Stratocaster vs. Telecaster

you need a metal detector
geddit?

One of the best threads on Offset Guitars details the "un-Voxing" of a 1961 Jazzmaster.
https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=111273

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, April 21, 2021 5:20 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is absolutely amazing. i'm so impressed at people who can do stuff like this.

well, it's been an emotional roller coaster! found my dream guitar upthread...bought it

right away get a message from the seller, hey thanks i'll ship it asap, all cool
next day he's like UPS location closed early, couldn't get it all the packing stuff and get it out, okay cool no worries

weekend goes by...no word...write on monday, write hey just wondering if it's going out today, just let me know

he writes back:
Hi there, I want to greatly apologize for this inconvenience, but I won’t be able to ship this out anymore. It’s my first time dealing with this situation, and to proceed I am initiating a full refund here through reverb. Again, I apologize for this whole situation.

so I write back, i'm a little confused here, anything can be shipped. do you want $75 for shipping instead of $50 (this is chicago to minneapolis so i think that's more than generous), never writes back...i get a refund to my account, write again hey if we can work something out let me know...never hear back

today though I went to Music Go Round to check out this Godin guitar. I'm a huge fan of their guitars especially the Seagull acoustics. Quality wise they are really amazing for the money. Only problem, usually their designs are a little "off" and dorky looking, but this new model looks pretty cool (looks better in IRL than in photos)

https://godinguitars.com/product/radium-winchester-brown-rn

not as cool as the tele, but honestly this thing just feels and sounds so good. it's weird, tele shape but it has a belly cut like a strat...neck is actually shorter, like a gibson sg neck kinda?

HSH pickups, tele style switch but 5-way...coil tap for the humbuckers so it can basically be a strat or super strat

the woodgrain looks really nice IRL, the shape is decent, not quite tele but close enough. the whole guitar just feels exceptionally high quality, got a good price on it. for a (mostly) home recording guitar it's got about as much flexibility as you'd want.

i think it might look good with a bigsby down the road

that's nice looking, especially as godins go. are you thinking about doing a filtertron in one of the HB slots?

yeah I think so, the humbuckers do sound good though

the fit/finish is pretty incredible for a $750

I think a Bigsby will make it look better

bummer about the offerup fiasco. wonder if he got a better offer after the fact and bailed.

yeah sounds like. randos are gonna flake whether it's on reverb or anywhere else.

just noticed that the godin has that kind of open routing around the pickups. nice utilitarian vibe.

shout out to joanie - they had a really great catalog beyond sex packets

lol oops but yeah I like the routing

lol

not personally feeling the Guthrie Govan x tele x stoptail vibe BUT I def know the feeling when an oddball gets its hooks in.

if it plays good it is good!

Lol at “pro reliced”

https://reverb.com/item/40275573-fender-2021-mim-limited-custom-color-capri-orange-standard-player-pro-reliced-upgraded-62reissue-usa?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=40275573

OMG

Is the professional doing the relicing like an accountant or something?

that is someone who started to take off the inch thick polyester finish to repaint it and then realized how much work was going to be involved

When the stage blowtorch bit goes wrong

what on earth are these people doing to these guitars
https://reverb.com/item/40331699-charvel-custom-chop-shop-heavy-relic-pro-mod-dk24-hh-2pt-stained-maple-neck-with-tweed-hard-case

THOSE GUITARS SUCK A LOT

AND I AM ANGRY ABOUT IT

comedy gold

In my head I can see the """luthier""" going to town with a chisel and hammer while the Meat Loaf song about killing a boy with a Stratocaster plays.

that guitar looks like it has some kind of tree disease

Reliced guitars are the stupidest trend ever.

I don't really get the appeal of the Esquire, I don't understand why you'd want one over a Telecaster, you're just giving yourself less options and not gaining anything (and I mean it's not like the Telecaster is some overly complex guitar to begin with)

https://guitar.com/news/gear-news/squier-esquire/?amp

I'd be kind of shocked if those weren't routed for a neck pickup anyway rather than setting up some sort of new cnc machine to NOT cut them

the Brad Paisley Equire even goes so far to hide his special "Secret Agent" neck pickup underneath the pickguard! like what are we doing this for?

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/telecaster/brad-paisley-esquire/0140322398.html

wow that one is extremely silly.

and yeah, as for the esquire in general it's funny to treat it as some sort of classic model and not what it was which was a budget option based on 1950s cost factors where the extra $20 or whatever for a second pickup actually mattered.

i'm sure it's cool if you find an actually old one

being the guy who relics guitars seems like a fun job, just flinging acid and whipping belt buckles at ugly guitars all day

Technically an Esquire should have wiring that you can't replicate with a Telecaster but I don't know how modern ones are wired.

I use the bridge pickup 99% of the time, I would like an Esquire.

The secret pickup on the Paisley doesn't seem any sillier than any of the million other aesthetic concerns that govern guitar purchases - "looking cool" (whether that means pointy metal guitars or looking like a 1952 Bakersfield guitar to you) is why Fender is worth half a billion dollars.

