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I'm finishing up a trio of acoustics and starting a couple summer projects.

I'm in the planing, design and parts accumulation phase of a pair of electrics. Building electric guitars is new to me and the expanse of hardware and pickup choices a bit overwhelming.

The plan is for a pair of electrics, one in the Tele style and one a Strat.

So looking for very good hardware commensurate with top 20% level guitars.

Don't want to spend money for the sake of it but not needing to go budget on parts.

My ? list includes bridges, trems, locking tuners, that kind of thing. I can figure out the electronics. Stuff best for players that won't need replacing.

If anyone wants to weigh in on PU's that would be especially great. Way too many choices there for an electric noob.

Style of music - classic rock, blues....

Throw out your favorites and, Thanks in advance!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Cool Brian sounds like a great summer project. We used to call it when someone built an electric on this forum that they were going to the dark side...

So the king of pure Tele or Fender tone is our friend Lindy Fralin and his "blues specials" are superb in all respects and not very expensive either. I have them in one of my Tele's and they are considered one of the best available but again they are not premium priced.

Lindy is perhaps the most knowledgable guy alive today about vintage Fender tone.

The same is true for Lindy's Strat pups and I have a set of his innovative hum buckers but in a single coil foot print on one of Strats and they are incredible too and again not premium priced.

So I would give Lindy a call for both pups for Tele and Strat and I have actually done that myself when I was in your shoes and love the results. You likely will get Lindy on the phone. He's been to Michigan before a number of times to the Northwoods Seminar where we all get together and get wasted

Teles suffer from a short sided design flaw way back when where they share saddles between two strings. What results is you cannot intonate both string in a pair perfectly and have to either split the difference or favor one string and the other string is sol....

So years ago aftermarket saddles that can be very good such as Callaham (very expensive) became available. But the best Tele solution these days is the Wilkenson bridge with compensated and adjustable Tele saddles. You can adjust the compensation angle of each saddle and really dial things in tight. These bridges and saddles come on Suhr (a Fender master builder who went it alone and builds better Fender like guitars than Fender) uses. I have two Surh Teles with these bridges and saddles and I can intonate each string independently and that solves the problem that vintage Teles have. Highly recommended.

There are lots of aftermarket Strat bridges too and Wilkenson is a good choice there as well. If the player will not be a big trem used set the trem flat so you can do dives but not swells and the tuning instability that results from pretty much all trems will go away and it will stay in tune when you play.

In fact I would simply Google Suhr guitars and mirror their hardware selections (they do Teles and Strats) they are again the finest Fender type instruments available that are not one offs and can be had for 3 - 4K. I have two of their Teles and one Strat from Suhr and they are my favorite Fender style instruments.

BTW I'm classic rock and blues too so these selections and preferences are for the music you love as well.

Locking tuners there are lots of good ones and I would again look at what Suhr uses and get those.

All these recommendations are middle of the road priced but super high quality stuff that I think represents real value. And I play all this stuff myself every day so it stands the test of time and my drooling well

Thanks much Hesh! I was hoping with as many as you work on, you'd jump in with some input. Just the kind of info I was looking for. I've been in an out of the dark side going from fiddles to banjos, acoustics and now electrics. So far I haven't lost my way in the dark.

My shop is a humidity nightmare in the summer and if working on acoustic bodies RH maintenance is a dehumidifier workout. So I try and schedule away from that. All kinds of outdoor chores interfere with shop time anyway. But this should be a nice break and I'm really looking forward to it.

Exactly what I was looking for in the Tele bridge was independent string adjustment.

If there are any, extraordinarily good bridges... out there, it would be something I'd certainly like to look at if just to know how and why they are great.

I will look at and call Lindy.

