Stealth Esquire

[natelecaster]

Alright, so I have been itching to mod my Tele. I realy wanted to add a hummer to the neck but did not like the idea of routing my baby. I also have always loved esquires and their simple looks. So I decided to do an esquire conversion as not to mess with body mods. So I ordered the black esquire guard from guitar fetish, and was just going to do the esquire re-wire. The pickguard came rather quickly and when I went to pull off the old guard, WOW, i have a nice factory hum route on my MIM tele. AWESOME! Then I remember reading a few very cool threads on here about stealth esquires. I tried a few different pickups I had, nothing like I wanted, just not enough punch once the guard was added(i play high gain punk and rock). So, after reading ALOT on here about GFS pickups, I headed over to their website for a nice high output hummer. I got one of their "crunchy PAF high output" buckers, with a whopping 15.9k output, only $20-something, AWESOME! At 15.9k, this thing should shoot flames when I am done. Anyway, the pickup is ordered, and my Tele is patiently waiting the new implant. Now if only I could be as patient. I'll post some pics when she is finished. Thanks to everyone for all the older posts and inspiration. Until later, Take It Easy, -Kevin

[Unkie Al]

I've made one a while back with a p-90 in the neck position, it turned out real nice!
Make sure to show us them pics AND a tone report when you're done.

[natelecaster]

Ok, project is finished, the neck pickup came, i went and got a nice strong mini toggle switch from R.S. for in between the volume and tone knobs, reversed the jackplate and pots(now its easy to reach the volume and the toggle switch) and buried a realy nice "crunchy PAF" from GFS under the esquire pickguard. but something just didnt look or feel right. it bothered me all weekend until i figured out what it was, the pickguard didnt look right all shiny. so i took out the 800 grit and gently removed the finish of the pickguard down to flat black. now it looks like it sounds, pretty and polished but rough in all the right places.



now for the way it sounds, i havent had a chance to record anything yet(soon to come) but here is the breakdown

- neck pos only, humbucker on full w/ full volume = nice crunchy paul like tones but still has nice highs
- neck pos only, humbucker on full w/ vol @ half = sweet blues, thick but well defined
-neck pos only, hum split as single w/ full volume = total strat like tones, crisp highs but of course not as much meat(thickness), very strat like
- neck pos only, hum split as single w/ half volume = my old tele neck pickup, seriously it is very, very close.
- all the other positions mix very well between the bridge and neck. i am VERY satisfied with my $50 total cost modification. My favorite playing guitar now can handle the jobs of ALL my others. Only a Tele could do that!

And Thanks to Unkie Al, cause' it was your stealth esquire and related threads that gave me the idea. Keep On Rockin'

[e-merlin]

Very cool! I might have to do that one of these days.

[cRaZY Tom]

Wow thats awesome!

I've been thinking about doing the same thing to my MIM tele!..but there is one thing i'm not too sure on...how do you mount the humbucker without screwing through the back of the body?...please could you possibly show some pics of under the scratch plate?

cRaZY Tom

[Flannel Pat]

Does the pull of the neck pickup still mess up the harmonics?

[natelecaster]

thanks for the nice words, this was not my first mod or even first build, but this was my first"decent" guitar and for two years i have been very hesitant about messing with the "mojo" of it all. i think i made the tele god happy though so he shined a little back my way.

tom, i simply tapped two holes in the body cavity the exact size of the mounting holes in the pickup, i used a slightly larger mounting screw than what came with the pickup. this way when i screwed the screw into the pickup it cannot slide up and down the shaft of the screw. the screws only had to go a few turns into the body, just enough to firm the pickup. i'll post you a pic or two tomorrow(cameras dead, i'll grab the one at work tomor.)
i did have to clip the bottom of each of the screw poles on the bottom of the pickup as they all stuck out at least 1/8 of an inch under the bottom of the pickup, only on the adjustable side though. the pickup would not mount flush under the guard without the "chop" and i was NOT going to route my body for a $20 pickup. all fit very well though with no real problems (other than the adjustable pole pieces)

pat, i realy never played with my neck pickup enough to realy hear or notice a "pull" in the field. i was scared that this monster pickup(15.9k) was going to pull on the field and do crazy things but i think the extra distance seems to equal it all out.

ill post a few under guard pics tomorrow. -take it easy!

[MulliganChebichev]

Originally Posted by natelecaster

i did have to clip the bottom of each of the screw poles on the bottom of the pickup as they all stuck out at least 1/8 of an inch under the bottom of the pickup, only on the adjustable side though. the pickup would not mount flush under the guard without the "chop" and i was NOT going to route my body for a $20 pickup. all fit very well though with no real problems (other than the adjustable pole pieces)

Hey, I did the same thing, but didn't like the end result, and about the screw issue, I just took a drill bit and carved six holes, no major changes. Worked like a charm, the pup sat flush with the body/guard