Regis's Partscaster Telecaster

This is my "Partscaster" Telecaster I built from parts I got from a variety of places. The body I got from Ebay for $39, including the jackplate, neckplate, control plate, and bridge. I don't know what brand it is, doubtful it's Fender. The neck was given to me by my friend Jason from a beat up Squire Telecaster he was parting out. The bridge pickup is a GFS "Guitar Fetish" Fatbody Overwound, the neck pickup is a Rio Grande VTTN Vintage Tall Boy Classic, reverse wound. Both pickups have Alnico magnets. I originally put Wilkinson EZ Lock tuners on it, but I changed them to vintage Fender style for a couple of reasons, more on that later. The body came with a crappy hacked up white pickguard but I wanted a tortoise shell pickguard anyway and got it off Ebay too. Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, Shaller Strap Locks.

My design goals were:

Build it on the cheap.
Sunburst body, rosewood neck.
Hot pickup in the bridge position.
Volume pot, no Tone pot.
Reversed Control Plate.
Years ago I knew a guy that had a vintage sunburst Tele with a rosewood neck and have always liked them. Plus, I thought it would make a nice pairup with my Strat, which also has a hot pickup in the bridge position. I had acquired the neck, body, and some of the parts but had to shelf the project for several months due to job loss. When I got working again I finished it up with the help of my friend Kerry.

Since I didn't want folks to think I was playing a Squire guitar (Who would?), I used steel wool to rub out the decal on the headstock and re-laquered it. I purchased the rest of the parts and did basic assembly of the guitar. Then I took it to Kerry who, being the expert he is, noticed several things I hadn't. The bridge was mounted crooked, the new pickguard holes didn't line up with the pickguard holes on the guitar, and the control cavity had to be routed out some more because I wanted to reverse the control plate to have the volume control up front and the switch wouldn't fit that way. He filled and redrilled the holes, fixed the control cavity and did a basic setup, then gave it back to me to wire it up.

After all that I took it back to him to fine tune the setup. It played very nice, but a couple of problems came up: I play real loud, with amps cranked hard, and when I did that with this guitar I got a lot of feedback from both pickups. The GFS pickup was supposed to be wax potted, and the Rio Grande wasn't potted at all, so I wax potted both of them anyway. I had never done that before but it wasn't hard, instructions to pot pickups are all over the internet. I also spread a thin layer of wax underneath the bridge, a suggestion from Lindy Fralin. That fixed the feedback problem. The other problem was that due to a very lightweight body, (It is supposed to be alder, but I think that's bullshit) the guitar is very neck heavy.

To balance it out we swapped the Wilkinsons for some Fender style tuners Kerry had because they were a little lighter and I didn't like the Wilkinsons anyway, then put some lead shot in the control cavity ( In a baggie) to add weight. Finally I taped some more lead shot in a baggie to the guitar strap where it connects to the lower part of the body. After playing it for a while I began to get used to it.

By the time I got done with it I had about $260 into it, and it's not a bad guitar. The neck heavy thing bothered me some and I wouldn't mind having frets that are a little larger but that's all. I am not used to playing a Telecaster body style and control layout, but I'm getting there. The pickups sound very good; the GFS really rocks and the Rio Grande gives that vintage wail. Recently I even played it in a country band for a short time, helping them out because they needed a lead player.