Homemade Esquire Tributes!

Not really homemade, but it was a 60’s Baja and now it’s a Bajesquire.

 

Thanks. It was meant to be a fantasy prototype to emulate an archtop before the Jazzmaster came out but with Tele parts. I really like the way that it turned out. It has a concentric volume and tone pot and a 6-way varitone rotary switch with a choke. Actually a ton of tone options. Kinda deceiving. Super light, too. The body weighs 3.2 lbs. and is a one piece.

 

Cool JM. It is interesting to compare the concepts between yours and mine on post #12.

 

2667492F-85D6-43AD-BC83-DDBE9D1DEF44 by Jef posted Mar 23, 2020 at 9:35 AM

here’s mine. Just completed it during quarantaine.
Wenge neck and lefty bridge, no controls.

 

That's so disorientating!

Looks lovely though. I love wenge - where is the neck from?
What's the lefty pickup sound like? I'm guessing you play it right handed.

 

Warmoth roasted swamp ash body and roasted maple neck with ebony fingerboard, bakelite pickguard, Wilde / Bill Lawrence L290-TL E pickup.

 

I cut this body from lightweight ash and paired it to a quartersawn maple neck with Dunlop 6100 stainless steel frets. The pickup is a one-off T-90 (P90 in Tele clothing) made by Aaron at Rumpelstiltskin. Bakelite scratch plate. It has a vol and tone; no need for a switch. Artificial wear all around to give it a smooth, worn feel. Total weight is 5.2 lbs, and it rings like a bell. I have many fine guitars, but this tone-stick-deluxe is my number one right now.

 

Wow...love everything about this...including the flame on the headstock. Gorgeous!

 

Cheers!

 

Well you got me right at the start!

Soon to be lightly aged, Olympic White, transitional-'63 flavour. Cavalier pup.

 

Nice. Have you decided which Cav you are going for?

 

Put this together a dozen years ago now.
Pine body, rattle can nitro finish,
All parts soft v neck,
Bridge and pickup came out of a mid 2000s u.s.a reissue.
Gotoh kluson repro tuners, fender pick guard and control plate.
Wired for a volume/ tone position, a preset rhythm position, and cocked Wah.
The body was routed as a normal tele, and I stuffed a dummy coil in the neck rout to cut some of the hum.
Love it.

 

I like that switch combo. Everything useable in new- and old-school Esquire in one. Except, I guess, the bypassed tone pot...but a no-load tone pot would fix that easily enough if you ever wanted it.

 

yes easy enough to rectify.
I originally wired it as a typical esquire, but I didn’t find the volume only position to be all that special. Seemed to mostly just boost the treble on an already trebly guitar really.
I tried a bunch of variations,
And landed on this one,
Every position is very useable for me.

I don’t recall what value I used in the center position,
But it comes real close to the center position on a regular tele, both pickups.

and I HAD to have the cocked Wah spot,
One of the most glorious sounds a guitar can make.
In fact with the caps I used, I get yet another flavour of cocked Wah by zeroing the tone pot.

 

Very cool and usable indeed. I would love to know your formula if you ever take it apart and look it over. I'm hoping to build an Esquire myself one of these days. The one I built I was not very happy with, pickup-wise. I just wired up with volume and tone, no switch. With a different pickup it might have been killer.

 

I got curious and took a look inside lol.
Must’ve done that many times over the years.

turns out I used .02uf on the tone pot
.0033 in the mid position
And .01 for the cocked Wah

however, I used some really old RMC ceramic caps I salvaged from something or other, so values may not jive with the code markings anymore.

I basically took leads off the guitar and went through a heap of random caps old and new and picked the one I liked in each position.

I tried some paper in oils, bumblebees, tropical fish, orange drops, you name it. Liked these particular ceramics the best.

the cocked Wah is pretty much useless unless overdriven, but it works for my tastes.

 

I posted the blue one on this thread previously but here it is with my latest build.

 

So how many of these Esquire style guitars have the neck pickup rout?

 

I'm not tellin'!


PS: some of the Fender Esquires have a neck pup rout.