KingBollock

It’s odd, I’ve always hated the look of Telecasters. I went into the local shop looking for a Stratocaster, preferably white with a maple fretboard. They had three that matched and all were between £100 and £150, which was fine because I am no guitarist… £360 later, I came out with one of these: And I love it! Not enough to leave it alone, though. I’ve already changed the bridge saddles to Gotoh, brass, compensated barrels. Which I think look a bit nicer.

Thank you! From what I had read 1:18 seemed to be what I thought I would need, but I don’t know what the ratio of the current tuners are, and my muggy head didn’t think of simply doing what you suggest… So now I have a place to start with the tuners. As for gilding the lily, I’m doing it because I like doing it. It won’t cost me much. I think the pickup set is less than £30. I can’t remember what the switch costs. I have everything else already. It’d be nice to have a humbucker as the bridge pickup, being able to split it should, I hope, mean I get to keep the Telecaster twang. I like the idea of the versatility. Being able to go from playing Reba McEntire to Metallica (or, more lately, Rocky Horror Picture Show tunes) without having to change guitar, would be handy!

A few months ago I treated myself to a Squier Classic Vibe 60s Telecaster. I love it but I just can’t let things be, I have to fiddle/meddle… I think the only thing I don’t like about it is the tuner ratio. Every time I think I have what I need, sorted out in my head, I read something contradictory and start doubting myself (there’ll probably be a lot of that in this post…). The trouble is that the tuning is too fine, so it’s near impossible to get it spot on. Do I need a higher or lower ratio? How do I find out what the current ratio is? Ideally I’d like to replace the tuners with ones with a more appropriate ratio. That fit in without having to enlarge the current holes in the headstock. It’d be nice to have drop in, vintage style tuners. I’d really like locking ones, too, but I have a feeling that what I am after just doesn’t exist, at least not without breaking the bank. The better ratio would be more important than locking. I don’t know what the current tuner ratio is. The other thing I want to do is change the pickups. I have seen a set that has a mini, hot rails humbucker for the bridge and a black chrome single in the neck position. I want to replace all the electrics*. I want a 4 way blade switch for: Switch Positions 1) bridge 2) neck + bridge (parallel) 3) neck + bridge (series) 4) Neck Plus a push pull pot for splitting the hot rail coils. So I need to find a diagram for all that. I’ll also be replacing the control plate for one with a slanted switch. I bought a replacement switch knob to help with access, but it’s not much of an improvement and it’s ugly. Can’t decide whether to stay chrome or go black. I’ll have to get on my PC, find some pictures and do a mock-up to give me a better idea. *There are two reasons for replacing all the electrics. One is that I can’t help myself! Doing this stuff is the best part of owning a guitar (it sure ain’t the playing, not the way I do it…). The second reason is that if it turns out that I preferred this guitar as it is, the plan would be to get a cheap Telecaster kit (I’ve seen a nice, semi-hollow bodied one at Thomman) that I can drop the new electrics into. I have been wanting to build a kit for a long time. So, any advice or/and help with this, would be greatly appreciated. It would also be fun to see/read about other peoples’ Telecaster mods.

I think Behringer just got a little too close to the original design. I am very much a fan of Behringer, by the way. I ordered mine from Anderton’s, as it was the only place that had them in stock, two days before the lawsuit was announced. I told my wife that they would start being worth more because of the lawsuit, and the lack of stock in many places (Anderton’s were the only ones that had them in stock and not back order) but that was to justify buying it… I had no idea that the prices really were going up. Maybe I should have ordered two? I certainly won’t be selling mine, it’s a excellent pedal. I suppose, what I could do, is build my own (which had always been the plan before the Behringer came out and all the massively positive reviews for it), and if it’s close enough, I could sell the Behringer.