The "Bridge" Of Wood In Telecaster Control Cavity

BillDL

I've just finished working on a modern quite good quality Telecaster copy and I have been reminded of the nuisance "bridge" of wood that is left in the middle of the control cavity of some Telecasters and copies.  It's a pain in the neck because it lines up right under the volume pot and if you are connecting the capacitor from volume pot to tone pot you have to leave slack on the legs of the capacitor and hope that there is going to be enough space to get the control cover down.  On some bodies the rout under the tone pot is shallow enough that you have to think about whether a capacitor in the alternative wiring from the tone pot leg to the body of the same pot is going to have enough space.  I've embedded a couple of images showing this bridge of wood in bodies of what I think are a late 60s, a Squier, and an American Standard.  From what I can remember this was present in older ones and is still present in some newer ones, but there was a time when the rout was of uniform depth throughout.

I can see from the bottom one (American Standard?) that a grounding tab is screwed down tyhrough the lacquer probably into shielding paint, and it makes sense for it to be screwed there rather than risk a screw going out the back of the body, but not all the guitars with this bridge of wood had shielding paint or a grounding tab.

Does anybody know why Fender chose to leave that bit of wood instead of just routing out the entire cavity, and why some makers of Tele copies have chosen to do the same?

WezV

5 seconds saved routing each one.  It's not exactly a weak area, so not likely done for strength. 

Good place to put that tab I suppose, but where is the shielding it connects too?

BillDL

I just assumed it was under oversprayed lacquer, but you're absolutely right and with hindsight that looks more like a home job by somebody that doesn't really know what they are doing.  A screw through lacquer would also just go through shielding paint and provide a shaky contact at best.  Do American Standards have shielding paint in the cavities anyway?  I was just thinking abouty my old Fender Flame that does have shielding paint and a screwed-down tab.

That's the part I don't understand.  To save wear on their bits?  The channel is too narrow and not really close enough to the back to leave it vulnerable to being crushed through from the back.  Maybe it was just easier to have two milling bits on the CNC turret doing smaller ovals at the same time, but they aren't the same sizes of holes and they have gone down through the wood to the depth of the section of wood that is left there, so it seems silly to me.  The bodies are full depth wood and not "pancake" ones either, so they haven't cut a hole in the top plank and just routed shallow holes in the bottom one.  perhaps some of the Tele copies I've seen in the past with this were pancaked slabs though.

Funkfingers

Somebody at Fender doesn't want people to reverse the metal control plate. 

I assume that the second pass of the "bridged" cavity is cut through the same guide template as the full length first pass. The CNC machine must be programmed to stop half way, hop two inches, then resume. 

Punters want copy guitars to resemble the real thing as closely as possible - including the dumb aspects.

BillDL

Funkfingers said:

Somebody at Fender doesn't want people to reverse the metal control plate.

I think you hit the nail on the head.  In some mistaken belief that every owner is a potential tinkerer and idiot that might take off the control plate for a nosey and try to put it on the wrong way around, they have deliberately created a "keyed" cavity, and other companies have slavishly replicated the "feature".  I just did a hack job with a Dremel and a grinding bit to remove just enough of the wood to switch the plate and wiring around with the lever to the rear to try it out, but reversed this within a day again.

JGTay

It was probably a mistake by the first person to do the cavity on one of them and everyone else afterwards thought that was how it should be. 

Funkfingers

It is possible that one half of the control cavity is necessarily deeper than the other. The Fender S-1 switching pot is bigger than a typical push-pull. The rout needs to be deep enough to accommodate it.

The "bridge" would be a serious obstacle to installing a Fishman Fluence Gristle Tone outfit.

Corvus

Re the earth screw, it is shielded first then colour coated over; it's factory, not a DIY job. It's easier/faster to do a neat job this way - no chance of drips on good finish paint etc - also some shielding paint adhesion isn't the best, so it's kind of locked in too.