Restoring my Warmoth Telecaster

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About 17 years ago, when I learned I was going to be the father of a boy, I decided I really needed a Telecaster. I wanted a rugged guitar that could take a fall off a stand. Plus I had played around with a few and really liked the sound.

I ordered parts from Warmoth. The body was two-piece swamp ash finished in transparent butterscotch. It was routed for a Tele bridge and a neck humbucker. The two halves of the body didn't match in grain and didn't seem to take the finish quite the same. It was discounted in their thrift shop.

The neck was a modern construction with a compound radius and satin finish. I chose 6105 fretwire, a graphite nut, and added Sperzel tuners.

I used a Gotoh six-saddle bridgeplate. I had recently played a Fat Tele with a neck humbucker and I really liked it. I was trying to reproduce that sound.

The bridge pickup was a Seymour Duncan Hot Tele stacked pickup. The neck pickup started as a '59 but it overpowered the bridge -- I guess "Hot" for a Telecaster is still pretty mild. A Seymour Duncan Jazz neck worked a little better.

Once finished and set up, this became my number one electric for everything. It was electrically quiet, it stayed in tune, it played great, and I loved the sound.
 
Years of playing started to take their toll.

First, the plastic spacers for the bridge pickup dried out and the pickup started to flop around.

For fun, the boys (now there were two of them) and I took markers and crayons and drew on the pickguard. That all wore off except for some residue under the strings I never bothered to clean.

Then the fret wear became really noticeable.

It was time to get to work. The Tele was coming back.

First, get the strings off. Clean the pickguard and bridge:
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I took the opportunity to make a few changes.

The Seymour Duncan Jazz is a nice pickup but it overpowered the bridge pickup a little. It also had that bassy humbucker quality. I bought a Fralin P-92 -- a hum-cancelling pickup modeled on a P90 that fits in a humbucker rout.

Since I was going to be rewiring anyway, I decided to try a reversed control plate layout, moving the switch to the bottom. Look how cruddy the switch became over time:

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Rather than mess with old solder and crud, I had a brand-new 3-position switch to install:
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By the beginning of November, I had the P-92 installed and the controls rewired.

Sidebar: When I was considering the P-92, I called Fralin pickups to ask for advice. The lady on the phone said, "Let me get somebody who can help you." The next thing I heard was, "Hello, this is Lindy." Lindy Fralin helped me spec the pickup himself. How cool is that?

The P-92 sounds great in the Tele. I'm really happy with it.

Now for the frets. My Christmas gift for 2017 was going to be a new neck.

During the Thanksgiving break, I was telling my oldest son the story behind the Tele and how he was part of the reason I built it in the first place. I told him the frets were played down and I was probably going to replace the neck.

He pushed for me to keep the neck and refret it. He grew up with that guitar and didn't want me to change anything. I went ahead and ordered a new nut and 6150 fretwire from Warmoth.

After Christmas, I decided I didn't like the reversed layout. My son is taking an interest in electronics and wanted to learn how to solder. Together, we installed new CTS 500k ohm pots and a new tone capacitor. We also put the controls back in their original order.
 
On January 3rd, I called Kerry Cash at Kerry's Guitar Shop in Hurst, Texas. I asked him if he could refret a finished maple fingerboard on a Telecaster. He said, "Sure." I was at his shop 30 minutes later with the Tele and a box of 6150 wire from Warmoth.

Here is the link for his site. He's also on Facebook.

http://www.kerrysguitarshop.com/

Two days later, he called me. The job was done.

It is glorious.

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Kerry is amazing. If you are anywhere close to Hurst, Texas, I can't recommend him highly enough. The guitar plays perfectly. My fingers hurt right now because I can't put it down.
 
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Awesome! I bought a pair of Fralin noiseless P90s for my PRS SE Soapbar II, and I had problems with one of the pickups being microphonic. I called Fralin, and the person who answered said everyone was in a meeting and to call back in a half hour. I did, and the person who answered put Lindy on and he told me how to fix the microphonic pickup (it worked). That's great customer service.
 
This is great. My dad and I undertook a very similar Tele project when I was much younger. It was stolen, and it killed me. Glad you were able have that experience, and also such a great guitar.
 
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