How easy(hard!) would this be?

Hey,

I'm planning on buying a cheap MIM tele, stripping off all the paint, routing it for filtertrons in both positions and repainting then covering with nitro.

Is there anything there that would be extremely difficult or should be left to a shop?

I know it depends how good you are etc..but im just wondering if theres anything impossible there or anything i need to watch out for.

Thanks

FB

Depends on your wood working skills. Seems like a pretty straight forward thing to do that many others have. Humbucker bridge will help cover the bridge route, pick guard will cover the neck route. Hardest part will be stripping the poly off the body.

It would end up being a FrankenTele when you were, even as awesome as it sounds. And stripping guitars sucks.

I would just buy all the parts seperate and build it. A body from Red Girt Guitar works since he makes them routed for Filtertron and P90s too. A mighty mite neck, or Allparts for more size options. Good cts pots. What you will end up with could be better than a modded MIM. Just my 0.02

I sanded the urethane off a guitar once. It took hours, and generated a ton of nasty powder. The good news is that a tele is probably the easiest shape to sand. If you have a belt sander and a spindle sander, you could get most of it. If you're going to spray a solid color, you wouldn't even have to get all the old paint off, but research/test for compatibility with the new paint.

Watch out for the bridge PU area. The tele bridge PU rout is bigger than a filtertron rout, so you'll have bumps, which I think would even stick out beyond a mounting ring. You might be able to find a tele style bridge plate with a filtertron-sized hole in it. I've seen 'em for standard HBs.

How about this: buy a mim tele in the color you want. Put in a filtertron. Done.

If you're going to repaint anyway, there's no need to strip the guitar. It's a messy proposition that can reveal a lot of surprises.

As to the rest of the project, depending on how the body is routed, you may have to enlarge the routes to fit the new pickups. You'll need a humbucker bridge, or go with a hardtail bridge of some sort and pickup rings. The pickguard will need to be modified or replaced, the pots will need to be changed to 500K, you'll need a cap around .047µF.

How hard is it? If you can run a router (or enlarge the routes with drill bits, chisels, etc), paint to your satisfaction, and solder (or have a buddy that can solder), it's easy. The fewer of these things you can do, the harder it gets.

As for piecing things together, I wouldn't, not for a first project. If you want to get your feet wet, buy a used Squire and a set of GFS or used Epihone Humbuckers, and go from there. It will be essentially the same hardware at less than half the cost, and if it goes badly you can chuck it all away without losing much.

Assembling from parts is certainly an option, I've done it many times, but I would run away from at least one of the vendors my esteemed colleague smh mentioned. Maybe I'm assuming things I shouldn't, but for a first build it's far easier to start with something cheap and functional rather than having to fight with marginal parts and ending up with more headaches than fun.

How about this: buy a mim tele in the color you want. Put in a filtertron. Done.

Thanks guys, great info. Ideally i'd just buy the colour i want, but im also getting rid of the pickguard, so I need to fill, sand, paint +lacquer over the holes left by the original pickguard.

Seems like the stripping will be the hard bit, as I'm going fol solid black i might just scuff the original and go over it with black auto paint then spray lacquer.

Is it more difficult to install binding? (just giving myself ideas!)

Installing binding on a guitar that is already finished with rounded over edges is not advisable for a host of reasons, including: difficulty, the fact that the roundover would have to either be carried into the binding or the binding would have to be uber thick, extra tools (which I don't know whether you have), etc.

Hard row to hoe. Buying an unfinished body blank is the easier way to go and you will have as good a body as any stock fender, plus you can bind, rout, and color to your own preferences. It is much harder starting with a body that is already done in everyway except how you want it.

I would buy the MIM tele, sell the body "loaded" with the remaining parts, and buy a replacement body and hardware/pickups.