Thanks much!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
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Right now the sky is the limit for solid body hardware. Choices are varied, and price points range from dirt cheap to WTH? I love Lindy's stuff - but truth be told, there is so much out there that's good. You are more likely to hit on proper stuff than cheap crap these days. Many of your choices will boil down to personal preference - you like the look of this one over that, or the descriptions sound a little more in line with your desires. Ask questions - it can't hurt. Good luck, and have fun with it.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Pickups. Lollar and Fralins.
Bridges. Shroeder
All Parts For parts
WD Music Biz for parts
Quality Woods on Bay for body blanks Fender Style
Elite Tonewoods for Elec tops

This is all middle of the road or high end

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Thanks guys!

I'm basically only needing input on hardware at this point. Woods are already in play.

Maybe I should have added to the question --- and if you were building one for yourself today, What parts would you choose?

I'm already getting that info but I'm open to more ideas.

Thanks all

Thanks for the vendors David, I didn't have those and lots of choices!

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Brian, a couple of thoughts. You have some general decisions to make before you start choosing parts. What style of pickups (single coils, P90, humbuckers, all the others). Vintage (4 hole) or modern (3) bridges. Three or six saddle. Shiny chrome or aged or reliced.... Locking or non locking tuners. How are you going to mount the pickups (pickguard, rings, bridge, screwed to the back of the pocket....)

With a strat you need to decide on whether you want a trem or hard tail, and then type of trem.

Some of those will dictate the hardware and might limit your choices. I like to have my hardware, particularly the bridge, in hand when I start making the body. I set the neck to the bridge, and I locate the bridge relative to the neck.

I have had very good luck with generic Gotoh parts - I like their six saddle bridges, but I have used three barrel types and been able to intonate them properly. Some people think bridge or saddle material makes a difference in sound, I don't hear it so I'm mostly looking for functionality.

I don't see any need for locking tuners, I use one or two string trees as needed. If you are using a roasted neck heed the manufacture's warning about reaming tuner holes.

I've built guitars with a variety of pickup styles and with some expensive boutique brands, the big decision is the type of pickup, followed by how much you want to spend. Interestingly I have been fairly impressed by StewMac's Parson Street pups if you want P90 or humbuckers.

Three things that I highly recommend for a beginning electric builder

- Get Melvyn Hiscock's book on building your own electric guitar. He covers the three basic neck constructions and literally everything you need to know about these animals

- Hang out at TDPRI, particularly the Home Depot

- Download the free TDowns plans for a telecaster (this will also give you the link to #2

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/d-size-te ... ere.74504/

Tele's are dead simple to make, Leo designed them that way. I'm a big believer in chambering them to bring the weight down. Strats are only slightly more difficult - hanging the pups and electronics from the p/g makes that part easy, the trem can be tricky. Choose hardware for functionality and whatever other criteria you choose, most of it works pretty well and can always be changed.

Here are two tele style guitars that are very very different and might give you some things to think about. On the left is a chambered mahogany body with a maple top, a vintage Gotoh six saddle bridge, single coils mounted to bridge and a ring, controls from the back, it is very light (5-3/4 pounds). Right is a "barn caster" build from 100 year old barn wood. Solid fir body, maple neck. I put P90's in it because I didn't have a P90 guitar, in retrospect I should have put the P90's in the pretty guitar and the single coils in the barn caster. The P90's dictated that I use a short bridge (three saddle) and screw the pups do the back of the cavities. The body shape was slightly altered because of the hunk of wood, geometry is still standard tele



Just trying to give you some other things to think about.

Thanks so much Freeman! Much appreciated.

Yup, lots to consider and study before I get these on the bench. But you answered several questions.

I haven't decided on body materials but I have some 8/4 Spanish Cedar, some 10/4 ash and hog available. I bought the ash green and it is drying on the heavy end of swamp ash even though it is ~9% now. If I use the ash or hog, I was going to chamber to lighten it up. Which will work with my visual plans as I was thinking of making this a "twin pair" using the same drop top wood - either curly maple or some nice ziricote I know will look great. The ash was from a big tree the beetles killed. The slabs I couldn't pass up were big enough for quartersawn 1 pc bodies.

Also some great curly hard maple for necks.

I ordered the Hiscock book as per your recommend. I also have some plans to refer to. And have a modern Tele elite and a cheap squire strat for reference.

