'24 Partscaster Project

[JD01]

I have seller's remorse about my Telecaster. Funny that, it was a great guitar.
Anyway, in the new year I'm going to build a "Strelecaster".

Tele neck
Stratbody
Strat bridge/vibrato
Tele bridge pickup
Strat neck pickup
4 way selector (bridge, neck, both in series and parallel).
1 volume, 1 tone (cos strat knobs are stupid)

Tele neck - that's easy enough to find - they're about £250 quid (more than I paid for my previous tele!) although I'd prefer a 2nd hand one. Don't really care if its 21 or 22 frets.
Pickups/electronics - easy to source something.
Hardware - no problem so source this.

Pick guard - Anyone heard of one coming with holes for two pickups? Failing that - I'll get a solid one and cut my own holes.

Body, this is proving more difficult than the neck. Looking on ebay etc, there doesn't seem to be any way of really discerning whether its a junk piece of balsawood which won't hold a screw or whether its decent quality. I don't mind if its a bit knocked about - I don't expect this guitar to win a beauty contest.

Body/Neck connection, I've read that either the strat neck pocket is rounded and the tele neck is square. Or it might be the other way around. I won't be the first person to put a tele neck on a strat. Is it as simple as cutting out a bit of wood? are the neck pockets the same depth? Butt ends of the neck the same thickness etc? Are the neck screws in the same position?

All I really want from you guys is some advice on the difficulties of connecting the neck to the body and advice on a the right sort of body.

[Greg_L]

My question is....why a Tele neck when you're essentially just building a Strat? Besides the headstock shape and the very end of the fretboard they are not different. Is there something special about Tele neck that I'm not aware of? The heel and neck pockets are a little different from Strat to Tele. Tele - flat fretboard. Strat - curved neck pocket.

You'll also need the body to have a bathtub rout or a maybe a humbucker bridge rout because a Tele pickup won't fit in a Strat single coil sized rout.

[JD01]

My question is....why a Tele neck when you're essentially just building a Strat? Besides the headstock shape and the very end of the fretboard they are not different. Is there something special about Tele neck that I'm aware of? The heel and neck pockets are a little different from Strat to Tele. Tele - flat fretboard. Strat - curved neck pocket.

You'll also need the body to have a bathtub rout or a maybe a humbucker bridge rout because a Tele pickup won't fit in a Strat single coil sized rout.

I just prefer the way they look and want something a little unusual. I'm comfortable with routing a slightly bigger pickup cavity.

I don't mind having to do a little butchery/surgery to fit them together. What I don't want to have to do is significantly fuck about with geometry or neck angles.

[Greg_L]

I just prefer the way they look and want something a little unusual. I'm comfortable with routing a slightly bigger pickup cavity.

Ok so it's about headstock shape. That's cool. It doesn't address cramming the flat tele neck end into the strat's curved pocket. While it will physically fit, there will be a gap and the screw holes won't line up. Maybe you could use a pickguard that covers the gap. Paging @muttley

[Greg_L]

https://warmoth.com/guitar-neck-fit

Maybe this will provide some guidance.

[JD01]

I just prefer the way they look and want something a little unusual. I'm comfortable with routing a slightly bigger pickup cavity.

Ok so it's about headstock shape. That's cool. It doesn't address cramming the flat tele neck end into the strat's curved pocket. While it will physically fit, there will be a gap and the screw holes won't line up. Maybe you could use a pickguard that covers the gap. Paging @muttley

I was assuming that I'd have to just square off the strat's neck pocket.

[JD01]

https://warmoth.com/guitar-neck-fit

Maybe this will provide some guidance.

That's quite handy - seems like I'll just have to square off the rounded bottom of the strat's neck pocket.

[Greg_L]

I was assuming that I'd have to just square off the strat's neck pocket.

Maybe. You'll have to see what that does with the scale length. If squaring off the neck pocket on a Strat body results in the Tele neck sitting into it closer to the bridge, then the 12th fret will be closer to the bridge and that fucks up the scale length.

