Design your Dream Tele

[matman67b]

I suddenly have the once in a lifetime chance to have one of the world's finest luthiers build me my dream guitar.

Trouble is, I already HAVE my dream guitar! It's a 2001 American Deluxe Telecaster - All Natural - with a Fishman Powerbridge and three Kinman Telecaster pickups set up Nashville style for N, N+M, N+B, M, B switching.

So, I've decided to build this instrument around the Rio Grande Tallboy TWANGBUCKER (http://www.riograndepickups.com)

I'll add a second humbucker in the neck position and a middle SC, using a mini toggle to tap both HB's with switching for B, B+M, B+N, M, B. Master volume and tone controls...

As for woods, this instrument will be built with a light ash body and a maple top: I don't want to get too bright but the maple should be quite sweet under those buckers. Maple neck and fingerboard with Schaller locking tuners and a bone nut.

The finish I'll get will be close to the Cherry Burst that G&L do...
see http://www.glguitars.com/finishes/finish.asp?id=9

Binding? Haven't decided yet.

What would YOUR dream telecaster be? What would your SECOND dream telecaster be???

What are your opinions on the guitar I've designed?

-M@

[Plankspanker]

I'd like to see someone build a '53 Blackguard Tele. That is one of the most coveted years among Tele masters. Gatton, Buchanan, Lee. etc. Fender has re-issued just about all except for the Broadcaster,54 and '53 models. I'm not counting the Gatton model because of all the hot rodding done to it. Neck, pickups, knobs, etc.

[Dale]

My dream tele is a mahog body with quilt maple top. It is thinline with F-holes with blue-green abalone binding around both sides of the body. I t has blue-green abalone bound F-homes as well. It is stained blue with a high gloss poly over it. White perloid pickguard.

Hardware is gold. Am Standard brige. Gover tuners. It has a gold covered SD Seth Lover (4 wire custom order) or SD Alnico Pro II in the neck. I has a Harmonic design P-90 voiced pup in the bridge.

Neck is a vintage tint birdseye maple/maple with abalone markers. Dual action truss rod and 6100 Fret wire.

Case is a nice custom fit one.

How is that fro a dream tele? It will be noticed!

[Steve Dallman]

We're building my girl Tiffany her dream Tele. Warmouth neck with ebony board and small frets, mahogony body with transparent purple, quilt top with binding, American Tele Fender pickups (her favorite), vintage steel bridge with compensated brass saddles...

I already have my dream Tele, but Tiff thinks it looks like hell. It was a 68 I got for $100 in the mid 70's. The frets, finish and pickups were shot. Too light and no sustain. After at least 20 different pickups and 4 refins, it is in my favorite configuration.

Huge frets, Fishman Power Bridge, individual switches for the 3 pickups, Hot Rails, with series/off/parallel switch in the bridge, Duncan Classic Strat Stack w/ series/off/parallel switch in the middle, and a Lace Sensor with on/off/out of phase with low end cut (to keep the low end from cancelling in out of phase settings.

It is beat, with black body, white pickguard, and very worn neck. To aid the sustain, I routed out a 3" wide, 1/4" deep slot in the back from the neck to the strings and laid in a piece of brass...1/4" thick. The neck bolts through it, and the strings are anchored in it. That got the sustain, and it does that better than my Les Paul did.

Because Tiffany makes fun of it, I added some bullet hole stickers.

[TBoneDeluxe]

Thinline F-hole mahogany body. Birdseye maple boat neck. Joe Barden pickups.

[JohnK]

A Callaham T-Model. Ash body, Goldmist Finish, Birdseye Maple Boat profile neck, Vintage Bridge, with Seymour Duncan 5/2 pups.

or a nice CS Esquire in Cobalt Blue with no pickguard, white binding.

[GeetarGoul]

Here's my dream tele: It's got a featherweight ash body and 2 piece maple neck (veneered cap..not a slab), the finsih is pure nitro and the tone is killer. It's basically a 53' Tele with a few minor improvements. (9.5 in radius, taller frets, a 2 piece neck, and a hotter bridge pickup.)

[3rdStone]

Originally posted by Dale
My dream tele is a mahog body with quilt maple top. It is thinline with F-holes with blue-green abalone binding around both sides of the body. I t has blue-green abalone bound F-homes as well. It is stained blue with a high gloss poly over it. White perloid pickguard.

Hardware is gold. Am Standard brige. Gover tuners. It has a gold covered SD Seth Lover (4 wire custom order) or SD Alnico Pro II in the neck. I has a Harmonic design P-90 voiced pup in the bridge.

Neck is a vintage tint birdseye maple/maple with abalone markers. Dual action truss rod and 6100 Fret wire.

Case is a nice custom fit one.

How is that fro a dream tele? It will be noticed!

Yep, it will get noticed, but it ain't no Tele. But, you already knew that right? :tw59

[ElTigre]

No, it's really not a Tele. There's nothing on it to distinguish it as a Tele. It's a............I don't know what to call it.

Anyway, no need to dream here. Gotta John Suhr (formerly of Fender CS) Classic T. Vintage all the way around. Trans white, black Bakolite guard. 1 piece huge/soft V maple neck. Vintage pups. Heavy frets - between 6100 and 6105. No body contours, just a big slab of swamp ash. Vintage-type hardware.

[Dale]

It can be a tele if I call it one.

