WR pickups are bigger), might be worth a look.
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I haven't taken a look at the electronics yet, if they're 250k pots I may change to 500k (probably not 1Meg).... but I'm really not chasing the Wide Range sound, I don't even know the Wide Range sound! :lol:
Having said that, those Curtis Novak pickups certainly look cool. The Duncan Custom Shop make a couple of 3+3 humbuckers too, including one with alnico rod magnets. It's nice to see something a bit different from PAF humbuckers and Strat single-coils. :)