Happy New Guitar Day—Telecaster Custom!

[Fiesta Red]

My (new-to-me) Telecaster Custom had been in its gig bag for a couple of weeks since last rehearsal (I usually have my pinstriped Big Tex Tele out for easy access)…it had been played hard and then shoved in a gig bag and then transported home and then stacked in the corner next to my amps.

But Friday night I decided to grab it for some couch noodling…right out of the bag, the tuning as dead-on as it was during the last time I’d played it, two weeks previous. I checked it with the headstock tuner, and it was still in perfect 440.

So I feel I made a good investment on both of my 70’s reissues. I could grab either and head out the door without worrying if something was going to flake out.

 

[Fiesta Red]

Congrats!

Also:

That was a reflection of light, not scratches…but I’m a big believer in “Sharpie Polishing”.

Like the line in the Joe Ely song:

“Brushin’ off the glitter from a second-hand suit,
Lookin’ for a marks-a-lot to polish my boots,
That’s the life I live in a rock-n-roll band,
Drivin’ to the poor house just as fast as I can!”

 

[Brian Krashpad]

That was a reflection of light, not scratches…but I’m a big believer in “Sharpie Polishing”.

Like the line in the Joe Ely song:

“Brushin’ off the glitter from a second-hand suit,
Lookin’ for a marks-a-lot to polish my boots,
That’s the life I live in a rock-n-roll band,
Drivin’ to the poor house just as fast as I can!”

I saw Joe Ely open for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, back in the day. In Gainesville!

 

[GrooVey]

Heck ya! Looks great.

 

[Fiesta Red]

I found the old guitar tech who I used back in the late 80’s and early 90’s…he’d done some great work for me back then, and always treated us “nobodies” as if we were as important as the local celebrities and guitar heroes. The shop he worked at closed right about the time I had to divest myself of many of my instruments (“The Great Guitar and Amp Collection Mortgage Payment Massacre of the Mid-Late 90’s”), so I lost track of him.

I got a badly-needed fret dress/level and setup done on “Bevo”, the 2007 hecho-en-Ensenada Fender Telecaster Deluxe last week.

Observations:

1. Don’t always believe the first tech/luthier who says, “This won’t work,” or “You have to do this…”
I had taken Bevo to a different luthier who’d done some great work for me in the past, and he said there wasn’t enough “meat” left on the 18-year-old fretwire to allow a dress/level, and wanted me to do a full refret—at $300 for nickel frets and $450 for stainless!
The guy was obviously wrong, because the finished result is excellent, and it works, even with some extreme bends on my part.

2. A good guitar tech is worth his weight in gold.

3. He commented on the replacement Kluson tuners…he noted the smooth operation and great tuning stability—especially compared to the original tuners on the other reissues of this series he’d worked on in the past.

3a. Confirming what he said further; much like when I took “Keef” (the 2006 Fender Telecaster Custom) home from a rehearsal in a gig bag, then placed in the corner of my Lair…with the new Klusons, it was still in tune when I pulled it out of the gig bag several days later…

I had similar results after taking Bevo home from his shop (in a gig bag, too). Even with brand-new and not completely stretched strings (as well as sitting in 90F outside temperature when I stopped at the store—which means it was even hotter inside the truck), the tuning was dang-near perfect when I got home, pulled it out and started playing…

I’m really happy with these new tuners.

4. I forgot how great a neck feels after a proper fret dress, level and setup…nice and slick! When I picked up Bevo, I left Big Tex (the pinstriped Tele Special in my avatar photo) to have a similar treatment done. I can’t wait to get it back!