My '06 MIM Natural Ash (Project)

[nospeaky]

hello everyone, I'm new here. been lurking for a while, waiting, you know how it is.

anyhow... I recently purchased my first tele a few weeks ago, and of course now I'm totally hooked. it's funny cause when I first started playing guitar I had absolutely no interest in teles, but I slowly got more and more intrigued by them, to the point that I just had to have one. so I figured I'd post some pictures and progress of my new tele and it's modifications up here.

what I finally settled on is this 2006 MIM Natural Ash Tele. I believe these are a Guitar Center exclusive.




I wanted to get a tele that I could set up as more of a classic style tele, and I love working on stuff so keeping anything I buy stock is not really an option. so I went with this one for a couple of good reasons... it will accept a vintage bridge, and it's ash with maple which I think is the coolest. and it's got 9.5" radius and medium jumbo frets, which I prefer. oh and it was pretty cheap (always a good selling point) and after playing practically all the teles in the store for a few weeks, this one felt pretty good to me. neck feels great and it sounds great.

can't stand that white pickguard though, uggh, that's the first thing to go. and unfortunately, as most people have noticed on recent MIMs, the maple neck is really light, almost white (doesn't look too bad in these pictures). I'm just hoping it will darken a little as it ages.

I talked the dude into throwing in a fender gig bag with it, since all the regular MIM Standards come with them. :)

after a few weeks with it, I'm just totally pleased, and am totally hooked on teles now. about the only issue I've found so far is the D string buzzes a bit so I had to raise that string a bit higher than the others. I'm pretty sure the problem is the nut slot for that string, if I push on the string behind the nut it goes away. I'm either going to fill the slot and fix it myself, or swap in a bone nut. not a huge deal though and after raising the string some I've almost forgotten about it.

so, now that I've gotten comfortable with it, I'm ready to start the modding. my plans at the moment go something along the lines of:
-black bakelite pickguard
-vintage 3 barrel brass saddle bridge
-4-way switch with series mod
-try out a baseplate on the bridge pickup and see what happens
-it does hum quite a bit, so I'd like to try shielding with copper tape.
-eventually get new pickups after I've tried everything else out. not sure what I want yet, I'll worry about them later.

I've already swapped out the pickguard and bridge, but the pics are at home, so I'll post about that later tonight.

[jerseyguy]

What timing, I just asked you about the 60th anniversary decal in my post and now have the answer by looking at your pics. That is the same model I tried today. It's a really nice guitar and the mods you are mentioning are almost exactly what I had planned on no matter what MIM model I buy so I'll be following your posts closely. Actually I thought the pickups sounded pretty good. They had more of a "twang" than all the other guitars I tried. If it turns out to be a 2006, I'll be buying it tomorrow. Anyway thanks for the help and good luck with the tele.

[jwells393]

Man .............. that is some really straight grain. Looks great.

[odiemann]

How much at GC are those? Really a nice classic/modern instrument.

[Bones]

Congrats!

The guitar you have is an "FSR", they are exclusive to GC and MF. I have 2 of them one is an '05 and the other an '06. The '05 I have is very straight grain like yours. I converted it to an Esquire and did a light relicing on it.



The '06 has a lot more grain to it and I left it as a telecaster but used all vintage style hardware on it.

[odiemann]

But I still couldn't find it in the present inventory. Maybe they sold out

[Bones]

Originally Posted by odiemann

How much at GC are those? Really a nice classic/modern instrument.

They are tagged at $449.00, but you can get that knocked down a bit with minimal effort.

[collinsman]

Nice work Bones, I'm being overcome with * Guitar Lust * - somebody help me !

[odiemann]

My local GC can't find any info on this model, they aren't great. I can't find it on MF, I stink sometimes too.

Has anyone found it on MF site, anyone found one in a local GC?

[Bones]

Originally Posted by odiemann

My local GC can't find any info on this model, they aren't great. I can't find it on MF, I stink sometimes too.

Has anyone found it on MF site, anyone found one in a local GC?

I see it is no longer offered on the MF site, they have a different FSR now based on the Deluxe.

GC should be able to check their nationwide inventory and find you one somewhere.

[chickenpicker]

Originally Posted by jwells393

Man .............. that is some really straight grain. Looks great.

Just what I thought. How many pieces is the body made from? I've studied the pics, but I can't be sure where the joins are.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by chickenpicker

Just what I thought. How many pieces is the body made from? I've studied the pics, but I can't be sure where the joins are.

Everyone I have seen whether straight or wavey grained has been a 4 piece.

[jerseyguy]

I just picked up one today at GC. nospeaky gave me the heads up on how to tell 2006 models from the 60th anniversary diamond decal. Yesterday the salesman told me it was a 2005 model and had no idea it was a GC "exclusive".
My guitar is a 3-piece natural ash body. I'll post some pics when I get a chance.
I've tried about 10 different 2006 standards and this one was definitelly the "keeper". Just playing it unplugged the chords ring forever, and when I plugged in, this was the first where I could hear that tele "twang" I expected.

[nospeaky]

my body is 3 pieces as well. the grain matching is really good, even staring at it close up I can't see the joints on the face. of course on the top and bottom you can clearly see it's 3 pieces.
I do prefer a bit more wavy grain, but I still love it.

