I'm usually restoring or building steel guitars nowadays, but in case anyone is interested in what I've been doing lately I've restored a couple of Fenders.
This is the remains of an old Fender Coronado, the only archtop Fender ever made, and becoming increasingly rare nowadays.(Added 2Nov: I take that back. Fender issued some different archtops during the early 1980s.) Here's a halfway stage.
This is what it looks like now. Almost finished. Just needs a set of new control knobs.
..and here's a Telecaster, which was a much easier project.
Last edited by Alan Brookes on 2 Nov 2008 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
Looks great to me. I own a couple of frankencasters now days and it seems I take these things apart and solder and screw or glue them back together on a weekly basis. It is almost as fun and addictive tinkering with these toys as it is playing them..but thats really what you got to do to them to make them play feel and sound the way you want them to. Fender as almost got it right on a couple of occasions meaning I love the deluxe players strat except for one thing it only comes with a 21 fret neck out of factory..I just gota have a 22 fret neck...telecastrs are cool too I would love to have one with vintage tuners and jumbo 6100 frets..but I would not even dare modify my 96 usa made tele with the parsons b bender..My main strat is the mother of all inventions it is a black 98 standar mex body, warmoth boatneck with vintage gotoh tuners and indian rosewood fret board with 6100 supersize jumbo nickle frets. Fender vintage noisless pickups with perloid pickguard ( these pickups come with their own set of pots in the box and the vintage tremlo. I replaced the plug with a allparts shielded and stargrounded the wiring myself...everything on it is great except I wish it were a color other than black.But I dont dare paint it cause everyone likes it becase Claptons blackie stratocaster is famous....I have been dreaming of my nex frankencaster project for some time...I thing I want to try to assemble a telecaster with a vintage ashtray bridge, Duncan pickups warmoth boatneck with vintage type tuners dark brazilian rosewood fret board with 6105 stainless steel jumbo frets. set it up for .010 srings and listen to that baby honk...hmmm I wonder how much Joe glaser would charge to put a b bender system in a tele like Jimmy Oleander ( Diamond Rio) has in his axe... ....
chris ivey wrote:i like the dark overspray on the cutaways but i think the fat part should have none or more!
It's not a standard Fender color arrangement. Other than the Wildwood versions, no two of which were alike, there are about a dozen standard Fender options, and this isn't one of them.
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