Thanks again Freeman (NICE looking guitars too!)

Brian

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Fender's chambered tele is the Thinline, I sort of followed its routing sheme when I did mine. Thinlines have a drop top to allo for the routing and are often bound or sometimes "double bound". They have the one little f-hole on the bass side, personally I think it looks silly and didn't include it on mine.

I

Strats are harder to chamber with the belly and arm bevels and trying to do a drop top would be a nightmare (as would binding). Strats usually have a pretty big route that is covered by the pick guard - I don't normally build strats so I don't pay much attention.

I'm quite sure that choice of wood as well as chambering, the presence of the F-hole and all the other choices you will make do make a difference in the outcome o the guitar - I put my faith in pickups. One thing that most people do agree on is that the angle of the bridge pickup is part of the whole tele "twang", my P90 guitar doesn't have it.

One more piece of hardware that you will need to decide on is the truss rod and that will follow your decision on the kind of neck to build. Fender has two basic designs - so called "one piece" and "two piece". One piece necs are made out of a single board usually maple, the fretboard is intregal to the neck stick itself. The truss rod is a curved threaded rod inserted from the back of the neck into a curved channel, then a filler piece (usually walnut) covers the route. That is the "skunk strip". The truss rod is a single acting compression style, tightening the nut atttemps to straighten the rod. Hiscock shows how to build the router sled and the drilling jig for the angled adjuster. The adjuster can be put in the headstock, or heel, there are a variety of configurations. One issue with one piece necks is that the fretboard is usually finished (lacquer or poly) which adds some hassle when you want to do fret work.

The second kind of neck is a separate fretboard like everyone else builds, truss rod drops into a channel and is covered with the fretboard. This is the construction I use, and my truss rod of choice had been LMII's double acting rod. I'll probably go with BitterRoot or maybe SM Hot Rod in the future. Again you've got the question of head or heel for the adjust, it seems silly to have to take a neck off to adjust relief with the neck not under tension. Gotoh makes a cool right angle heel adjuster - I have not built with one but I used a Warmoth neck that had one and thought it was rather clever.

If you want to look at options I would suggest going to Warmoths site and just click on different bodies and necks. Run the wizards - you can build almost any configuration imaginable. I've built a few teles for other folks so I have their ideas along with my own, if there is anything you want to bounce off me. Good luck, have fun.

Thanks again Freeman.

I should probably list the decisions I have made -- I'll work on that.

I'm planing on truss rods from Allied (I like them and use them in acoustics) with the spoke wheel adjust at the end of the fingerboard. I have them already.

Both will have ebony or rosewood fingerboards.

I'm considering a tilt back head similar to LP but 6 on a side. Avoiding string tree.

Thanks for the pic of your cavities. And the advice of twang from angled PU.

Hope these have similarities to tele and strat but not intended to be copies.

Nice to have no rules to follow, but that doesn't mean advice isn't needed! I spend some time browsing Warmoth already.

Brian

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Brian welcome to the dark side. A Tele style guitar is a great project!

Freeman, the TDPRI links do not seem to be working. Here is another source for Telecaster plans/templates. https://www.electricherald.com/fender-t ... templates/

Brian, good luck with your hardware choices (especially pickups), you will have your work cut-out deciding. +1 on Gotoh hardware as Freeman suggested and I second Freeman's comment that you can correctly intonate the standard 3-barrel bridge.

I have a limited edition Telecaster thinline with ebony fretboard and custom shop pickups. Love that guitar!

Has anyone tried Guitar Fetish. They have a whole lot of pup's and hardware at a reasonable price. Quality is good and they got a good revue in Guitar Player mag.

Brent

Years ago Rick Turned floated an idea by me to build a solid body out of spruce with maple plugs everywhere screws need to go. I’d love to try it someday!

As far as hardware goes, my strat has Callaham hardware. I made it 15 years ago and don’t know the current market at all, but it was really good stuff back then.

As far as pickups go, I have Fender Fat 50’s, but have been exploring Duncan Surfer’s.


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