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 Post subject: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:43 pm 
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When GFS recently held a "20% off everything" sale in conjunction with their move from the Boston area to Sarasota FL, I picked up one of their Xaviere XV840 double-bound Tele style guitars. Already a bargain at a regular price of $179, the guitar was only $143.20 after the 20% discount. I had been looking at the vintage white version with a maple neck, which I wanted to convert to all black hardware and trim, making a "white tuxedo" Tele. The guitar already had double black binding, which made a good start toward the look I was going for. At the same time, I took further advantage of the 20% off sale by buying a black Tele control plate, knobs, jack plate, pickguard and pickguard mounting screws. In addition to the GFS parts, I also picked up a black Tele bridge plate made by Gotoh at Warmoth, and a black Tele neck pickup cover that I found on Reverb.com.

Good plan, maybe, but execution turned out to be more problematic! While the guitar itself is of amazingly good quality for the price point, making changes to it are not as straightforward as I'd hoped. Some of the changes went smoothly, but I ran into four problems:

  1. The oval jack plate I bought doesn't fit the guitar, which turns out to have a rectangular plate. Couldn't see that on any of the GFS product page photos, so took my best guess....wrong! No problem, since I'll just exchange it. This was the least of my problems (and the least interesting).
  2. The black pickguard, cut to vintage Fender Telecaster specs, doesn't fit the Xaviere. It may look identical to a Fender, but the XV840 has some slight dimensional differences and the mounting holes don't line up. I sent an e-mail to GFS asking if they have black pickguards in stock specifically for the XV840, but this is a longshot. I may need to have a custom guard cut for it. That's likely to run me ~$40, maybe more.
  3. The Gotoh bridge plate is a very high quality piece built to standard Fender Tele specs, but once again, the XV840 is not dimensionally the same. This gave rise to two problems:
    • The saddles on the Gotoh unit are located farther toward the bottom of the guitar than the GFS bridge. Consequently, the saddle-length intonation screws have to be backed out very close to the end of their travel to move the saddles up to where they were with the stock bridge plate. I was able to successfully intonate all of the strings except the high E, where I ran out of screw travel. It's very close, but still just a wee bit flat. I can probably live with it, but I'll see if I can locate a slightly longer black screw to get it spot-on.
    • The mounting holes for the bridge pickup don't match up with the stock GFS Fat TC Alnico pickup, which are slightly farther apart than the Fender standard. Consequently, the pickup can't be mounted on the Gotoh bridge plate. Fortunately, I had on hand a pickup set that came out of my Squier Classic Vibe '50s Tele, and the bridge pickup fit the Gotoh bridge perfectly.
  4. While changing the pickup cover on the GFS neck pickup, I somehow managed to damage it so that it no longer works and tests as open (infinite resistance) with my multimeter. I probably managed to break a winding wire somewhere while removing the original chrome cover. I took off the tape wrap and inspected it but couldn't find the problem. In the garbage it went, 100% my fault. But I still had the neck pickup from that same CV '50s Tele, so I installed that after mounting the black pickup cover. Works fine now.

So that's where my "Tuxedo Tele" project currently stands--see photos below. I still need to resolve the pickguard issue, because I REALLY want a black one on the guitar. I also want to install black tuners and string trees, and replace a few remaining chrome mounting screws. Hopefully, those changes go more smoothly!

Lesson learned: The GFS stuff itself is generally pretty good quality, especially for the price, but you can't count on it to be interchangeable with Fender spec parts!

Attachment:
Tuxedo_Tele_WIP.jpg
Tuxedo_Tele_WIP.jpg [ 71.08 KiB | Viewed 7917 times ]

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:36 pm 
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Cool concept - looks great!

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:39 pm 
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looking great!

but can't you just drill new holes for the pickguard?

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:49 pm 
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CaptainPeyote wrote:
....but can't you just drill new holes for the pickguard?

Wish it was that simple, but there are other dimensional/shape issues with the guard itself. It doesn't fit around the neck joint and jams up against the top of the control plate. I'd end up having to trim plastic out of the guard, and I very much doubt that I could do a professional looking job of that with my limited tools and skill set!

Got a response from GFS today, and as I suspected, they don't have black replacement guards for that model. Looks like I'll have to have a custom guard made at WD Music, unless somebody else here knows of a better/cheaper place.

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:22 pm 
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bummer :(

no router? or, failing that, a drill press with a flush trim bearing router bit in it? that ABS plastic cuts so easy, and GFS sells it by the sheet...

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Muad'zin wrote:
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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:27 pm 
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CaptainPeyote wrote:
no router? or, failing that, a drill press with a flush trim bearing router bit in it? that ABS plastic cuts so easy, and GFS sells it by the sheet...

Nope, just a hand-held cordless drill and a Dremel. Nothing I would trust to undertake cutting a pickguard properly.

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:47 pm 
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Get yourself a hobby router. Perfect for a few guitar builds. I’m not sure how well it will hold up after that.


