Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

As some of you know, I have a Telecaster with "character".

A quick recap on it's history. A close friend bought it at a guitar show about 3 years ago. He paid very little for it. It is a standard Mexican Tele with nothing exceptional about it except it has been in a fire. The story goes that firemen were called to a house fire and whilst they were clearing the house he saw the guitar on fire, still on its stand. He threw it outside but he liked guitars, and in the aftermath he made a deal with the owner and took the guitar away, cleaned it up and ended up selling it at the show where Carl bought it.

I fell in love with this guitar and after gigging it for a year, Carl relented and sold it to me.

I wanted to improve it as it had one of those flat bridge plates with the strings through the bridge plate I wanted to have the strings threading through the body and a vintage style bridge plate. I also had some better pickups wired in. The original colour of pacific blue had changed in the heat to a green, more like Sherwood green. I fetched the guitar from my luthier a couple of weeks ago and here it is, the original and the changes.

Some more pics I am very pleased with it and I played it at rehearsal last week...

.....I started to miss my Ricks about half way through rehearsal!!

Still, I love a guitar with character and my Tele is here to stay. I might not think of playing it for a whole gig or rehearsal, but I will use it to record with and play at home.

The End

I like the "Fireglo" headstock!

Incredibly cool Tele, and definitely unique. The MIM Stds are fine guitars in their own right, but as you've discovered, also make great platforms for mods.

I'm like you BTW--I know the modern bridges are probably better bridges in terms of fine-tuning, but a Tele needs a classic 3-saddle!!

If you become a famous rock star, Fender will be toasting Teles in the oven to make the official relic version. Pretty cool.

Nice Tele Sarah Glad its found a good home with you.

SWEET!

I love Tele's, heck I'm even gassing for a Nashville Tele myself....why....I have no idea, can't play guitar...but lust for one!

It looks great Sarah and I'm glad you kept that headstock with the burn marks on it...when you see those "COOL" guys with their RELIC CIGARETTE burns, you can take your Tele out and show them what a REAL BURN looks like!

Thanks everyone. I think it pretty cool too.

Burnt maple...it could become the rage!!! Who needs rosewood fingerboards when you can set your whole maple neck on fire!!

Poor thing.

NIce, Sarah. Good to see that you've retained the essential character of the Tele..... scorched!!!

I like the flamed maple neck and smoked blue metallic finish.

Nice mods. If you ever want to put a Bigsby B5, I know someone who can mod the existing bridge with those saddles and fit a B5 on it!

teb wrote:If you become a famous rock star, Fender will be toasting Teles in the oven to make the official relic version. Pretty cool.

LOL!!!!! Sarah, so much character in that instrument. Love it. Play it well!

Really cool Tele Sarah. im not a guitar player, im a bass player but like to mess around with the guitar, I absolutely love telecasters, I bought a MIM Tele back in 06 and even though not a american made Fender, these mim standards are awsume, kept mine stock, I have always loved the sound and tone of the tele, my favorite guitar in the world, next would be a Les Paul.

I think that's the first Telecaster I've even seen that I can honestly say I sorta like the way it looks!

Nice work on the Tele Sarah. My Tele is a string through the body 62 RI double bound 3TS (sunburst). I love these guitars for a whole pile of reasons. Yours has so much character, I think it is rather special looking.

Nice one there Sarah