Bones, those are some nice lookin guitars you got there. thanks for the info, I wasn't sure if these were the same as the FSR run MF had going.

so here are some pics with the new pickguard and vintage 3 barrel bridge



the pickguard is an AllParts bakelite guard. it seems everyone in the world is out of stock of the Fender '52 5 hole, this is the only one I could find available and I was worried about it fitting just right but it turned out really nice. it lines up exactly with the old stock one, but it fit really tight, I'm guessing because it's a lot less flexible than the stock one.

I was going to convert the neck pickup to being mounted directly to the body, but didn't have the proper screws or the right size drill bit and was desparate to get rid of that white pickguard, so I opted to just drilling holes in the pickguard to match the stock one.
maybe someday I'll get another one and switch it over.

here's a picture of the bridge pickup.
as you can see they're definitely alnico magnets. I was under the impression that MIM Standards all had ceramic pickups. does anyone have any info on this?

[nospeaky]

oh and congrats on the purchase jerseyguy. hurry and get some pics up.

I think you'll dig the vintage style bridge, it definitely added a bit more "twang".

[5digits6strings]

Hey Bones...did you have to do any modification to add the "vintage" style tuners?

[Mike Rice]

Originally Posted by nospeaky

can't stand that white pickguard though, uggh, that's the first thing to go.

Here's a pic of my '72 Tele with a cream pickguard I got from WD. Neither white nor black did it for me and parchment wasn't even far enough off white, but I thougt this matched the 34 year old grain filler just beautifully.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by 5digits6strings

Hey Bones...did you have to do any modification to add the "vintage" style tuners?

JUst a set of conversion bushings.

[yegbert]

nospeaky, that's a beauty of a Tele!

Originally Posted by jerseyguy

I just picked up one today at GC. nospeaky gave me the heads up on how to tell 2006 models from the 60th anniversary diamond decal. Yesterday the salesman told me it was a 2005 model and had no idea it was a GC "exclusive".

Originally Posted by nospeaky

here's a picture of the bridge pickup.
as you can see they're definitely alnico magnets. I was under the impression that MIM Standards all had ceramic pickups. does anyone have any info on this?

According to what I've read here from some folks who have them, at least some of the toploader MIM Standards with Mighty Mite toploader bridges made during the '90s had ceramic.

Similarly, owners of the generation of MIM Standards following that, through 2005, reported theirs as having AlNiCo.

Fender has advertised the 2006 MIM Standard as having different, hotter pickups. lwaun shared the info in another thread that his 2006 had ceramics, and he emailed me this pic of his:


From jerseyguy's note, I assume yours has that 60th anniversary sticker. Does its serial number on the headstock also indicate it's a 2006 and not a 2005?

For FSRs, the company that orders the special run can spec them however they want anyway, so it wouldn't be surprising to find a 2006 FSR with pickups different then the model the FSR was derived from.

Have you measured the pickups on an ohmeter? I don't have an MIM Standard or the AlNiCo pickups that came in them in 2005 and earlier, but maybe someone else who has measured a set can chime in and you can compare those specs.

What is the color and type of material that forms the protective wrap around the bridge pickup? That's another feature you can use in comparing pickups to narrow down which you have.

The bottom line is if the pickups sound good to you, then enjoy them. I have heard of several folks here recently adding baseplates to MIM Standard and MIM Classic Series AlNiCo bridge pickups with good results. I had benbo rewind and add a baseplate to a Classic Series bridge pickup of mine and I like it. But those Classic Series even without the baseplate are nice, just in a different way.

[collinsman]

The guy at GC' told me some have ceramic pups, some Alnico, and he thought they were trying to eventually go with alnico for all the new Mim Standards, maybe just using up the (cer) old stock.

[Honga Man]

Originally Posted by nospeaky

...and unfortunately, as most people have noticed on recent MIMs, the maple neck is really light, almost white (doesn't look too bad in these pictures). I'm just hoping it will darken a little as it ages.

Nice Tele, nospeaky! The black guard and vintage bridge look so much better to me.

About the neck getting darker: I bought a '98 MIM Standard, swapped out the neck and put it in a closet. I put it back on the other day and I'm positive it's darker than it used to be. I was at GC the other day and thought the MIM Standard necks look REALLY white. Came home and looked at mine again and I'm sure it has changed. To be sure, I removed one of the tuning machines and the circle under the flange(?) of the tuning machine is noticeably lighter than the rest of the neck. Even though I bought the guitar new in '98, the headstock serial number is MN6.... so it's possible the neck is now ten years old.

I imagine if you play alot in smoke-filled bars it will yellow sooner.

[GuitarJonz]

I played one of those MIM Std FSR teles recently at GC, it was real nice. It was tagged $449 also. How much were you guys able to negotiate down to??

How about the routing under the pickguard, are they routed for a neck humbucker under there, like previous MIM Std guitars?? They really look great with either white or black guards.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by GuitarJonz

I played one of those MIM Std FSR teles recently at GC, it was real nice. It was tagged $449 also. How much were you guys able to negotiate down to??

How about the routing under the pickguard, are they routed for a neck humbucker under there, like previous MIM Std guitars?? They really look great with either white or black guards.

You should be able to get it for just under $400.00, $385.-$395.

They are routed for single coil in the neck.