;-)

Dale

[3rdStone]

Dale, Dale, wake up you're dreaming! :rolleyes:

[3rdStone]

Originally posted by GeetarGoul
Here's my dream tele: It's got a featherweight ash body and 2 piece maple neck (veneered cap..not a slab), the finsih is pure nitro and the tone is killer. It's basically a 53' Tele with a few minor improvements. (9.5 in radius, taller frets, a 2 piece neck, and a hotter bridge pickup.)



Geetar Goul, first, my compliments on your Tele. It looks great in the pic. Visually, it's not much different from mine. I like the vintage look and sound, too. What are the pups? And, what do you find to be the advantage to a 2-piece maple neck on a Tele?

P.S. Sorry about the sloppy post; it happened when I removed the pic from the quote.

[GeetarGoul]

"What are the pups? And, what do you find to be the advantage to a 2-piece maple neck on a Tele?"

Scott builds his own pickups so that he can voice each one to the guitar. They're basically Scott's take on a vintage single coil. If you know anyone with a Lentz geets, check it out!

I find that the two piece necks are stiffer and thus generally more stable and more responsive (Irealize there are exceptions but..) I have a real 58' strat and I love the neck, but I like the Lentz necks better.

[greentone]

my dream axe would have a one piece ash body with a mary kay type finish (for some reason the butterscotch dosent do it for me), big fat u shape neck ( maple board). A peter Florence voodoo broadcaster pickup in the bridge and a lindy fralin blues special pickup in the neck posisiton with a 4 way swich. that gives you
1. bridge
2. bridge and neck in parallel (classic nasal tele tone.
3. Neck
4. bridge and neck in series ( fat bluesey humbucker sound. I just need to find the right neck and i'm there.

[professor]

I dunno... I *do* know that it'd be built by Scott Lentz...!

...and I think my dream Tele would be a bound Tele Custom much like Tonefiend's, but maybe with a strat pickup in the neck...

'Course, a bound LP Blue Tele Custom with a rosewood board with 6105s on a fat, fat neck and a matching blue headstock... now *that* has some appeal to me, too...!

Oh, yeah... controls have to be flipped with the switch down towards the strap button, and not facing the cutaway...!

Decisions, decisions... :wail1

[decay-o-caster]

When designing a Tele, you either have to say:

A) It's a chunk of ash or alder with a maple neck, w/ or w/o rosewood, a Tele bridge pickup and a Tele bridge - not much room for customization here, beyond maybe adding an interesting neck pickup and maybe a strat middle;
or:
B) It's a Tele shape, and otherwise has nothing whatsoever to do with Teles! Which is not necessarily a bad thing - I have or will have two Chapin Fatlines that are Tele shapes, but not at all Teles.

But I also have a Chapin TBird that definitely falls under "A" above. Candy Apple Red alder, maple (fat!), Tele bridge, Tele bridge p/u, and a Strat neck p/u. So my next dream Tele would be a TBird with a P90 in the neck. And a Bigsby. Maybe Candy Tangerine Gold/Orange...

[Dale]

The question of what is a tele is an interesting one. Fender has made guitarrs, which they lable as tele's from mahogany, rosewood, ash, alder, basswood, and poplar to name a few woods. Maple caps on their bodies is not new and neither is bindings, abalone or other options.

So obviously a specific wood does not make something a tele.

Necks have been maple/maple/ maple/rosewood, rosewood/ maple, birdseye and flame, as well as other options. some have been set neck (I am not sure about neck throughs though) as well.

Obviously the neck materials or mounting don't make it the tele.

Fender has put pickups in a strat config (complete with trem bridge at one time I think), one bucker and a single (either n neck or bridge), dual buckers, combinations of strat and tele pups, P90's to name a few. In fact in one model they even put in a Gibson pup.

So obviously there is no particular pup combo that makes it a tele.

Various style bridges, tuners, and hardware appear on what Fender calls a tele. Some have pickguards, others do not.

So hardware does not seem to make it a tele.

I will not mention the tele style options Leo used at G&L here.

So what do all these guitars have in common (besides the name Telecaster). The shape of the body and headstock? Well, ok not even the headstock in some cases we have strat style necks. Must be theshape of the body then, and the sticker.

So are these teles? Are they shaped roughly the same? Fender thinks that is enough to make it the tele. Who am I to argue?

Dale

[Tonefiend]

I have my dream tele.
Working on my dream strat ;)
If I were to get another it would be another Lentz double bound custom with a brazilian board.

[ElTigre]

There are Teles and there are Telebastards. It's OK to have a Telebastard, but it is a mutation from the classic.

[MojoHand]

Well I guess I just did...I placed an order for a Warmoth Tele body and neck just last
Monday. It may not be the ultimate Tele, but it's fairly close to what I consider
perfection right now:

One piece swamp ash body
- Transparent Butterscotch Blonde
Quartersawn maple neck, one piece construction with skunk stripe
- 1-11/16" at the nut
- 10" - 16" compound radius
- Fatback profile
- 6105 frets
- Bone nut
- Kluson tuners
Fender Custom Shop pickups
- Nocaster bridge
- Vintage neck
Allparts adjustable vintage bridge with 3 brass saddles
Bakelite pick guard
CTS 250k pots
Sprague Orange Drop capacitor
Cloth covered wiring

Obviously, I was going after the vintage thing here... but with a fatter, wider,
flatter neck to better fit my large hands. The only real shortcomings are the urethane finish -
I would've preferred nitro but couldn't find anyone to do it for a reasonable price - and
the fact that it's being assembled by a rank amateur... me.