Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

[Johnny Nightslayer]

Some of you may remember my thread a while back about modding my telecaster with an APH-1 humbucker in the neck. Well I bought the pickup a few months back, as well as a pickguard. I also found someone who routed out the body and installed the pickup basically for free. He let me watch too, since I'm interested in learning to build guitars.

It all worked out fine. Exactly as planned. Which surprised me because I expected something to go horribly wrong. Only problem is I don't know what it sounds like yet - I don't have anymore strings!:34:

Heres a extremely crappy cell phone pick. I guarantee you it looks 50 times more gorgeous in person. The change from white to black pickguard just made it look amazing.

I love it when a plan comes together.

I also learned that it is not an alder body. The guy said it was probably ash.

Heh, I'm definitely addicted now. After watching the guy do soldering and stuff on my tele, I just dissasembled and unsoldered my squier. I want to try winding my own pickups for it.

-John

 

[The Kernel]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

cool mod. I've been thinking of buying a tele and then adding a neck bucker. Was routing the body a big deal (as in, did it have to be extremely specific)?

 

[subanots]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

neck buckers are a must for teles. imo

although, i prefer phat cats

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Or an SM-1.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

i've been debating of putting a Duncan mini in the neck of my tele!!! i never use the neck PU on my MIM tele.... i use it more like an esquire!!! those Duncan mini's are great Neck PU's!!!!!!

 

[mrturtle_91]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

I need to replace the neck pup in my tele with a bucker...I just can't get along with the tele single coil in there.

 

[Johnny Nightslayer]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Routing the body was really a piece of cake (Well, it was easy for the guy) - it was as simple as putting the pickguard on as a template, marking where the cut needed to be, and slowly routing out the cavity layer by layer.

Installing the pickup by itself seemed pretty straightforward. I plan to install the next pickup on my own. I got some soldering practice on my Squier yesterday.

We have a router at my house and my dads been wanting to buy a band saw...I think I'm going to buy some plywood and practice cutting out a body and routing out cavitys.

I'm going to go get some strings tonight...I'm dieing to hear what the APH-1 will sound like.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Routing the body was really a piece of cake (Well, it was easy for the guy) - it was as simple as putting the pickguard on as a template, marking where the cut needed to be, and slowly routing out the cavity layer by layer.

Installing the pickup by itself seemed pretty straightforward. I plan to install the next pickup on my own. I got some soldering practice on my Squier yesterday.

We have a router at my house and my dads been wanting to buy a band saw...I think I'm going to buy some plywood and practice cutting out a body and routing out cavitys.

I'm going to go get some strings tonight...I'm dieing to hear what the APH-1 will sound like.

i used to work at Home Depot years ago and when i worked there i kept buying re-furbished tools.... i have a few nice Porter Cable routers... from stew mac i bought the templates and the short router bits with the bearings on it... Routers can be very dangerous....

 

[Johnny Nightslayer]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

i used to work at Home Depot years ago and when i worked there i kept buying re-furbished tools.... i have a few nice Porter Cable routers... from stew mac i bought the templates and the short router bits with the bearings on it... Routers can be very dangerous....

Yeah maybe I should have added that routers are easy to use IF you know what you are doing. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to kill yourself with one. The one we have at my house can mount onto a router table...that should make it safer.

I've been reading nonstop on the stewmac website for days.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Yeah maybe I should have added that routers are easy to use IF you know what you are doing. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to kill yourself with one. The one we have at my house can mount onto a router table...that should make it safer.

I've been reading nonstop on the stewmac website for days.

for somethings it is safer to have a router table... for other jobs it is not so safe... when routing PU cavities it is better to use it free hand so you have controll and the body should be clamped somehow to stop it from flying when something goes wrong...

once i was using my drill press in the basement and was wrongly using it to widen the tuner peg holes on a strat neck.... one second the neck was in my hand and the next it was gone..... it ended up on the otherside of the basement.. the bit had crewed a nasty awful hole in the headstock..... happened so fast i didn't see it go.. i could imagine just how much worse it could be with a much faster spinning router

 

[Johnny Nightslayer]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

So I finally put strings on it. Only problem is that I noticed the pole pieces don't match up perfectly. Its as if the HB is just slightly to the right of where it should be. I can get a picture if need be.