Reliced guitars are the stupidest trend ever.

― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Thursday, April 29, 2021 6:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

natural wear with strange mods will never not be cool tho

Been enjoying this thread. I like Telecaster and Strat equally now but didn’t like like Strats for a long time as they seemed like guitars for high schoolers.

Question for all you guitar nerds regarding reliced guitars: you see like Bruce Springsteen or whoever playing this super beat up looking guitar that looks cool from all the use and abuse over the years. Man! He’s really been playing the shit outta that guitar!! So cool that people want to buy new guitars that look distressed.

I have a guitar, an American Tele, that my band bought new about 20 years ago. That band was drunk and irreverent and very hard on our equipment, and toured quite a bit with that guitar. The band broke up and I ended up with the guitar and formed another band that toured hard for years with that guitar. That was the only guitar I played for twenty years and hundreds upon hundreds of shows. Dropping it. Throwing it in air to band members on stage. Throwing into the crowd. Seeing luggage handlers throwing it (in its case and breaking multiple cases) across the tarmac from the plane.
This guitar does not look distressed or worn out AT ALL. It has nicks all over it but that’s about it.

I also have a 70’s Musicmaster bass that someone found in a barn behind an abandoned house and that one has been on several tours and it doesn’t look beat up either.

I am inclined to think all beat up guitars are frauds and these people are taking sand paper to try to make them look road worn.

Thoughts?

poly finishes don't wear like nitro

It's a Telecaster, their durability is both myth and some time joke meme in some musician circles.

The same as the idea you can break a Gibson head stock by looking at it too hard.

I don't know, from belt buckle rash to worn necks, I can't imagine playing any guitar so much that I literally leave my mark on it. Someone like Springsteen ... maybe. For sure his famous (more or less) Esquire, which he bought used and used a lot, saw its share of abuse, and had its share of repairs; I saw a show once where a sliver of the body literally flew off mid-song, much to Bruce's amusement. Anyway, they were constantly gluing it, fixing it, doing stuff to it, but I know he also not too long ago finally had to retire it, because it was falling apart. On the other hand, there are so many famous, iconic guitars, and very few of them afaict look totally beat to shit. Like, Joe Strummer's did, Stevie Ray Vaughan's did. But Neil Young's, Paul McCartney's, tons of guitars played by Mike Campbell, all sorts of old guitars played by folks might be beat up but not on the verge of death. Some folks probably play relics or replacements (Springsteen, for example, is not some vintage guitar purist), but I bet most acts just have their techs take good care of them.

Willie Nelson has entered the chat

agree with SA, I have an early 90s MIM Fender jazz that's been through hundreds of shows and doesn't really look that beat if up except for some nicks here and there

also I generally wear a belt and I really don't understand what kind of Blackie Lawless saw codpieces must be involved in creating the "buckle rash" on some of these relics

Bench plane belt buckles

poly finishes don't wear like nitro

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Saturday, May 1, 2021 10:44 PM

This is honestly a considerable part of the reason. Once those nitro finishes begin cracking, playing them nightly is gonna start wearing them the fuck out.

I see the appeal of wanting to buy something that's been (tastefully) relic'ed. Whenever I have a brand new guitar, I treat it gingerly, which keeps it looking new, which keeps me treating it gingerly. If I bought something that's already worn in, I'd feel better cutting loose on it. But I've never been in a touring band, just one that played shows around my college town for a few years. If you're traveling and playing a certain guitar every night, it's gonna show wear eventually. But if it's a more recent one with a poly finish, it will wear differently and less.

YMMV but I cannot imagine relying on just one guitar night after night. The idea of going to a gig without a backup instrument gives me hives.

When drumming, I have a second snare, and at least two hi-hat clutches.

I have pretty much never needed them, but that's kinda not the point.

My the neck of my mim Telecaster that I bought new in 1998 has noticeable wear through the finish in the “cowboy chords” area which is kind of surprising because there were long stretches where I didn’t play it at all and I’ve never played guitar in a band.

The body on the other hand is finished with some sort of adamantium/vibranium alloy.

an early 90s MIM Fender jazz that's been through hundreds of shows

jazz bass

(that was always my main instrument)

My 3-year old nitro Jazzmaster has quite a bit of checking on the back and arm area, but it’s all in the color coat and hasn’t broken through to the top finish layer.

Yeah, and I have 45-50 year old poly finished Japanese Tele and Strat clones where the finish has yellowed, but there's essentially zero wear apart from chips and breaks in the finish on edges. But just the other day I saw this 80s Japanese Tele, a low end model so the finish would definitely be poly:
https://i.imgur.com/ItamoMs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ztv28jf.jpg

Thin is thin, as I understand it - thin poly will sink into wood and wear like that, maybe more likely on a cheap guitar back then.

The Fender finish these days is polyester and comes out thick whether it's a cheap Squier or an expensive American Fender.

That's a pretty guitar