NGD - Snakehead telecaster

Tadragh1

I am the guy who bought the snakehead tele (well, esquire really) from the forum classifieds. It's been with me for a couple of days already. As this is a forum guitar, I felt obliged to give a report here. (Main photo from the sales thread)


The Good:
- it is a tone fiend,
- the neck is worth its weight in gold (@poopot, how do you make a finish like that?),
- it does not look like your average Esquire,
- I've bonded with it quickly.

However, the photos and the description in the sales thread came from the previous sales threads and it turned out that some of the important details about the guitar took a turn to the worse between the time that @poopot expertly put it together 4 years ago and the moment I've received it. That's why we have...

The Bad:
- the nut slots under two strings are so wide that the strings move in the slot while bending (with a loud "ping"),
- frets 2 and 3 are high, causing severe buzzing, especially on the A string,
- strong buzzing on the empty E string,
- the intonation is poor and setting it is virtually impossible at the moment, as bridge screw heads are stripped,
- loose output jack with some crackling,
- intermittent pots, especially tone pot, which requires a whack from time to time to eliminate hum.

Bridge screws:


Nut:


No hard feelings towards the seller, I am just going to own it and transform into an instrument, which will stay with me for a long time. So...

The Future:
- make a new nut,
- dress the frets,
- swap bridge screws (and potentially saddles),
- swap the bridge SD Broadcaster pickup for a Cavalier pickups custom tapped bridge pickup that's been lying in my drawer forever,
- change the pots for push-push, one for pickup tapping, the other one for cocked wah,
- play my a** off.

Sassafras

Looks like an MD Phillips nut.