Converting a Squier Tele Custom into a real Tele Custom

[fuzzferatu]

So I have discovered that I am a single coil bridge guy at heart. I played my two rock teles, a homemade blonde Tele Custom and the Squier Tele Custom II (with two Fender Wide Range Humbucker Reissues crammed in there) at a recent gig and found that I didn't really click with the sound of the bridge Bucker... nor with the GFS Liverpool in my homebrew Tele Custom.

What I want to do is pull out the WR RI in the bridge of the Squier, stuff it into the homebrew blonde, and then put a tele bridge and single coil in the Squier, so that I end up with two proper homebrew Tele Customs. (Whew! Easier than it sounds).

My question: are the Squier Tele Custom II bridge routs too wide for a regular tele bridge? Will I need to add some wood to fill gaps?

[yegbert]

Not only is the bridge pup rout too wide, it also extends too far toward the neck. And may not have enough of an opening in the lower part, to clear the part of a Tele traditional shaped single coil bridge pup that extends toward the saddle area.

[yegbert]

Did you replace the original Squier standard sized humbuckers with the larger, Fender Wide Range Humbuckers? Or with the ones Fender puts in the Classic Series MIM '72 Deluxe that are sized like those?

[fuzzferatu]

Originally Posted by yegbert

Not only is the bridge pup rout too wide, it also extends too far toward the neck. And may not have enough of an opening in the lower part, to clear the part of a Tele traditional shaped single coil bridge pup that extends toward the saddle area.

Eep!

Originally Posted by yegbert

Did you replace the original Squier standard sized humbuckers with the larger, Fender Wide Range Humbuckers? Or with the ones Fender puts in the Classic Series MIM '72 Deluxe that are sized like those?

These WR RIs came with someone's thinline, and he actually just gave 'em to me! But yeah, I do believe I had to do some routing. I think when I am done with my move to my new apartment I should take the sucker apart and measure. I have a bad feeling, though, that I can't do what I want to do.

Sigh.

On the other hand, I'm bidding on a tobaccoburst body right now. Perhaps that's what should become my second Tele deluxe, though originally I had planned for it to be my "regular" telecaster.

[tonfarbe]

We've talked about this before.
I've made some comparison Photoshopping.
Using the existing string-through holes, you would end up with this:



The pink area is where the humbucker routing and the bridge mounting holes would be visible.

[yegbert]

The STB holes in the bodies of Squier Tele Customs are positioned about the same as those of current production Squier Tele Standards, Squier Tele Specials, American Standard Teles, and American Series Teles, relative to the string's scale length end: so close that the break angle on the 6th string is near 90 degrees.

Using them to position a bridge made with STB holes positioned like the vintage bridge will place the single coil bridge pickup closer to the neck than the typical position for a Tele single coil bridge pickup. On the surface, that seems to offer an additional benefit that the single coil pickup can be fitted with little or no additional routing to the body.

However, I did that on a Squier Tele Special and the tone seemed somewhat like a Strat middle pickup, with a nasally muted character. I tried it with a couple of different vintage style bridge plates, an MIM Standard bridge plate, a sawed off and flattened half of a vintage style bridge plate, and with the bridge pickup mounted to the body and divorced completely from any bridge plate. I tried it with three different bridge pickups: a Duncan Antiquity II staggerpole, a Fender Classic Series staggerpole, and an American Series flatpole. I posted some about it here; I also linked to a couple of pics below.

I don't know for certain that nonstandard bridge pickup placement is responsible for the unusual tone, but it seems a likely suspect to me.

I'm making my Squier Tele Custom convertible between humbuckers and P-90s, a la Custom II. I currently have a set of Fender Atomic humbuckers in it, but I have a Fender Tex Mex humbucker I'm going to put into the bridge position instead.

Those reissue Fender WR HBs are a different pickup for the bridge and neck positions, the grades of AlNiCo is the one difference I know for sure, there may be others. You might also check their spread between polepieces. The point is, the bridge version won't sound the same in the neck position (a la '72 Custom) as the neck version.

fuzzferatu, if you do try to fit a Tele single coil in the bridge of your Custom I'd love to hear how it works out.

[fuzzferatu]

Thanks for the thoughtful and complete responses, yegbert! Between the "pink space" and the gently cautionary "if you do try to fit a Tele single coil in the bridge of your Custom I'd love to hear how it works out", I have been dissuaded! I may throw some 1 meg pots into it to see if I can brighten up the sound a bit.

I'll reserve my mod madness for a fresh body.

Thanks!

[yegbert]

I'm just gunshy of mounting the bridge pickup that quarter of an inch farther away from its normal position, by matching the Squier body's STB holes with a vintage plate's STB holes. Because of the poor tone I got with my Special when I did that.

If I was going to try converting the Squier Custom to a single coil bridge, I'd probably first try body mounting the Tele single coil bridge pickup, but I'd get it positioned the same distance from the string end as if I was mounting a vintage bridge plate in its standard position. Even if that meant a little routing to the lower end of the pickup cavity to fit the Tele single coil's "hump."

If that sounded like it had some promise, then I'd figure out how to fill the body extra space, and mount a vintage style plate in it's "standard" position. You could try a toploader as an interim step. But if I was going for string through, I'd consider filling and angle drilling the top end of the STB holes to meet up with the bottom/ferrule end of the old STB holes.

[Tjeppen]

You could put an original Squire Telecaster bridge on it. This isn't a string through body bridge so you can play with the measurements a little to hide the routing of the humbucker

[Drunkinminer]

Originally Posted by Tjeppen

You could put an original Squire Telecaster bridge on it. This isn't a string through body bridge so you can play with the measurements a little to hide the routing of the humbucker

If you wanted to make it strings thru couldn't you just drill the holes through the bridge plate? Just a thought.

[kalipigeon]

I did this to mine for my Precisioncaster Custom. I used a Wilkinson vintage style bridge from GFS since i wanted the ability to ashtray it (as opposed to a modern flat bridge). The string through the body holes will not line up, but since you can string through the bridge, I didn't really care. There are some screw holes from the stock hardtail bridge, and i had to dremel out a very small notch for the brass baseplate of the tele bridge pickup, but I love it and would never go back. The front of the bridge plate just barely rests on the neck edge of the HB route, so it has a nice stable mount (maybe a millimeter overlap). You can see the three screw holes here, the bridge is still easily within the intonable range of the screws though.

[lupowitz]

Originally Posted by kalipigeon

Good Mama!
Now this guitar looks very interesting!
Congrats! How does it sound? Have you recorded anything with it? I'm really curious! What does additional switches do? Coil split? Phase reverse?

[Southern Ill Electrics]

Deleted

[kalipigeon]

They're series/parallel for the neck pickup, and the two pickups together respectively, I'll try to figure out how to post clips/youtube in the thread called "precisioncaster custom" in this same forum