Has anyone ever done a rear routed Tele pickup?

Tossing ideas around for my next build, and I'm thinking a tele pickup that loads from a cavity in the rear would be kinda cool. So you could use a GE Smith style bridge but just have the coil of the pickup exposed through the wood rather than a big exposed cavity the baseplate and all.

It seems to me that the drawback would be the pickup is meant to mount on a baseplate that rests on top of the wood, so once recessed under the wood (and I guess you'd want at least 3/16 or 1/4" of wood thickness) that the coil might not have enough height to get up to the strings.

Thoughts?

Ah ha, it seems that someone has:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_g6EojtK_M4M/TWxxlzOh83I/AAAAAAAAAn0/JkpixenC1xw/s640/DSCN2836.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_g6EojtK_M4M/TWx16q5EUSI/AAAAAAAAAoE/VRIWKUv_1Fw/s640/DSCN2837.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_g6EojtK_M4M/TWxxnctq-DI/AAAAAAAAAns/ZR0a_vlZ3bQ/s640/DSCN2834.JPG

Seems like a great idea - I wonder about how far you can go with the neck pickup area though.

Seems like a great idea - I wonder about how far you can go with the neck pickup area though.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to take much wood out from around the neck area. I was thinking of a rear route for the Tele Bridge pickup specifically because of the shape of the baseplate. The route for the neck pickup doesn't look that bad without a PG and you can always cover it with a ring.

Edit: just noticed that the SD pickup there has a coil thats much taller than a regular Tele pickup.

just noticed that the SD pickup there has a coil thats much taller than a regular Tele pickup.

I think the middle pickup does too.

What a great looking piece of work! Is that from one of our folks? Is there a build thread for it? I'd love to see it all. Love the shape of the pick guard and how "clean" the whole job looks (prob'ly sounds pretty good too!)
Rex

Yeah those pics were all from a thread on TDPRI, I will post a link to the thread in the morning.