One of my oldest guitars is the “FrankenTele” – a much maligned and abused Telecaster. The guitar started out as one of the original Japanese Squier Telecasters from the early-mid-1980s. It was a standard Tele: two pickups, an alder body, a maple neck and fingerboard, a black finish, and a white pickguard.
Over the years it evolved substantially into what you now see here. The original evolution went something like this:
- Replaced the bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan Broadcaster.
- Replaced the original 3-piece bridge with a 6-piece unit that allowed for much better intonation.
- Took out the neck pickup. Installed neck and middle pickups from a 1980s Strat by routing a cutout in the body, cutting an extra hole in the original pickguard, and enlarging the original neck pickup hole in the body and the pickguard.
- Added the little toggle switch between the volume and tone controls to turn the middle pickup on and off.
Though I hated the neck, I played the guitar in that configuration for hundreds of gigs with country and wedding bands. But my Tele languished for several years after that – like I said, I never “bonded” with the neck.
But recently, I decided to resurrect the guitar and make it into the Tele I always wanted. This time, the evolution went something like this:
- Traded an old pedalboard (without pedals!) for a maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard that came off of an early 2000s ’62-reissue Fender Telecaster.
- Replaced stock nut with bone nut.
- Refretted with Dunlop 6100 frets for real string-bending meat.
- Replaced bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan Jerry Donahue pickup for a fuller, warmer sound.
- Replaced neck and middle Strat pickups with two Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro Tele neck pickups; this required a new custom pickguard. To change the look, I went with a black/white/black pickguard instead of the original single-ply white.
- Added a 4-way pickup selector switch (bridge pickup alone, bridge and neck pickups in parallel, neck pickup alone, bridge and neck pickups in series). The little toggle switch still serves the same function: it turns the middle pickup on and off.
The result? A different guitar! I love playing it, and it’s capable of a tremendous range of sounds, including a true Tele neck pickup tone, which I couldn’t get when the Strat pickups were installed. In particular, the combination of the bridge and middle pickups creates a stunning Strat-like “quack” that I love.
But I found myself wondering what the FrankenTele might sound like with a vintage-style 3-piece bridge. Fortunately, several aftermarket manufacturers are making such bridges, including some that are designed to improve the intonation over an old-style Tele bridge. The one I chose had brass bridge pieces, versus the steel saddles that were on my 6-piece bridge.
Changing the bridge on a Telecaster is an easy operation, requiring just a screwdriver. There’s no need to solder or disconnect the pickup. Let’s take a look at the process.
POSTSCRIPT: As it turned out, I wasn’t happy with the tone of the guitar with the new bridge in place. For whatever reason, on this particular guitar, with this bridge, the tone became thin and shrill. After a period of testing and comparison to other Telecasters, I ended up reinstalling the old bridge again – and I’m very happy with it. It may not be “vintage-approved,” but the tone works for me. It just goes to show that you never know how a change to a guitar is going to work out. The instrument is the sum of its parts, which all interact to create the overall sound and feel. What matters is what works best for the sound you want!