Teles with other guitar necks

[Ian Price]

Been watching a lot of music (documentaries and concerts) on TV recently. Today I watched a doc on The Funk Brothers and then the Blind Faith gig at Hyde Park in '69 (which seemed pretty boring). Anyway, Joe Messina was using what I at first thought (rather naively) was a tele model that I hadn't seen before:



I knew the neck looked familiar but couldn't put my finger on it for a while. Eventually I realised it was a jazzmaster neck. And then whilst watching the Blind Faith gig I noticed that Clapton's tele had a strat neck on it:



Why is it that people do this? I have nothing against it, I just find it a little strange. Maybe I'll experiment with my strat and tele (only if the holes line up though!)

[PhilKing]

Strats and Tele's have different neck pockets and neck heel shapes.  Once you change over it is hard to go back!  A tele has a square neck end whereas the Strat, Jazzmaster and Jaguar)have rounded ends.  IF you look at the jazzmaster neck it is square at the end (and looks to be missing the binding too).  I fitted a tele neck to a strat body and had to round the neck end to fit.

[Philly Q]

A tele has a square neck end whereas the Strat, Jazzmaster and Jaguar)have rounded ends....... I fitted a tele neck to a strat body and had to round the neck end to fit.

This is true.  But a Strat neck should fit a Tele neck pocket, it'll just leave unsightly gaps in the corners.

[richardjmorgan]

A tele has a square neck end whereas the Strat, Jazzmaster and Jaguar)have rounded ends....... I fitted a tele neck to a strat body and had to round the neck end to fit.

This is true.  But a Strat neck should fit a Tele neck pocket, it'll just leave unsightly gaps in the corners.

Presumably you could get round this by getting a scratchplate cut that would fit round the strat-shaped neck end so it covers the gap?

[Philly Q]

Presumably you could get round this by getting a scratchplate cut that would fit round the strat-shaped neck end so it covers the gap?

Yep, absolutely.  And if it was a 22-fret Strat neck it would just about hide the gap anyway.

[Sollophonic]

Fender actually made a Telecaster with a big headstock neck. It was called the Deluxe, it had two humbuckers, four controls and a toggle switch.

The guy from Franz Ferdinand plays one, so from being a rather unloved tele model, it has recently become rather desirable.