Road Worn? More like Road KILL, Amirite????????***

Yeah, but no, this guitar did have some problems.

by Michael James Adams

Sometimes the hardest part of the job is fixing previous repairs and mistakes made by amateur techs and hobbyists, quite often done so with the best of intentions. Hell, we all make them, and in this business even good intentions can have disastrous effects. Especially when they aren’t disclosed…

Buyer Beware

My good buddy Art recently picked up a Fender Road Worn ’72 Telecaster Custom from eBay–fantastic guitars with a vintage look and nitro finish–but there were problems with this one that went unmentioned by the less-than-scrupulous seller.

Looking at the guitar, it’s obvious that there have been some changes here: a ’72 Telecaster Custom most definitely comes equipped with a Fender Wide-Range Humbuckers (WRHB for short) in the neck position, and hand-in-hand with that is the pickguard, which we can determine is a replacement due to its having been cut for a standard-size Telecaster neck pickup. (A Dimarzio Area-T in this case) But wait, there’s more!

What may not be so obvious is that there has been plenty of other funny business going on here, but as they say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Most notably, we have the telltale signs of a previously installed Bigsby unit of some kind: filled holes on the top, and the seller claimed, “They all had them.” Yeah, right. More alarming were the holes for the Bigsby/Jazzmaster bridge that’s usually installed along with the vibrato, poorly drilled and filled with wood putty. Knowing that we’d be installing another Bigsby, I prayed they were at least drilled in the right place. SPOILER ALERT: They weren’t. Grr/Argh.

Aside from those issues, the wiring on this thing was absolutely ruined, a solder-drenched mess on each pot and frayed connections all over the place. The pots used weren’t the correct values to begin with, so replacements were in order. Additionally, someone had decided to “relic” the neck even further with a hearty rasp or something, because there were deep gouges on the back that felt positively dreadful to the hand. Smoothing out the neck with 220-400 grit sandpaper and a light refinish made all the difference here.

The Long, Hard Road… Worn

Here’s how we planned to take this guitar from road kill to Road Worn and BEYOND:

• Dowel and redrill the holes for the bridge IN THE RIGHT #%(*&@#$% PLACE
• Install more proper pickups. Lollar’s Special-T bridge and Regal WRHB seemed more than appropriate!
• Install a new Bigsby B7, Bigsby bridge plate and a Mastery Bridge
• Enlarge the hole in the guard for the new neck pickup
• Build a new wiring harness (250k x2 for bridge, 1m x2 for neck)
• Smooth out and refinish the back of the neck
• Have fun while doing so (no charge)

I prepared our friend for the amount of work and the associated cost with such work and parts, and once we got the go-ahead, it was on. And after a great deal of hard labor, the end result was stunning. Behold:

And it sounds brilliant. Just, three-dimensional, sultry, smoky and smouldering. Honestly, it’s my favorite guitar in the shop right now! I kind of don’t want Art to pick it up! Yes, Jason Lollar makes amazing pickups, and the Mastery Bridge makes everything better. I’m really proud of this one!

***I know this is a lame title. I want to say it was intentional, but I can’t lie to you: I’ve had some hot cocoa with tequila and that’s the best I can do right now. Please don’t tell your friends/family/pets that this Adams kid is past his prime. I promise the next article will have a properly humorous but simultaneously enlightening title. Pinky swear.

Skye’s Jaguar Thinline Gets a Serious Upgrade

As you well know already, Skye Skjelset (Fleet Foxes, Japanese Guy, Tiger Beat Magazine) often hires us to customize instruments to his exceedingly quirky tastes – he’s like the Zooey Deschanel of guitars. And it’s great.

Mr. Skjelset (Pronounced: shell-set) seems to vacation in Japan frequently, and during his last round of fun under the Rising Sun he picked up this lovely black Thinline Jaguar with the intention of making it ‘his own’.

It’s a huge honor to so often be the M. Ward to his guitar-customizing She, and as such I have a lot of fun letting my mind run wild when we’re talking about specs or ideas for upcoming mods. Although Skye’s only had this Japanese Jaguar Thinline for a few months, we’ve been talking about this job for a quote some time.

Skye had already taken it upon himself to swap the original neck with a mid-sixties Mustang neck, and since the scale length is the same this ensured that worn-in feel without any negative side effects. Our plan was to swap the stock Japanese single coils – something I’d almost always recommend anyway – with a Lollar Jaguar neck pickup and a vintage DeArmond/Rowe Siver Foil in the bridge. Nothing too fancy, really.

It’s a good thing Skye wanted a new single-ply guard for this one, because mounting the Silver Foil to the original guard might have required some extra work, given the bridge pickup rout in both guard and body. We ordered the new guard sans-bridge pickup hole from Chandler Pickguards (Pickguard Heaven) and had it in no time. Even without sending a template, Chandler’s work was excellent and the guard mounted without issue.

Honestly, this thing came out so, so good; that Silver Foil is loud, clear, and has this vocal midrange you just don’t hear on most single coils. It blends beautifully with the neck unit, making for an intense, complex middle position that begs for delay and reverb.

So, to recap:

-Installed a Mastery Bridge (yes)
-Swapped in a Lollar Jaguar neck pickup
-Installed the custom-cut pickguard we picked up from Chandler, specially made with no bridge pickup
-Installed the vintage DeArmond/Rowe Silver Foil in the bridge (AMAZING)
-Full set up, and some secret sauce on top

And I know we get these questions all the time, but the Mastery Bridge is the greatest thing ever. Skye’s going to source a vintage vibrato for this one eventually, but for now it’s good as-is!

Here’s some more eye candy for you: