What is your dream Telecaster?

This right here



9.5" neck and the same pickups that are in a Baja

 

The one I'm working on now for myself for a change...with PAF pickups with f spacing. Should be good.

 

A 1999-2006 USA deluxe tele with a better, nitro, light ash body with a Barden or Rutter's bridge. Rosewood neck. Maybe some fralins or Mares for the BOLD tone? make it 7.5lbs max.

 

Original 51 Nocaster. Butterscotch, black plate, maple neck.

 

George Harrison tele I think. I love how it looks, can't get enough. I love Rosewood. Or this one.

 

I covet a Harrison Rosewood, too.
Maybe this year!

 

It doesn't and couldn't exist: An imaginary left handed one of THIS:

 

Keeping it simple, a Nocaster with its feline fan!

 

Don't know if you'd consider it a dream telecaster but I wouldn't mind owning this just because I'm a huge Haggard fan. But really any Telecaster I've owned is a dream guitar including the 2 I own now.

https://gbmedia.azureedge.net/usercontent/gear/3347426/p2_unpbaabf2_so.jpg

 

1952 telecaster

 

My dream tele is the new Fender custom shop Bob Bain "son of a gunn" signature tele.. http://www.fendercustomshop.com/features/bob-bain-telecaster/

The problem with that is the $10K price tag

My solution: I had a super F-ed up '78 tele i'd gotten in a trade for a gibson (That I'd paid $500 for on Craigslist). It had the finished stripped, non stock pickups, an unfortunate third/middle pickup hole for a humbucker (protruding out past the pick guard) and some other issues (but played great)

Surfing on TDPRI about luthiers that can do a Bigsby B16 install, I found a post about Bob Bain's guitar tech, Tracy Longo, and discovered he lived somewhat close to me.

Tracy filled the middle pickup hole, refinished it, added new pickups and the bigsby.

Here's the finished guitar!:



Bonus: Bob Bain was at Tracy's shop one day and loved the (mid-completion) guitar!

 

Yes I can hear it now:

“Hey a new scratching post!”

 

Just teeing up for a cat attack!! It was hitting it like a clock pendulum at one point....

 

I kinda already built my dream tele but I have two that are outstanding. The first is a Warmoth black korina capped with bloodwood and a reverse headstock bloodwood neck, canary skunk stripe and rosewood fretboard, Seymour Duncan Antiquity tele neck and bridge pickups and an Antiquity P90 in the middle. My favorite.

The second is a Warmoth tobacco sunburst alder capped in quilted maple, and a reverse headstock roasted maple neck, with Seymour Duncan vintage mini humbucker neck, vintage P90 in the middle and a Five-Two tele bridge pickups. Superb sound.

 

Fiesta red in nitrocellulose with maple fretboard.

 

Ron Kirn Tele - actual specs TBD.

 

My blond parts-caster. Ebony fret board, MOP inlays, 12" radius, SD pups, CTS pots and I'm about to put in some Fender locking tuners.

 

I would really love to have a green tele like this one:


But I OWN this one and I love it:

 

Short answer? Another “Firecaster.”

Too short of an answer? Okay, long answer…

My first Logan Custom “Firecaster” was made from lumber salvaged from our house fire (tele style + fire-salvaged lumber = “Firecaster”), chambered, with a maple neck/fretboard, dark stain, nitro finish, loaded with Bill Lawrence Keystone pickups and a 5-way switch, and Bob Logan’s stainless steel bridge plate with brass compensated saddles.

Logan Custom Firecaster - Keystones by LGOberean posted Dec 9, 2012 at 3:35 PM

This time, I’d go with the same lumber and body construction (chambered), but with a natural, nitro finish, and a Medium C maple neck/fretboard with medium/jumbo frets and Kluson vintage split shaft tuners. I’m still not 100% decided on the pickups and switching.

I’ve contemplated going with a set of my favorite pickups (DiMarzio Twang Kings) with a 4-way switch, which is what I have in my go-to gigging tele (Logan Custom BSB). But new custom guitars are opportunities for new pickups, going with something that I don’t already have for a different tone. In my four electric guitars (teles), I have vintage style tele pickups of different brands (Wilkinson, DiMarzio, Bill Lawrence), and a P-90. So all single coils.

Vox Pathfinder 15Rs & Logan Custom Teles by LGOberean posted May 13, 2015 at 10:56 AM

Accordingly, I am considering going with dual coil/humbucking pickups in my second Firecaster. I don’t really like the look of a full-sized humbucker in a tele. I know…that’s just me. I readily acknowledge that it’s a subjective assessment, but there it is. Of course, I could do the “Hot Rod” thing of a mini-humbucker in the neck paired with a traditional tele single coil bridge pup.

But what I’m thinking of is a Firebird style pickup, at least in the neck, maybe dual Firebirds. (Kinda makes sense to have a Firebird pickup in a guitar called a “Firecaster,” don’cha think? ) If I go that route, I’d be looking first at Rob DiStefano’s Cavalier brand Phoenix Firebird pickups. And I haven’t decided whether to do a Firebird in the neck and then pair it with, say, Rob’s Fat Lion bridge pup, or go with dual Phoenix Firebirds, in which case the bridge plate would be Bob Logan’s chopped stainless steel with the compensated saddles.

So there it is, my (latest) dream tele...Hey, what can I say? I dream in detail!

 

The current dream tele is the ash body tele. I have about teles now, so after the ash, it would be another all black tele build with super hot pickups.