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i like the extra-long saddle adjusters. looks like you needed every inch of them LOL. did you want the mini-hum, or was it in the parts box?

Yeah, the early mim top loading tele bridges all look like that lol.

I wanted to try out a minihumbucker and it came in a fully loaded body I bought cheap. I like it but don't love it so far, gotta play with the height a bit more. I like how it looks at the very least lol.

I have a few more but I took this picture today because I thought these two make an exceptional pretty pair:

<LIKE>

a handsome pair fer sure

New favourite guitar is this '81 Lead II I picked up a little while ago on a whim.
Someone took out the phase switch and changed the pickguard at some point, but the rest is orig.
It's simple and rugged and loud and allows me to do guitar things without thinking too much, which is nice.

i have a reissue Lead II that i like a lot. its only weirdness was the pau ferro fingerboard, which was very poorly done and required heaping helpings of lemon oil to feel and look decent. it can do a lot of stuff, but really wants to be mean. i like to think of it as my Mission of Burma guitar.

i just finished working on my Strat, which needed some help. i screwed it up doing a last-minute setup before the company gig in May, and the bridge got mounted askew when i put it together back in the 90s so i needed to drill-'n'-fill to redo the mount. i didn't get it just exactly perfect (h/t Bob Weir) but it's close enough to do, definitely improved. i just need to do the intonation now. it sounds better than it has in years, perhaps because i replaced the Gotoh bridge plate with a Fender and swapped out the more battered bridge saddles. i'm really happy because i had kind of given up on it ever being quite right again.

I also have a reissue Lead II (black/maple) and looooove it. It so quickly became my favorite guitar. I have no reason to customize it, since I can just not use the features I don't want, but if I could snap my fingers and ditch the phase switch (and maybe even the neck pickup) I would.

i did a bunch of research on the reissues before getting mine, and they're pretty damn close to the originals. the pickups may not be identical, but they're very similar in terms of construction, materials, pole piece contour, and relative output. i got the red one because i wanted a non-maple board; i'd have preferred black but those only came with maple boards and i'm not so obsessive that i'd change the body just because i prefer a different color. it does a nice job of splitting the difference between Strat boing and Tele slap and is less idiosyncratic than either other than the phase switch which is fairly useless.

i had to get the Lead II out and get a better picture than the tiny one i posted above. i'm not a big fan of the color red for guitars other than Heritage Cherry, but this is a nice alternative. "Transparent Crimson" as i recall. as if anything Fripp was ever transparent. i've mentioned before how odd it is that i have so many red guitars when it's one of my least favorite colors, but i refuse to let color stand in the way of more tones. did i want a Candy Apple Red guitar? not at all. did i need a Jazzmaster? absolutely. the price was right, so here we are.

i happened to have the Lead II, Strat, and Duo Sonic out on the sofa together and it’s striking how much smaller the Lead II is compared to the Strat. in fact, it’s only about 1.5” longer than the Duo Sonic even though it’s 25.5” scale and the DS is 22.5”. the body is much smaller than a Strat (and smaller than the DS body!) and it’s noticeably lighter though not as wispy as the DS which is one of my lightest electrics, possibly only surpassed by the Guild Aristocrat.

dubkitty wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 12:40 pm i did a bunch of research on the reissues before getting mine, and they're pretty damn close to the originals. the pickups may not be identical, but they're very similar in terms of construction, materials, pole piece contour, and relative output. i got the red one because i wanted a non-maple board; i'd have preferred black but those only came with maple boards and i'm not so obsessive that i'd change the body just because i prefer a different color. it does a nice job of splitting the difference between Strat boing and Tele slap and is less idiosyncratic than either other than the phase switch which is fairly useless.

the only real noteworthy differences other than the pickups are the fingerboard radius and nut width (7.25in and 1.60in repectively on the original run), and I would assume most people find the modern specs more comfortable.

also i think the reissues might be discontinued now? the player series just got scrapped for the player II and I'm not seeing many left at dealers.. was hoping to pick up a purple lead III as a modding platform.

Page 666 of this thread needs more of the devil's guitars.

honestly, i'm kind of surprised the reissues lasted as long as they have. i suspect there may have been more made now than in the 70s/80s.

[edit] the Lead II/III is not currently listed on Fender's website. they also appear to have deleted the Duo Sonic with 2 single-coils, which is unfortunate.