Tele/esquire build in planning, it's going to be colorful

[ThePearDream]

Very cool finish. I had been looking at thinline Tele bodies, since I have a spare T neck, and had seen one in that same finish. No idea if it's the same seller, but they look very close. I'll be interested to see how this one comes together, since they have some colors I'm interested in.

Thinline Chameleon
Thinline Chameleon Strat

[GilmourD]

Dammit... You're making me want to build another Tele...

[scole]

The body has arrived! I couldn't open the parcel until pretty late so no good photos for today, but the fit and finish seems really good, they included ferrules in a little baggy which was a nice surprise as they weren't mentionned in the listing.

Sounds like your body came from the same seller (or groups of sellers) that I got my blue paisley body from. Mine also didn't specify that it came with ferrules but they were included with the body. Anyways, so far, my body has held up well and I've been happy with it. This was my finished build;

[HNB]

Beautiful!

[Flurko]

Very cool finish. I had been looking at thinline Tele bodies, since I have a spare T neck, and had seen one in that same finish. No idea if it's the same seller, but they look very close. I'll be interested to see how this one comes together, since they have some colors I'm interested in.

Thinline Chameleon
Thinline Chameleon Strat

This looks like exactly the same finish as mine, the same kind of paint in the cavities as well.
I'm bummed because it fell down during the night and I made a dent on an edge next to the jack, the finish seems brittle. I won't care when it's finished and playable, but it's annoying when I haven't even started to disassemble the starter guitar.

[bodhi]

Hmm, I also think any kind of decoboom/polka dot style guard would work pretty nice with that chameleon finish... Dunno if it's your kind of aesthetic, of course

[Flurko]

I tried to get some time in to mount the neck on the body but after spending most of that time trying to find suitable screws to attach the pickup to the bridge, it turns out the neck heel is slightly too wide . Given that it's from a very cheap strat copy from the 90s/early 00s, I'm pretty sure the difference from fender specs comes from it and not from the body. I guess I'll have to do some careful sanding on the sides of the body heel, as I might do less irreparable damage there than sanding the neck.

[Flurko]

I took some pictures to get an idea of how the color will look next to the maple neck :




You can see the dent I made when it fell down the other day, still bummed about this...

[gerardguey]

Sounds like your body came from the same seller (or groups of sellers) that I got my blue paisley body from. Mine also didn't specify that it came with ferrules but they were included with the body. Anyways, so far, my body has held up well and I've been happy with it. This was my finished build;

Whoah, ive been itching for a blue paisley and that looks sick. Is the burst metallic like the fender paisleys or is it a solid color?

[bodhi]

I took some pictures to get an idea of how the color will look next to the maple neck :




You can see the dent I made when it fell down the other day, still bummed about this...

Whoa, really looks like it came off easily... Luckily it'll look a lot better even with just a bit of paint.

[scole]

Whoah, ive been itching for a blue paisley and that looks sick. Is the burst metallic like the fender paisleys or is it a solid color?

Sorry for not replying earlier- the burst is a solid color

[Flurko]

This is now guitar-shaped ,pretty happy with it as I only had to do a bit of sanding/light chiseling of the neck pocket so the neck could fit with a bit of pressure. The neck is also a bit higher than fender spec, so the saddles will be at max height, we'll see how it works but it seems in the right ballpark.

[GilmourD]

This is now guitar-shaped ,pretty happy with it as I only had to do a bit of sanding/light chiseling of the neck pocket so the neck could fit with a bit of pressure. The neck is also a bit higher than fender spec, so the saddles will be at max height, we'll see how it works but it seems in the right ballpark.

You could always shim with the neck angled forward, reverse of the offset setup. LOL

[gerardguey]

I had a similar issue when putting a first act neck on a tele body, had to sand off about 1/8 of an inch from the back with an orbital sander to get to sit at a comfortable height. Much easier than making the neck pocket deeper.

[Flurko]

You could always shim with the neck angled forward, reverse of the offset setup. LOL

I did just that, using just a bit of bit of really thin plastic and putting it at the headstock end of the heel and it's in the right ballpark now, I have an acceptable action with the saddles in the normal adjusting range.
I just wired everything straight to jack to have a feel of the sound, not much because it's late but it's in working order for now !

It looks like this :



I think I'm going to order a mint esquire guard, a tele jack socket, but i'm not yet decided of what kind of control scheme I want to do with the control plate. It also seems like the cheapest control plates are all in the standard configuration, so we'll see what I settle on.

The pickup is really weak, for some reason I can't get a reading on it with the multimeter but the coil looks really thin. Once moved closer to the strings it might sound pretty good, we'll see when I can crank the amp a bit.