return to guitar/new to telecaster/frankentele with issues

Hey there crew,

I joined the forum because I picked up kind of an oddball Telecaster with some unsolved problems & am hoping for some directions/strategies -- more about that below.

I played a lot of guitar in junior high & high school (90's), but gave up serious study when I got to college & found that the real cats were on a whole other level of musicianship-- 25 years later I'm starting to practice jazz again and having a blast.

My other guitars: 80s MIJ Squier strat -- magical guitar, frets nearly gone; 90s Epiphone Sorrento (Peerless), also pretty lucky, as a student instrument picked almost at random.

I wanted a Tele as a solid body for jazz & bit for a craigslist find... the shell pink (pale, almost lavender) color put me over the edge. (Amps... 70s Champ & Princeton I've had forever -- recently picked up an 80s JC77 for solid-state tones, to tide me over until I can finally find my polytone...)

The guitar is a luthier rebuild -- 80s (88?) USA body, restored (= un-relic'd) 2000's Joe Strummer MIM neck (rosewood, narrow frets, vintage tuners). It has 80s electronics I think (tbx tone pot, which I kind of like) but a vintage ashtray bridge.

I'm playing D'Addario flatwounds -- the light ones (like whatever gauge comes with 10's -- but I've substituted an 11 for the E string)

The big issues are action and intonation (& I'm planning to post more about this, but I'll put it in my Welcome Wagon).

I had a luthier replace the nut (the distances on the old one were pretty random) and level the frets. I've replaced the barrels (weirdly grooved, like a bolt) with Gotoh compensated saddles.

Action: has to be pretty high, or the D and (especially) G strings buzz. Not in an annoying unplugged way, but in an audible, sitar buzz through-the-amp, way (not at the nut -- in the 4th to 8th fret range). I've had it set up twice, once at Buckdancers (non-chain local shop) and once by a luthier, but both times I've had to frig with it myself.

Intonation: if you get it just right at the 12th fret, the guitar plays sharp in the 1st-to-6th fret range.
It would be fine for rock, but jazz voicings really bring out the intonation problems. I know that intonation problems go with the territory (music, guitar, telecasters) -- but I think I can do better.

I feel like there are weird phantom overtones, too

Next steps I'm thinking about (before going back for another set-up/diagnostic, but maybe I do need a third opinion)

--switch to 6 saddles for better intonation (but again -- the biggest problem isn't string-to-string, but WITHIN the individual string) -- plus I feel like the contact point on the Gotoh's may be causing a little extra buzz at the bridge

(I'm not trying to have a vintagey or period guitar, so losing the ashtray's not a thing for me)

--switch to toploader bridge? Another Frankenstein fact about this guitar -- the string-through holes appear to have been redrilled (you can see dents where old ones were filled) -- maybe this was part of the project to replace the 80s bridge with an ashtray? My question is whether the greater distance the strings have to go introduces extra tension -- maybe the angle break of toploading would make it slinkier?

Maybe the neck just has an unfixable warp...

There's so many things that can go wrong with a guitar, & once you start mixing necks and bodies all bets are off. I get that now -- still, I want to make this guitar work. Maybe it's part vanity -- like, I want a guitar that looks just like this! But I also like Telecaster culture & history & philosophy... I've lurked on a few guitar boards, and really respect the tdpri crew. If I google (for example) amp questions, or even questions on other guitars, tdpri seems to deliver.

Thanks so much for reading, if you made it this far -- & glad to be on board!!

 

Thank you all. Frets are good, I think -- just leveled. Bridge... I haven't checked yet. Nut -- just cut by luthier but could get 2nd opinion. 12th fret -- can intonate at 12th -- but I do find the guitar generally hard to tune (may be the feel of the vintagey tuners). Saddle screws... these are new (with gotoh replacement) but hmm there may be some roughness on the plate underneath, it's definitely had saddle screws dragged back and forth.

PICS -- yes! I can do that. Forthcoming.

 

the whole guitar

string-through holes -- you can see impressions in the paint where the previous ferrules were (old ones closer to the neck -- mod to accommodate switch from modern to vintage? or ????)



new bone nut cut by luthier. he also set it up with these strings, so i'm guessing he cut it for this gauge of flats



headstock -- this and the neck were restored (un-relic'd) -- filled & laquered. i presume the decal is one of those $1.50 ebay jobs



ashtray & compensated gotohs. not in love with these -- i think about switching to 6 saddles (not a purist) or top-loader (or 6 saddle top-loader, if that exists!)

 

68Telebass -- I haven't done nearly enough camping in Maine, but I HAVE been to Cobscook Bay, couple summers ago -- wow -- amazing private waterfront sites (at a state park??) -- 1st time I had been Down East since I was a kid. Sounds like you & your buddies are doing it right!

I found a great thread about neck shims that has me wondering about angle -- one thing I've noticed is if you view the joint from the front, where you can see that sliver of the truss rod, the neck is not even neck to right. (That may be a problem, but it's not a big problem -- probably from my own truss/shim experiments, post-setups.)

Also -- I've noticed some wonkiness between the angle of the pickguard, the bridge, and the string-through holes. (Switching to a top-loader would address one of these mismatches at least.)

 

I put on DR Pure Blues (nickle) 10's -- this is a different guitar. It's musically, mechanically sound -- the strings were the thing. Not my tone though, so there's still work to do.