DIY Telemaster with Bare Knuckle Pickups' "Black Guard Flat 50" Demo

[ploukusa]

Those Cornell amps sound amazing!

[MrAtrocity]

@ploukusa They are great. I've owned a couple of Cornell amps but this one is just the perfect amp for me. It also helps that Dennis Cornell is one of the nicest, most helpful people you could ever hope to deal with. A real gent.

[ploukusa]

@MrAtrocity Yep, I´ve heard good things about Mr. Cornell! BTW, have you used the Romany Plus with a band? Propably not enough headroom for clean sounds with a drummer but maybe would work as a strictly dirty amp with my 50 watt Ampeg combo handling the clean sounds...

[MrAtrocity]

@ploukusa Definitely not enough head-room for clean sounds with a band but it is a pretty loud 10 watts so unless your drummer has a John Bonham style heavy hand you'd probably be OK for rehearsals. You'd need to mic it for anything but the smallest gig though.

One thing to bear in mind is that you can switch the tone stack off which increases the gain and volume considerably but obviously overdrives a lot too. When I want to pretend to be Billy Gibbons that's the setting I use.

[czaaaaaa]

I love when guitar demos start when start me up

[MrAtrocity]

@czaaaaaa Ha! It was the first thing to enter my head.

[prospectnyc]

This is awesome

[MrAtrocity]

@prospectnyc Thanks very much!

[carthagepropaganda]

Very nice! I'll be building one myself.

Is the body shape exactly the same as a Jazzmaster?

Will an original Fender neck fit without adjustments? I think Mexican, American and Japanese Fender necks have different heel sizes anyways, so whch will fit?

Thank you

[carthagepropaganda]

Whats the heel width of the original neck?

[MrAtrocity]

@carthagepropaganda I used a Mexican Fender Strat neck and that fitted perfectly. I thought all Strat heels were the same dimensions and it was the nut width that varied but I could be wrong on that?

The Mexican neck needed a shim to angle it a little as the depth of the Fender neck at the heel was less than the Xaviere neck it replaced but that wasn't really a problem. You would need new neck bolts as the Xaviere ones are too fat to go into the Fender neck pre-drilled holes though.

[carthagepropaganda]

Fender American Neck heels are a little smaller than Mexican and American.

I think the Xavier offset body shape is not exactly the same as a Jazzmaster. The upper horn is too big. I think I will get a body from allparts and a neck from a Fender Baja Telecaster.

[MrAtrocity]

The Xaviere isn't an exact Jazzmaster match: it's a little slimmer around the bottom. For me that works better when you don't have the Jazzmaster trem to fill up that huge area of empty space. I didn't realise that Allparts did Jazzmaster bodies with Tele neck pockets. That's cool. Good luck with it.

[frisell1968]

great demo! love the guitar

[MrAtrocity]

Thanks.

[hannababalon]

cool mang....I saw a prototype of what you built in a place in chicago and I always thought it would be cool to build one...great job..any ideas on what you gonna do for th pickguard? thanks

[MrAtrocity]

Thanks. I've finished the guitar now and for the pickguard I sawed and sanded a piece of black bakelite into a sort of Esquire type shape if you see what I mean. It's almost the same as the Xaviere original but without the humbucker hole and in black bakelite.

[PantheonLincoln]

This looks pretty damn cool. Sounds great too.

What are those guitarfetish Jazzmaster copies actually like to play? They're cheap enough to be able to put in good pickups, but that's not much good if the neck sucks.

I was thinking of maybe buying one and replacing the neck mini humbucker with a normal tele pickup, or doing what you've done and making an esquire out of it.

[MrAtrocity]

The Guitar Fetish guitars are very good value for money. The one I got was bought with the express purpose of pulling it apart and building the guitar I wanted. Had I not had such specific plans I would have kept much more of the original. The neck is quite chunky and has a rosewood which is not good for me but might suit others. The frets are well finished but need a good polish. I would say that the Xaviere guitars are as good as a medium quality Squier.

[letterbekmen]

Nice!!v where did you get the body?

[MrAtrocity]

It's from Guitar Fetish who have brougt out a line of super cheap Jazzcaster influenced guitars. I bought one of those and completely stripped it. It sounds wasteful but it's actually cheaper than buying a body from USACG or Warmoth and getting it painted plus I get a who pile of spares for my parts bin!