I picked this guitar up about four months ago for an absolute steal, I won’t tell you how much I paid but I will say it was cheap. It’s a 1999 American made Fender Telecaster.
Which gave me a reason to think that there must have been something wrong with it.
I must admit when I bought this guitar the action was really high, so I tried adjusting it myself, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get the truss rod to work, so I took it down to the local guitar tech, he had a look and after a couple of turns on the truss rod nut said the rod had been broken, because the neck wasn’t adjusting.
So cut a long story short, I got a couple of quotes on replacing the truss and ended up taking the guitar to a mate to do the repair, we ended up swapping some stuff and it ended up being a win win situation for all involved.
But the interesting thing about the entire exercise was after the skunk stripe had been removed and the rod taken out it was evident that there was nothing at all wrong with the truss, so for whatever reason, the pressure felt on the nut when trying to adjust it before the repair, obviously wasn’t from the truss.
Anyways, The guitar is pretty beat up, but I love it, the replaced skunk strip also seems to add to it’s character. Which is why I am going to keep it, unless I get offered some stupid amount of money for it.
Which leads me to the purpose of why I am really writing this review.
The other week we had the Fender roadshow come through, and myself and one of my mates thought we would go and have a look. The show was a bit of a pitch fest I must admit, but the guys put on a great show with Greg Koch leading the band, man that dude can play…
but what really got my ears pricked up was a brand spanking new black top Tele, those humbuckers simply sounded like nothing else, they were incredible. There and then I decided to install a Humbucker in the neck position of my Tele, I mean why not right, it’s beat up enough to warrant the mods, it’s not like I am going to get paid a motsa for it the way it is…
So after a couple of days of dreaming what my Tele would be like with a nice crunchy HB in the neck, I took the plunge and purchased a complete Blacktop setup from the Stratosphere on ebay. Loaded pick guard, two humbuckers, tone and volume controls, switch, wiring blah, blah, etc, etc…. you get the idea.
The result? Check it out…