#Telecaster – Setup and service

A little unusual this one, not the standard Tele’.  It had  few minor problems, nothing too difficult… The first one was a couple of stripped out screws.  It’s easy to do, in this case it’s the screws from the control plate.  I drilled out the old hole and glued in a couple of wooden plugs… Once […]

Telecaster Build

I’ve just been given a mixed bag of bits, some old some new, to put together…. I think there’s a very nice Telecaster in there somewhere!  But where to start?How about at the top, the machine heads.  First the guides.. they’re rather tight so rather than hammer them in and risk damaging them I pressed them […]

3 Pickup Telecaster

I love these modern Telecasters, the only problem is you can’t get the original sound of the neck and bridge pickups together?  The switch works just like a Strat’.What I’m going to do is add a mini switch to just bring in the bridge pickup no matter what else is selected.  The modern players have […]

Troublesome Jack

Jack sockets quite often present problems, they wear out and the contacts become loose, this one was proving to be tricky on several counts…. It keeps falling out as the locking plate’s rather bent and twisted out of shape and isn’t locking into the wood.  There’s also a third wire, I don’t know what that’s […]

Custom built Telecaster

The owner wanted to build the electrics himself so I’ve just got it back to complete the setup…. Looks good so far…First thing first, the neck set…It’s just a little high so I’ll need to tweek the truss-rod.  Unfortunately the screw is on the bottom of the neck so I’ll have to take off the scratchplate. […]

US Telecaster – Cleanup

Whenever I get anything through the door there is always a thought, would I like to add this to my collection?  This was a real yes and no! Yes its really nice but no, its left handed. What it needs is a little TLC, well a lot of TLC, a good clean and a fret dress. Under […]

Fender Telecaster – Fret Dress

What a beautiful Guitar, sadly it just doesn’t play quite as well as it should. To get it spot on it needs a fret dress… They weren’t that bad but now they are spot on, just need to be re-shaped….. and polished. Looking good.  Just needs putting back together and set up…. starting with the […]

Fender Telecaster setup

A quiet day in the workshop today, a couple of odd bits and bobs.  Did have a rather nice Tele’ in need of a setup.  Nothing really wrong with it, just needs a tweek here and there. The neck set was a little high, so about a 1/4 turn on the truss-rod. The action at […]

Telecaster Custom – Rebuild final update

The final stage, fit the strings and a setup, should be easy, not with this one…. more problems…. Starting with the neck set, a little large…. so a quick turn of the truss-rod.  So far so good. The action at the first fret is a little high…….. so I cut each nut slot down a […]

Telecaster Custom – Rebuild 2nd update

Re-shaping the frets isn’t difficult, it just takes time and patience along with the right file.. Making sure only to file the edges of the fret and round it off without touching the top.  Half way through fret No.1… Some time later, all done…. The file leaves a very rough finish so each fret now needs re-polishing […]