Partscaster Gets Some Help

Here's a good-looking sunburst Partscaster assembled and refinished by a Adel, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Pekan; Pahang. Pretty impressive work, I must say. Reverse headstock, 25.5" scale, 14" radius dark hardwood fretboard, maple neck, locking tuners, two humbuckers, master volume and tone, vintage six-screw tremolo; what's not to like? 

Quite a lot, it would seem. For one, the guitar was unplayable. The action was way too high, especially at the nut; and the strings could not be intonated based on the 12th fret harmonic. Also, the break angle at the headstock was non-existent due to the straight headstock and lack of string trees. The strings kept popping out of the nut slots as if they had a mind of their own.

Then there was the problem of fitting the pickguard. Trying to position the pickguard as I wanted it could not be done. The pickups could only be adjusted so far sideways or be lowered so much before running into wood. Right away I realized that the pickup cavity not only needed to be widened; but deepened too. Besides this, the three-way switch had been wired "backwards." Selecting the neck humbucker gave you the bridge instead; and vice-versa. The volume and tone controls were working as they should; thankfully. 

To compound the problems already mentioned, I noticed that the high E string was almost falling off the fretboard edge and string/pickup polepiece alignment for both pickups was way off. To remedy the situation, I knew that (i) the bridge would have to be repositioned laterally; and (ii) the neck shifted slightly in its pocket.

And so began the task of getting this Partscaster into playable condition. After taking some measurements, the scale length was determined to be 25.5 inches. Only problem was that the saddles, with about 1/16" of play left; were 25.75" from the nut. So I knew that the bridge would have to be shifted forward until the saddles were at the 25.5" mark.

As for solving the string/fretboard edge and string/polepiece alignment issues, it involved deepening and widening the pickup cavity, lots of measuring and testing with a length of string; as well as a slight neck adjustment. All this meant that the old holes would have to be plugged and leveled; and new ones marked and drilled. Tedious, no doubt; but absolutely necessary.

To provide sufficient downward pressure at the headstock end of the nut, a Floyd Rose-licensed string retainer was added. Besides this, the nut slots were deepened sufficiently; and the whole nut reprofiled afterwards. Before re-assembling the guitar, the "backwards" switch wiring was taken care of.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this job was the request by Adel that the tremolo bridge be immobilized and effectively turned into a "hardtail" or fixed bridge. A man wise beyond his years, Adel be! To this end, two more springs were added for a total of five, the trem claw screwed in nice and tight; and a painstakingly-shaped block of hardwood installed in between the trem block and cavity wall.

Once this Partscaster was reassembled and set up with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys; the time finally came to plug it into my Fender Champion 40 and give it a good workout. I must say the tones that emanated from this guitar were way better than I had anticipated. If you'd like to know what this guitar sounds like, do check out the YouTube video I've uploaded. That's it for this post, and thanks for dropping by :)

Singlebucker String-Through Walnut Tele Mod

Nope, this is not a genuine Fender Telecaster. I thought I'd better make that clear from the start. Instead, it's yet another one of Kombatt's adventures in partscaster land. But it sure looks, plays and sounds like one, so in my book, it qualifies as a "Tele."

This guitar features a nice reddish-brown stained hardwood body, 3-ply black pickguard, maple neck with a 25.5" scale 22-fret rosewood fretboard, dark green quilted-maple headstock overlay, generic Tele neck and bridge single coils, vintage-style triple-saddle bridge, 3-way selector switch, master tone and volume controls. Yes, the bridge pickup says "Lines," but I doubt if that's of any significance.

The requested mods were:
1. A new 6-saddle humbucker-ready string-through bridge
2. No neck pickup
3. Single bridge humbucker
4. Tinted clear plastic pickguard
5. Dark walnut stained top with "faux binding"
6. Clear matt refinish

After carefully determining the location of the new bridge, holes were drilled for the string-through mod. I determined that the most efficient job sequence would be to:
1. Mount the bridge and mark the location of the six holes on the front of the body
2. Drill the holes for the 1st and 6th strings right through to the back
3. Drill the holes for the 2nd - 5th strings halfway through
4. Flip the body, remount the bridge using the 1st and 6th holes as location guides
5. Mark the location of the 2nd - 5th string holes
6. Drill the holes for the 2nd - 5th strings (they'll meet the holes drilled from the top in the middle)
7. Measure the diameter and length of the string ferrules
8. Widen the holes with a larger drill bit to a depth slightly deeper than the length of the ferrules
9. Insert the ferrules and carefully seat them with a plastic-tipped hammer

Having settled that, the existing bridge pickup rout was widened and deepened to fit a full-sized humbucker. I must say that the reddish hardwood body proved most difficult to work on, and I had to sharpen my chisels a couple of times to get the job done right.

Next, the exposed wiring channel from the neck pickup to the control cavity was filled using a small piece of hardwood, and the neck pickup cavity painted black.

Following this, I taped off the sides of the body, leaving about a quarter inch all round the top edge exposed. Then, American Jel'd Walnut Gel Stain was applied to the top and sides of the body. This was to create a darker-colored top and the "faux binding" effect.

Once the stain had dried, the entire body was sprayed with a few coats of clear poly. I then used fine grit sandpaper and 0000 steel wool to dull the glossy top coat and give the body a matt finish.

The tinted clear pickguard was a custom job by the one-and-only Eddie of Archsign. Muchas gracias, Eddie. He first stuck tinted plastic film (the kind used to tint car windshields) on to the back of a sheet of clear plastic, and then band-sawed it into the shape of a Tele pickguard.

And that's how this "singlebucker string-through walnut" Tele came into being.

Kombaticon Series TeleRat

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.