After all the praise bestowed upon Fender for the new Player Series, I had the misfortune to read this.
http://www.tdpri.com/threads/restringing-fender-player-telecaster-bridge-not-easy-or-fast.849246/Seems the Tele is difficult to restring. Of course, no reviewer is likely to spot this until it comes time to change strings and then, errrrrrrrrr!
It seems when the Guitar is intonated perfectly, the holes are covered up as the slots appear not to be long enough. They likely is workarounds, but it's pretty poor from an Engineering design perspective.
Only a Fool Would Say That.
Comments
I have one. And I’ll point out its issues later this evening with pictures and humour.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57632/
Slots are too short and intonation screws are too long, causing the screws to cover the string through holes. Easy fix is to switch out some block saddles from Gotoh or an earlier Mexican Standard. (Proper fix is to bin the bridge and fit a Pat Pend. with compensated saddles!)
I'm interested to see what Fender do about this going forward - will they revert to the old block saddles or design a new bent steel saddle with a longer slot and shorter screw?
The American Series/Standard hole placement is different. About 1/4 inch nearer the nut giving a sharper angle from the break point on the saddle to the string through hole, avoiding the intonation screw.
The bridge dimensions on the Player series Tele isn't specific to the model at all. It is a modern 6 saddle retrofit for vintage spec bridges, same as the previous Mexican Standard and the Gotoh GTC201/2 bridge. Fender just changed the saddles for some reason.
If you think that's a problem, try this monstrosity that they're putting on the new American Elite Thinline.
https://www.projectmusic.net/ekmps/shops/projectmusic/images/fender-american-elite-telecaster-thinline-natural-[4]-17057-p.jpg
The ball ends are just below the surface of the body, so good luck with that - certainly without chewing up the finish on the edge of the cavity.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
then the only way to move the saddle back and forth would be to turn the
screw, thus altering the intonation, obviously I'm wrong, I've never needed to
try on my Teles.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Re the other picture, never noticed that with a Thinline before, how do the strings normally thread through?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Or was it only that issue that @ICBM has now put us right with?
Yeah basically the only faults I could find were the nut string spacing (thread here: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/137315/string-spacing-at-nut-looks-off#latest), and this saddle issue/non-issue depending!
So while the intonation screws + saddles can be pushed back to allow the saddle slots to line up with the string thru body holes, its certainly a weird problem that I’m almost certain Fender overlooked.
Mine was left with Pmt last Thursday for Fender to collect and deal with under warranty. Mainly the nut issue mind.
I don’t know what or if they’ll do anything about the saddles, but I also found that thread you linked in your first post and asked Fender in my emails about it.
Unlike in that thread you found, where those guys got mexican standard saddles sent out etc, the Uk lot didnt seem to be aware it was a bit of a problem, so couldnt say anything.
I’m not fully convinced Mexican block saddles would fix it anyway unless they are longer overall (ie to keep the intonation/witness point forward, but allowing a shorter intonation screw with a longer string slot. Because to intonate, it seems the saddles need to be forward of the body holes a little way anyway.
But more noticeably, the intonation screw alone, regardless of the saddles, is long enough to cover the string holes in the body, and theres nothing that will change that unless you change the screws for shorter ones or cut the original ones down. But even so, the slots in the bent steel saddles arent long enough, so you may find the string holes still covered.
Really the easiest thing is just to push the saddle back when restringing.
As you can see in the picture of my bridge below, the high E saddle is quite far forward to intonate properly near the end of the screws length. So I don’t think a shorter intonation screw would work.
I don’t know if I’m chatting out of my bumhole, but regarding the bridge, I’m suspecting something more has changed here between the Mexican Standards and the Player Series than just the saddles. Either the location of the bridge mount itself or length of it, or the string thru body holes have been drilled too far from the nut.
What I actually suspect is that some measurements were off.
I can’t see Fender having changed the whole bridge, so they must just have changed the saddles and I can’t imagine they changed the intonation screws either..
If the intonation screws are the same length between Mexican and Player series, then something is definitely off mark somewhere, because as I said earlier the length of the screw is enough to cover the string holes by itself on the Player Series.
The saddle issue is only apparant on Player Series Tele’s with single coil bridge pickups.
The Humbucker variants saddles and holes appear to be lined up fine.
Heres my Player Series bridge with intonation etc set fine:
As you can see, the saddles or intonation screws cover the string thru body holes.
Heres a pic of the same guitar from Fenders website:
Heres the Humbucker player series variant. Pic quality is shot, but you can just make it all out. The holes and saddle slots line up.
Here is a pic comparing old Mexican Standard and New Player Series.
Mexican Standard = Left, Butterscotch.
Player Series = Right, Polar White.
The bridge looks closer to the pickguard on the white player series (right), and the intonation screws alone arent long enough to cover the string holes on the mexican standard (right).. so whats changed to make this happen?!
That Tele above left, is from Peach’s website (obviously), hopefully they don’t mind! The rest are either from Fender or my own.
Anyway!
Thats just my findings when I looked into it after having trouble restringing, and then stumbling across the same thread you did!
Like ICBM says, its just a matter of pushing the saddles back so the holes line up. For me, it hasnt affected playability or intonation.
I was more curious to find out why or what has changed to make these holes not line up anymore, and if its somehow linked to the shoddy nuts seen on a lot of the Player Series. Maybe just dimensions or measurements being off.
I think either the bridges have been mounted off, or the string holes drilled wrong. Unless Fender designed just the single coil Tele’s like this..
Its not a big problem, at all. I just don’t know why they wouldnt just make all the holes line up so its easy!
I’ll report back when I get the Tele back from Fender though. Let you know what's what.