Repair Or Rebuild?

[Aakoo]

Hello..

Few years ago I bought Telecaster that had Fender tele neck on it. I somehow liked the feeling of the instrument, but now after years i decided to give it a new life.

I suppose that the neck is from '78 ( found matching serials series somewhere in the net ). It is in quite good shape although i guess some of the previous owners have changed the tuners on it. Now the neck has fender tuners, but I am not very sure if they are the original ( propably not ).

Some pics of the neck here:

Tuners back, Headstock Front, Neck

The pproblem is the body of the guitar.. Previous owner has decided to change picups on this instrument. The neck pickup was a Jackson J-90 and bridge pick-up was dimarzio dp-103. Because of the pick-up changes the pup cavities for them were done bigger and the tailpeach had been changed..

Here is a picture of the body without any hardware on it:

Now I'd like to make this guitar better. I want to get rid of thos humbuckers. This leads to situation, that the pickup cavities are far too big. I could propably route the cavities even bigger and symmetric and then fill the holes with proper wood. After that I could again route the pickup holes matching the pickups and other hw i decide to buy. Ofcourse the body will be fully sanded and repainted later.

Or my second option would be to get rid of the body and rebuild a new one. Matching to the neck I have.

What do you think?

- ARi

[edit]: I just need to add that the body is not original. on the neck pocket I can find text TELE and year 1992.. And that is about all the text i can find on the body

[ToneMonkey]

First off, let me say that I am no way sure about this so wait for one of the experts to either confirm or just blow this out of the water.

Do the size of the pup cavities actually matter (well ignoring the more wood the better rule)? Thinking about it, I would say that as it has a pickguard, this will cover the holes. I also figure that on a tele (never having played one I dont know) the pup adjustment screws go through to pick guard only (i.e. not attached to the body wood).

I wouldn't get rid of the bosy, at the end of the day, if it's really bad you could Bocaster it like idch did

[Daniel Sorbera]

I would just build a new body that goes with the neck you have.

[marksound]

I'm by no means an expert but I have made do with a used body or two.

I'd check to see if the pickguard and original Tele bridge will cover the hogged out holes. If they will, great. If not, you can plug them and rerout.

Then check the bridge mounting holes. If they're "wallered out" (Okie lingo), you can dowel them and redrill. That's pretty easy.

The amount of wood missing probably won't make that much audible difference in the amplified tone. Unless you're Eric Johnson or Allan Holdsworth or something. Then all bets are off.

[Maiden69]

I can't tell the shape of the rest of the body, but there is no reason for not repairing it. The size of the humbucker pockets don't matter much, there are 2 things you can do, (but I will suggest this if the neck pocket is in nice shape and the neck fits nice and there is no play at all) and they are,

1. Get a nice straight edge and mark the lines of the edge on the routs and make them nice and straight, once this is done, check to see if a stock tele pickguard will cover them and thats it, repaint and you are done, If it doesn't cover them you can always make a new one, this is so easy it's not a joke.

2. this is a bit more elaborate. Buy a figured maple or whatever wood rocks your boat for the top. I suggest at least 1/4" thick. thne take that body to a wood shop and ask if they can plane it for you 1/4". Once this is done, just glue the top, using a router bit that hava a 3/8" roundover with a bearing at the end, redo the edge and with a straight laminate bit, redo the neck pocket, now, the pup and bridge optios are up to what ever you want and if you want to change it to rear rout, it's a piece of cake.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do!