It seems a lot of people get this problem...and the common solution is to adjust the polepieces to be closer to the strings? All the strings at least catch some of the polepiece, except low E cuts it pretty close. Although low E might be off any way...If I tried to do a bend on low E on the last 9 frets it would fall off the fretboard.

Any feedback? I should take a picture.

 

[Pete Galati]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

A better picture than the first one would be good.

I never had any problems with the polepieces of humbuckers lining up with Tele strings at the neck position. Did he cut the humbucker hole in the pickguard himself?

If it's off by a little bit, it shouldn't effect much. The magnetic field is actually pretty even across the top of humbuckers. You probably don't want to adjust it close enough to the strings for it to make a difference.

 

[Fender_Punk]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Some of you may remember my thread a while back about modding my telecaster with an APH-1 humbucker in the neck. Well I bought the pickup a few months back, as well as a pickguard. I also found someone who routed out the body and installed the pickup basically for free. He let me watch too, since I'm interested in learning to build guitars.

It all worked out fine. Exactly as planned. Which surprised me because I expected something to go horribly wrong. Only problem is I don't know what it sounds like yet - I don't have anymore strings!:34:

Heres a extremely crappy cell phone pick. I guarantee you it looks 50 times more gorgeous in person. The change from white to black pickguard just made it look amazing.

I love it when a plan comes together.

I also learned that it is not an alder body. The guy said it was probably ash.

Heh, I'm definitely addicted now. After watching the guy do soldering and stuff on my tele, I just dissasembled and unsoldered my squier. I want to try winding my own pickups for it.

-John

Cool mod dude!! My Tele starting looking pretty much same as your (burst is very slightly different, other than that, identical) and if you look in the rig room thread you can see how it looks now with a pearloid pickguard and Duncan Designed bucker.

A good bucker in the neck of a Tele just does WONDERS for it's tone, P-90s/Phat Cats too! I think they also look nicer than the chrome covered single coil (unless it's a black/chrome Tele or the J5 bigsby, which would be great were it not for the Hot Rails, too hot, and it's neck pup sounds weak in comparison).

Welcome to the club!! Rock it well:beerchug::headbang:

 

[Johnny Nightslayer]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

Pete Galati: It is only off by a little...I'll put a pic up later. I bought this pickguard from GFS, on ebay. I don't hear too much volume difference, except if I switch the selector back to the bridge it is much quieter. Although I'm still working getting intonation, string height, neck adjustments, and pickup height all finely tuned.

I'm also making a cow bone nut to replace the plastic one. I never really thought how much the nut affects tone. I've been learning from a Luthier. I guess most 'expensive' guitars come with them, but most that are under $700 do not. For example my mom's '73 Gibson J-50 acoustic has one.

F_P: Thanks! I put a lot of thought into this mod...I'm glad it worked. Its got a really nice warm singing tone to it. I plan on switching the bridge pickup out for a Harmonic Design Super 90. It supposedly makes it sound like a P-90. I've heard it can give a Les Paul a run for its money. I'm also switching out the 3-way switch for a 4-way switch. I'll have to decide what to do with the pots too. Over the summer I'm planning to build a custom neck for it - with the help of my Luthier friend. I have small hands so neck access is kinda limited for me on a Tele. I may just build an entirely new guitar instead of a new neck though.

 

[butnut]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

The neck pup should line up. I cut both my cavity and pickguard with a spiral saw, much safer than a router. If anything, my JB (bridge) is not Fender spaced so it slightly misses the poles, but Seymour made it work for Jeff...the JB kicks azz...my Tele-Gib is for sale BTW...good luck and have fun with your hot rod.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

sometimes it pays to cut a blank pickguard where you want the PU's to be.... I've noticed a few Pickguards are not always cut where i want the PU slots to be... i'm ordering some blank Fender guards from Warmoth so i can cut the PU's where i want them to line up

 

[Farkus]

Re: Telecaster mod with neck humbucker

I bought a Seymour Mini Hum from Guitar Heaven as they had some in stock at a discount (going out of business). It's going in my Tele as soon as I get the body work done.