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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2018 12:43 pm 
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Here's a pretty good approximation of what the guitar will look like with a black p/g. I removed the stock white guard to trace it out and just laid the ill-fitting Fender-spec black guard on top of the body. I think this just looks s-o-o-o-o much cooler than the white one.

Attachment:
Tuxedo_Tele_blackPG_mockup.jpg
Tuxedo_Tele_blackPG_mockup.jpg [ 80.24 KiB | Viewed 7872 times ]

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:12 pm 
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1. Yep, the black pickguard looks killer man

2. $40 gets you halfway to a Bosch Colt router which will handle 99% of your routing needs... https://www.ebay.com/p/Bosch-PR20EVSKRT ... 1305088713

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Muad'zin wrote:
I want Pterodactyl sounds dammit, not a nice little analog sustain.


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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 10:46 am 
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CaptainPeyote wrote:
1. Yep, the black pickguard looks killer man

2. $40 gets you halfway to a Bosch Colt router which will handle 99% of your routing needs... https://www.ebay.com/p/Bosch-PR20EVSKRT ... 1305088713

1) Thanks!

2) No thanks! I'm just not a woodworking guy....

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 2:46 pm 
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Oh yeah, black for sure. But then I like black everything so I may not be the best judge.

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 3:26 pm 
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Looking good, Bob :)

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:56 pm 
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Finally finished up this guitar with a custom pickguard (black-creme-black) from WD Music Products and some additional black hardware, notably a set of black locking tuners from GFS. It plays and sounds amazingly good, especially considering what I paid for the guitar itself!

So here's my finished "Tuxedo Tele":

Attachment:
Tux_Tele_final.jpg
Tux_Tele_final.jpg [ 69.73 KiB | Viewed 7596 times ]

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:01 pm 
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She's a beaut. Play the hell out of it!

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:56 pm 
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geekmacdaddy wrote:
She's a beaut. Play the hell out of it!

Thanks, Jeff--I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

For purposes of DIY "full disclosure", as they say, the guitar itself may have only cost $143 on sale, but I ended up spending another ~$190 on various parts, not counting shipping costs. The two big items were the Gotoh 6-saddle bridge ($45) from Warmoth and the custom-cut pickguard ($55) from WD Music, because a standard Tele p/g didn't fit this GFS XV-840 body. The locking tuners were only $30 from GFS, which I thought was a heckuva good price. They're some Korean off-brand "Gotoh style" tuner, but seem to be very good quality and operate very smoothly. After that, the prices dropped off sharply, but there were a bunch of parts involved, so it adds up fast. Still, ~$335 for a custom-outfitted guitar that plays well and sounds good seems super-reasonable to me!

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:48 am 
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Like Paul Harvey used to say, "Here's the rest of the story."

After completing all of the mostly cosmetic upgrading of this guitar, I decided it should really get a nice set of hand-wound pickups to finish the job. I poked around on Reverb.com and found Sunday Handwound Pickups, owned & operated by Tim Esau down in Eatonton GA. His seller feedback was amazing and his prices ultra-reasonable, so after exchanging a couple of message re: what I was looking for, he wound me a set of his "23T" neck and "hot Broadcaster" bridge pickups. They sound fabulous! If you need/want a set of handwounds, by all means check out Tim's page on Reveb.com: https://reverb.com/shop/sunday-handwire ... nd-effects

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 5:22 pm 
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Nice, Bob! :)

By the way, not sure how much time you’ve ever spent over on Madbean’s forum, but Tim is Timbo_93631 over there. He’s been doing the hand-winding thing for a while. I had him spin a set of Jazzmaster pickups for me a few years ago and he does indeed do good work. Here’s a running thread of some of his work.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/inde ... #msg257161


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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 6:20 pm 
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Oh yeah, Timbo does great work. He did some PGs for me along with some PAFs, some jazmmasters, some burst buckers and an esquire pickup. I think that’s it. I can’t recommend him enough.


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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 7:46 pm 
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michaelballard wrote:
By the way, not sure how much time you’ve ever spent over on Madbean’s forum, but Tim is Timbo_93631 over there. He’s been doing the hand-winding thing for a while. I had him spin a set of Jazzmaster pickups for me a few years ago and he does indeed do good work. Here’s a running thread of some of his work.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/inde ... #msg257161

jimilee wrote:
Oh yeah, Timbo does great work. He did some PGs for me along with some PAFs, some jazzmasters, some burst buckers and an esquire pickup. I think that’s it. I can’t recommend him enough.

Oh, cool! I'll have to check out that thread with examples of his pickup work.

Not only am I very satisfied with the Tele pickups I got from Tim, but he was an absolute pleasure to deal with. I may need to stop over to Bean's forum and say "Howdy!"

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 Post subject: Re: Cheap Tele Project
PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:00 pm 
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Yep, he made me a “Jazzcaster” bridge for my JM - Tele voiced bridge with a Jazzmaster footprint, complete with the Tele baseplate :)


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