Telecaster build thread

[Greg_L]

Hold up...I didn't know you had the full 2204S stack.

[Tadpui]

Hold up...I didn't know you had the full 2204S stack.

The B cab is basically a fake. I went back and bought it the day after I bought the head and A cab, figuring it'd be worth having the whole set. But when I got it home I realized the B cab is different tolex and grille cloth. I didn't notice that when I saw them all in one place when I bought the head and A cab. There's a metal plaque on the back with a now-defunct Kansas City music shop's name on it. So I suppose that whoever owned this set before me had a regular 1965 4x10 cab recovered in a "kind of close" dark green tolex to try and match the head and angled cab.

Honestly it's been ages since I've even plugged that straight cabinet in, it's mainly a prop at this point

I can't really figure out if Marshall ever even made a true B cabinet for this set. If they did, they they're as rare as hen's teeth. I've seen people in forums looking for them, but I don't recall seeing anybody that actually had one. Maybe there were a few custom one-offs or something?

[JD01]

I think it both looks and sounds great, Tad. You should be really proud of that.
Your playing is really good in the video too.

I'm considering a partscaster at the moment, its going to be shite compared with that.

[Greg_L]

The B cab is basically a fake. I went back and bought it the day after I bought the head and A cab, figuring it'd be worth having the whole set. But when I got it home I realized the B cab is different tolex and grille cloth. I didn't notice that when I saw them all in one place when I bought the head and A cab. There's a metal plaque on the back with a now-defunct Kansas City music shop's name on it. So I suppose that whoever owned this set before me had a regular 1965 4x10 cab recovered in a "kind of close" dark green tolex to try and match the head and angled cab.

Honestly it's been ages since I've even plugged that straight cabinet in, it's mainly a prop at this point

I can't really figure out if Marshall ever even made a true B cabinet for this set. If they did, they they're as rare as hen's teeth. I've seen people in forums looking for them, but I don't recall seeing anybody that actually had one. Maybe there were a few custom one-offs or something?

I've never seen one in person but they do exist...
https://reverb.com/item/5389143-1986-ma ... on-g10l-35

[Tadpui]

I think it both looks and sounds great, Tad. You should be really proud of that.
Your playing is really good in the video too.

I'm considering a partscaster at the moment, its going to be shite compared with that.

Thanks JD! I was self-conscious about my playing since I'm pretty rusty lately. I stuck to basic 1-4-5 and pentatonic stuff off the top of my head That's very nice of you. And yeah I'm stoked about how it turned out. Its quirky and it's uniquely mine.

Honestly, I think a partscaster would be an awesome project and you could spec out exactly what you want.

I've never seen one in person but they do exist...
https://reverb.com/item/5389143-1986-ma ... on-g10l-35

I found that same listing right after I posted. So they do exist! It'd be cool to have one of those, but maybe not for $600. That seems high for a beat-to-hell 4x10.

[Lt. Bob]

[muttley]

Those screws are pretty standard and usually you will mess up the head before you snap the thread but either is entirely possible if you go at it wrong. Pilot every hole and you only need the thread to bite the timber so the pilot can be a fairly wide bore. A little candle wax on the thread is always a good idea both for sinking it and to get it out later if you need to. The most common breaks on those comes with the harder timbers and ash would be quite hard so.... I often keep an offcut of the body material to hand to test pilot hole size and will use one screw to cut the thread, pull it and sink a fresh new screw in the resulting tapped hole. It's easier to fill and tap a mashed hole that to pull a snapped screw. Lesson learned the same as we all did..

Yeah and it really broke deep down in there. Yikes! I watched a couple of videos about dealing with this situation. It looks like they used a hollow core pipe kind of thing with teeth on it, which cuts a plug of the wood around the screw and takes the whole thing out. They they cut a dowel to match the diameter of the new hole in the body and cut/sand it off flush with the body. Since it's hidden under the bridge, I wonder if they'd let me do it myself on their drill press?

Screw extractors are pretty useless for size and type of screw. Depending on how deep it is you have some options. Those screws are normally 20mm 4's and you can some times get to them with a plug cutter and or careful use of needle nose pliers. If not then carefully drill next to it where it's hidden under the plate and refilling is probably your best bet. I would need to see which one and where and how deep to make a judgement. As I say, lesson learned, we have all done it at least once.

[muttley]

So it's finished! Well, except for the paint. I've got it at home and I've been able to play it a bunch. It's bright and aggressive sounding, it sounds like a Tele to me.

I didn't get many pics of the final couple of days' work. I was focused on getting the thing finished!

On the final weekend, we finished up soldering the electronics. If you took issue with my soldering before, you'd hate what I ended up with. It's all securely fixed in place, but boy getting all of the grounding wires onto the pot body got ugly I didn't even bother taking a photo of it before it went into the body...some things are best left hidden in a cavity, never to be seen again.

We drilled holes for the tuners, strap buttons, string tree, and pick guard. Then we set to work on doing the nut. We used bone, and they'd already cut it to a very rough shape and started the string slots with a jeweler's saw, so we didn't run the chance of messing up the string spacing. We cut the slots, snuck up on the proper depth little by little, then sanded off the excess and polished it up. Mine turned out well, except I took a tiny bit too much material off near the high E string, so it wanted to jump the slot if I bent that string at all. But then we installed the string tree for the E and B strings behind the nut and that took care of the issue. None of the strings are binding at the nut, and none of them want to jump their slot under duress. So that's a win!

Then we installed strap buttons and then set to work setting up the guitars. Pretty standard guitar tech stuff at this point. I've done some of that stuff before so at least I had an inkling of an idea of what I was doing. I didn't get the intonation nailed, but I worked on it more at home and got it closer. It could still stand a little tweak though.

I shot a video about the guitar, I'll see if I can extract some sound bytes from it and attach them here for a sound demo for those that are YT averse. Otherwise you can skip through this video to skip all of my blabbering and get to the sound demo at about the 13:00 mark



Anyways, instead of the few in-progress shots that I managed to capture, here it is at home next to its new amplifier friends. I think it's going to feel comfortable here

P1230033.JPG

Sweet, missed this. I assume you got the rogue screw out.

Will check out the video later.

[einstein magoo]

Congrats on the sweet build! Looks / Sounds Great!
Good personality and info in your video. Very impressive.

[Armistice]

And done! Nice work Tad. When's the paint job happening?

It does seems a little on the noisy side when you're not actually touching the stings though - is that just the room position, or is there a grounding thing going on?

[Greg_L]

And done! Nice work Tad. When's the paint job happening?

It does seems a little on the noisy side when you're not actually touching the stings though - is that just the room position, or is there a grounding thing going on?

That's classic Tele single coils.

[Armistice]

And done! Nice work Tad. When's the paint job happening?

It does seems a little on the noisy side when you're not actually touching the stings though - is that just the room position, or is there a grounding thing going on?

That's classic Tele single coils.

Yeah I guess. Mine doesn't make anything like that amount of noise, but it has "Fender 4th generation Noiseless" pickups, which, to the Telecaster in-crowd are a bit of an abomination apparently, because they've lost that Tele edge. I like them specifically because it's not as sharp a sound as other teles, and they're not noisy.

[Greg_L]

Yeah I guess. Mine doesn't make anything like that amount of noise, but it has "Fender 4th generation Noiseless" pickups, which, to the Telecaster in-crowd are a bit of an abomination apparently, because they've lost that Tele edge. I like them specifically because it's not as sharp a sound as other teles, and they're not noisy.

That's what it is. "Noiseless" and Fender single coils are not two things that go together. You gotta have either/or. Noisy authentic sound, or noiseless sounding like something else. You can't have it all. Any true single coil guitar I've ever handled makes noise. Teles, Strats, anything with P90s, even my beloved Mosrites...single coils are noisy. There's no way around it. That's why humbuckers were invented.

[Tadpui]

@Greg_L totally. My Jazzmaster with its age old single coils is the noisiest guitar I've ever owned. These Tele pickups are darn near silent in comparison to those! Plus, the amp was very loud in the room and any time I was talking and my lav mic was live, it illustrated just how loud the amp and hum was in the room. Then add some compression to the lav that brings up the already high noise floor and kick on 2 layers of overdrive on the amp, and things got pretty nasty on that omnidirectional lavalier mic. I also forgot to turn off my air purifier before shooting so that thing is blasting away in the background. And the ever-present August air conditioning blowing didn't help either. Chrissakes I'm so ready to have a quiet studio again!

@Armistice, my other Tele has those same noiseless pickups in it. Well, they're labeled "N3" so that might put them a generation earlier than yours. They are indeed quiet, but it always bothered me that they never sounded like a Tele. They're missing that snappy twangy bite that I associate with Telecasters. They sound more like humbuckers to me. It's a fantastic instrument, but I never bonded with it because it never gave me that classic Telecaster snarl.

[Greg_L]

They sound more like humbuckers to me. It's a fantastic instrument, but I never bonded with it because it never gave me that classic Telecaster snarl.

A good friend of mine has built a few partscaster Teles. Two of them have non-traditional single-coil sized pickups in them and they don't sound anything like a Tele should sound, which to me makes them pretty useless because Tele sound is the only good thing about a Tele IMO.

But his third partscaster has traditional Tele-style pickups in it and surprise! It sounds like a Tele.

[rayc]

ACE.

[Lt. Bob]

They sound more like humbuckers to me. It's a fantastic instrument, but I never bonded with it because it never gave me that classic Telecaster snarl.

A good friend of mine has built a few partscaster Teles. Two of them have non-traditional single-coil sized pickups in them and they don't sound anything like a Tele should sound, which to me makes them pretty useless because Tele sound is the only good thing about a Tele IMO.

But his third partscaster has traditional Tele-style pickups in it and surprise! It sounds like a Tele.

yep ..... when I built my tele I went for original stuff down to the brass bridge saddles because I wanted a true tele sound.
And single coils are noisy to be sure.
However careful shielding can reduce it a lot and my tele isn't super noisy but you'll never get single coils to be silent.

[Tadpui]

Well I finally picked up my painted guitar a couple of days ago. The guy gave me a discount because he wasn't 100% satisfied with the outcome. I think it looks amazing, but yeah there are a couple of checks and divots in the paint. You have to look closely to see them, and honestly I don't mind one bit.

This pic was taken under the warm color.light in my studio so it looks a little more yellow than in reality. It's Olympic white, which is an off white, almost faintly cream color, and I think it looks classy as hell against the off white pick guard. I'm very happy with it, imperfections and all.

PXL_20240315_044356724.jpg

[muttley]

Nice job.

Whites then blacks are the hardest colours to do.

[JD01]

That really makes me miss my white Tele which has been added to the list of guitars I regret selling.