- Blue tele.jpg (37.82 KiB) Viewed 2836 times
Here's my final draft for a telecaster I designed. Some minor details vary, but this is basically it. It's being built now by a local luthier/electrician. Scored the neck from Ebay for $75, and the body for $50. The neck was from a John 5 signature Squier tele, and the body is a chambered body w/ flame maple top that came from a custom shop in CO. A customer bailed on a project after the initial coats of paint had been applied, so it was sold at a loss. I lowball offered $50, not expecting to get it. They took the $50. Score.
Chambered body, double bound with multi-ply binding
Bound neck
Flame maple top
Front body stained midnight blue burst, back and sides stained solid midnight blue
Color-matched headstock
Vintage tint neck finish
Square inlays
Neck pickup - Dimarzio Area T
Bridge pickup - Dimarzio Chopper T
Switching - Bill Lawrence's 5-way switching (1. Neck, 2. Neck + Bridge, 3. Bridge, 4. Neck + Bridge partially out of phase, 5. Neck with approx. 20% less lowend)
Reversed control plate (easier volume rolls, won't accidentally hit the switch as easily. Combined with the modern tray-less bridge, this should help make for excellent playability.)
Bridge - Gotoh modern 6-saddle
Tuners - Fender USA
Nut - Brass compensated
Neck radius - 12"
Frets - 22 medium jumbo
Tone cap - .022mfd
250k volume control, 500k tone control
Push-pull tone control to engage hi-pass filter capacitor
The high pass filter cap will be chosen based on what value will best strangle the lowend from the Dimarzios, to approximate traditional telecaster single coil sounds while retaining their noiseless functionality (they are technically humbuckers).
I was going to go with the EMG T-set initially, because of Slint and post-rock/post-hardcore and whoever else uses those for particularly cold sterile cleans, but after scoring a chambered body cheap I figured it was best to go with some higher-output passives. Less maintenance, too. I should be able to approximate those tones with this setup, anyway.
Stacking the high-pass filter with those added 2 switching options should make for some really neat, thin, jangly sounds.
Body and neck - $125
Parts - $275
Luthier costs will probably come to around $300.
$700 total for a completely custom guitar configured exactly how I want it. Not bad!
ya'll were right. this thing knocks the -1 on the deluxe out of the park 
