My 1950 Broadcaster Build

Hello all,

I haven't posted here in quite a while as I haven't been buying and selling too much guitar gear the past few years, and I have been incredibly busy with grad school, work, personal life, etc.

Anyway, I thought some of you would be interested in the following: I built a 1950 Broadcaster Clone that I completed in November of 2013. I finally got around to compiling all the pics into a photo album that you can find here:

https://plus.google.com/118076847377...ts/bewjFzetSuD

The guitar is based off of the 1950 Fender Broadcaster serial # 0038, which can be found in the Nacho Banos book, The Blackguard. The body and neck are Musikraft blackguard. 2-piece swamp ash body clear grade with oversized neck pocket, router hump, etc etc. On the lighter side (its lighter than 0038 was as per my request). The finishing was done by MJT - I went with light to medium wear and a little bit of checking. Very tastefully done; it feels and looks great. They also aged the hardware and bakelite pickguard for me. The hardware is a combination of Rutters, Fender, and Callaham. I found someone to stamp the Fender bridge plate for me - it is stamped with serial number 0038.

The pickups are really special: They are O.C. Duff custom winds that are as close to the specs and materials used in pickups found in a 1950 Broadcaster as possible, with one big exception: I decided to go with a tapped bridge pickup. According to the book, The Blackguard, 0038 had an unusually hot bridge pickup for the era, rated at 9.12k. Most broadcaster bridge pickup ratings, generally speaking, floated between 6 and 7k. So I wanted my guitar to have both options. When the bridge tone pot is pulled, it gives you the 9.12k 0038 sound. When the tone pot is pushed, it gives you the "stock" typical broadcaster wind. They sound and look stunning.

I also made some other exceptions when spec'ing out the guitar based on my personal preferences, which deviate from the 1950 Broadcaster specs. I went with a different style input jack cup that allows you to plug in a right angle cable. I decided to go with 6150 frets and a 1-11/16 nut width. I also went with a modern pickup wiring configuration for the pickup switch (neck, both, bridge) instead of the 1950 configuration.

The guitar was set up and wired up by Norio at Iama Guitars in Flatiron. If you aren't familiar with him, he does unbelievable work. Great guy.

I hope everyone enjoys the pics! I'm down to answer any questions about the process. The guitar sounds and plays incredibly, and I am extremely happy with the end result. I have been running it with my stereo rig at home, which includes a Tungsten Buckwheat and a Vintage Sound Amps Princeton Reverb clone, and I am floored by the sounds that I can get out of it!

I'll attach some pics so they show up here:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-k...photo%2B30.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...photo%2B15.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...photo%2B14.JPG

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KennyF

That turned out real nice! :salud:

FYI... The link to the photo album didn't work...

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Thank you! And thanks for looking out - just edited it and it should work now!

Awesome build!

Cool guitar... Thanks for sharing....

That's one helluva nice build -- tasteful in every aspect.

I'm not much of a Telecaster/Broadcaster fan but I don't think it gets much better than yours.

:salud:

This looks like a very cool project. I've built a couple Teles already & am looking to do it again. Thanks for the inspiration!

That's just mojo city.

This thread needs sound clips!

That's an exciting guitar. It begs to be played.