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:
