Yes, following in the footsteps of a certain Mr. Richards, we are overjoyed to have successfully mated a strat-styled body with a tele-styled neck, thus giving birth to our very own "TeleRat." Parts were sourced from all over the place, and I was asked to put it together for an upcoming show. "OK," I said, that is until I realized that there were a number of issues to be resolved:
1. There were fine but deep cracks on either side of both horn and butt ends of the body's center block (it was a three piece combo). These would get worse over time, and eventually cause the body to split into three. To nip the problem in the bud, I packed fine wood dust into the cracks, saturated them with super glue, packed in more wood dust, and repeated the process until the fillings were slightly higher that the surrounding wood. After sufficient curing time, out came the razor blade and fine sandpaper. The repair is visible if you look closely, but it's still better than having the guitar fall apart one day.
2. The neck heel did not fit well in the neck pocket lengthwise, throwing the scale length off balance. This was because the tele neck's heel was square, while the neck pocket was rounded to accomodate a strat-styled neck. The solution was to square up the neck pocket's edges, which allowed for a closer fit, and 25.5" scale length.
3. The body was way thinner than a regular strat, and the neck pocket was shallower than the 5/8" I'm used to seeing. Which wouldn't be much of a problem, except for the fact that the neck heel of the tele neck was way over 1" thick. Bummer. Even with the saddles raised to their max height, the strings would still be hitting the frets. I wasn't going to deepen the neck pocket because of how thin the body already was. So I ended up thinning the neck heel to slightly below 1", and that did the job.
4. The neck had been pre-drilled for four screws, but the body had previously been drilled for an ala 70s three screw neck plate with a micro-tilt access hole. The neck plate I got was the normal rectangular fender-style. Hooray -- I'd be able to reuse at least two screw holes. But wait .... I'd already rerouted the neck pocket and moved the neck further towards the bridge. So I could not reuse the topmost two holes as I'd earlier planned. Ah well, I had no choice but to plug all the body/neck screw holes and drill new ones. Thank goodness I managed to get them perpendicular, using a guide block made out of pine.
Enough rambling, then. Let's look at some pics.
1. There were fine but deep cracks on either side of both horn and butt ends of the body's center block (it was a three piece combo). These would get worse over time, and eventually cause the body to split into three. To nip the problem in the bud, I packed fine wood dust into the cracks, saturated them with super glue, packed in more wood dust, and repeated the process until the fillings were slightly higher that the surrounding wood. After sufficient curing time, out came the razor blade and fine sandpaper. The repair is visible if you look closely, but it's still better than having the guitar fall apart one day.
2. The neck heel did not fit well in the neck pocket lengthwise, throwing the scale length off balance. This was because the tele neck's heel was square, while the neck pocket was rounded to accomodate a strat-styled neck. The solution was to square up the neck pocket's edges, which allowed for a closer fit, and 25.5" scale length.
3. The body was way thinner than a regular strat, and the neck pocket was shallower than the 5/8" I'm used to seeing. Which wouldn't be much of a problem, except for the fact that the neck heel of the tele neck was way over 1" thick. Bummer. Even with the saddles raised to their max height, the strings would still be hitting the frets. I wasn't going to deepen the neck pocket because of how thin the body already was. So I ended up thinning the neck heel to slightly below 1", and that did the job.
4. The neck had been pre-drilled for four screws, but the body had previously been drilled for an ala 70s three screw neck plate with a micro-tilt access hole. The neck plate I got was the normal rectangular fender-style. Hooray -- I'd be able to reuse at least two screw holes. But wait .... I'd already rerouted the neck pocket and moved the neck further towards the bridge. So I could not reuse the topmost two holes as I'd earlier planned. Ah well, I had no choice but to plug all the body/neck screw holes and drill new ones. Thank goodness I managed to get them perpendicular, using a guide block made out of pine.
Enough rambling, then. Let's look at some pics.