And since the bridge on a Strat body has to stay where it is due to the vibrato shenanigans, the neck position in the pocket is super duper crazy important.

[JD01]

I was assuming that I'd have to just square off the strat's neck pocket.

Maybe. You'll have to see what that does with the scale length. If squaring off the neck pocket on a Strat body results in the Tele neck sitting into it closer to the bridge, then the 12th fret will be closer to the bridge and that fucks up the scale length.

And since the bridge on a Strat body has to stay where it is due to the vibrato shenanigans, the neck position in the pocket is super duper crazy important.

Yeah, I'll have to check that. There must be a forum thread somewhere from someone who's done it.

[Greg_L]

Yeah, I'll have to check that. There must be a forum thread somewhere from someone who's done it.

Most people do it the other way around - Strat neck on a Tele body. A friend of mine has built three Nashville Teles with Strat necks and he don't know jack shit about anything. They just bolt together.

Your idea is opposite and frankly, probably better because Tele bodies suck ass.

[JD01]

Yeah, I'll have to check that. There must be a forum thread somewhere from someone who's done it.

Most people do it the other way around - Strat neck on a Tele body. A friend of mine has built three Nashville Teles with Strat necks and he don't know jack shit about anything. They just bolt together.

Your idea is opposite and frankly, probably better because Tele bodies suck ass.

This might seem obvious... But if you can get a strat neck on a tele body (fuck me, that sounds like a worst of all worlds mutant), with the screw holes lining up and all the intonation being fine, then all I have to do is square off the neck pocket on the strat body so that the tele neck slips in there allowing the screw holes to line up. Where the screw holes meet is effectively determining the scale length.

[Greg_L]

Where the screw holes meet is effectively determining the scale length.

That's not true. Screw hole locations are not standardized.

You have two measurements that are critical and one of them is set in stone, the other might as well be. The nut-to-12th fret is set and you can't change it. That's one half of the scale length. The 12th fret to bridge measurement is where things can get fucky due to how the neck will sit in the neck pocket. Ideally it all just works out. Less than ideal but manageable is moving the bridge to keep the scale length true, but you can't do that on a Strat. So you are bound by the limitations of the nut-to-12th distance, the immovable bridge, and math and physics to nail the neck placement in the pocket. There is little to no wiggle room.

Squaring the Strat body to fit the Tele neck is obviously doable but that might screw up the 12th fret-to-bridge measurement. Cutting corners into the body will allow the neck to slip into the pocket further. Maybe that will get you exactly what you need. I don't know. But it could also put the 12th fret slightly closer to the bridge and and that's not a good thing. You obviously will have some intonation adjustment with the saddle screws but that aint much. You need to actually have a neck and body to mock up and see what needs to be done.

[JD01]

More research needed... or I might just have a go.

[WhiskeyJack]

More research needed... or I might just have a go.

Just do it how you want. make mistakes and learn from it.

[Armistice]

I think the more important question is whether you can get a nice flowery top to wear with it?

100041597_10218784021091394_2218807545659654144_o-1.jpg

[JD01]

I think I can pull off a flowery shirt... knee bandana though. I'm nowhere near cool enough.

[Greg_L]

It's cool how you can take an old lady's blouse, put it on Jimbo Hendrix, and it still looks like an old lady's blouse.

[CeeBee]

Jesus 250 quid for a tele neck
Why not buy a
https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton ... 9&reload=1
and reshape the headstock, you'd be finished in an hour.

[Armistice]

I think I can pull off a flowery shirt... knee bandana though. I'm nowhere near cool enough.

It's good to understand your limitations...

[Tadpui]

Have a blast JD, I'm sure that with some research and a thorough traversal of the StewMac and Warmoth websites you can piece together exactly what you want. Even if you don't order through them, they both have a huge bounty of info available. Cheers, I hope you find what you want!