Building a Tele

GoldenEraGuitars

I started a thread a while back but it got a bit congested with comments as to why I wouldn’t show everything I was doing. So, I’m starting this one.

A customer contacted me a while back about a refinish and with it came the possibility of a deal on an original 69 fender bigsby.

https://i.imgur.com/pEEChfR.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/C9PcDAE.jpg

It transpired that the guitar it came off was this one...

https://i.imgur.com/w79DJYS.jpg

As sold by @guitars4you . But the refinish wasn’t wonderful nor to the buyers taste. That particular body ended up looking like this...

https://i.imgur.com/UtniNYP.jpg

I was happy to get the bigsby sorted, although I had mixed reactions about laying claim to a part from a vintage guitar that was being split. Still, everyone is happy at this point and that’s no bad thing.

Now, Ive always wanted a paisley tele... so I thought “sure, why not?” I had been googling images of late 60s teles and tbh the majority of the ones that I found were blonde/cream and bursts with nothing loud or lavish apart from the paisley models. But hey, they look the part. Well, to me anyway. 

The next part of the task was to sort the body itself. I know what you’re thinking... the partcaster nitro guy needs to “sort a body”? Yip, everything I had in at the time was sold so I hit the classifieds here to find @Allo selling this...

https://i.imgur.com/NtGRlPH.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2NtMRlj.jpg

Yeah yeah yeah, not period correct at all! 50s style body complete with neck pocket lip, router hump and wiring channel route. The channel route was plugged in preparation for the next part and tbh the body was priced so well it was impossible to pass up. 

Unfortunately this is where I fast forward a good bit because I was somewhat preoccupied with customer work. Even until a week or so ago I wasn’t sure which colour to burst the body with but I am happy with my final decision. It means that i can now show you this...


https://i.imgur.com/CzDVVR1.jpg

And so this is us up to date. Next step is to get the pickups from Montys and organise a neck for myself. 

Zoolooter

Throughly recommend Monty's tele pickups. Definitely my favourites so far. I have a set of the Retro winds in the custom you finished for me. 

GoldenEraGuitars

Zoolooter said:

Throughly recommend Monty's tele pickups. Definitely my favourites so far. I have a set of the Retro winds in the custom you finished for me. 

I’ve heard great things about them. Plus, Matt is a really really nice guy. I’ll need to speak to him about what will best suit the sound I’m after.