Alignment Of The Strings Over The Pole Pieces

[antihater48]

im puting together a warmoth tele, only i have no tele pickups.
eventually i'd like to get some fender vintage noiseless pickups for it, but for the time being i'd just like to play it, as im very excited over it
my guitar teacher says he will buy me some, but i dont think he is in a much better position than me to buy them
so i would like to know if i could put my fender strat single coils into it for the time being
i realize that i will have to rout out the pickup cavities more, as well as the pickguard, unless i make one to fit them, but would strat pickups work on the telecaster?
ive heard mixed opinions since the poles would not be directly under the strings,
i have read a good amount of the comments above, but i'd like to check to be sure
can any one tell me if i can put strat pickups in my tele?
thanks, -sincerely me

[Seth Leigh]

Antihater - just say no. Wait till you get the right pickups. You just saved your money to buy the Warmoth parts to make yourself a guitar, why would you hack it up like that? Seriously, save your pennies and buy the right pickups when you can. Patience, grasshoppa.

[David Schwab]

My "Tele" with Strat pickups.. and no poles. (old Bill Lawrence pickups)



I'd also say wait for the pickups you want.

[antihater48]

i didnt really spend that much cash though...

i didnt really spend much, im not saying its cheap or cheaply done, nor that the money didnt matter, but im ready to have it done and playable,
putting the strat pickups in it wont ruin it at all, since the bridge and pickguard will cover up the extra space...

my main question was whether or not strat pickups would work with tele spacing....

thank you for your conver for my tele's well being, im pretty dertermined as well as stubborn.

i would like to know how you attached your strat pickup to the tele bridge...
was thinking about attaching a tele pickup-shaped piece of plywood to the bottom of the pickup so i could attach screws to it

would that work?

honestly im quite impatient, so ill probably do something uncommon either way, im just trying to make it the best i can...

by the way david, did you make your tele and if not, who made it?
im not familiar with the body shape...

thanks,
-sincerely me

[David Schwab]

It's a Tele bridge pickup, but the other two are Strat sized L-250's. Actually the bridge pickup was Strat sized, with a tele mounting setup. I have snce replaced the bridge pickup.

I made the guitar.

[antihater48]

ha! youre a luthier!!

i just noticed to look at your links....
how long have you been building bass guitars and guitars?
have you ever tryed anything else?
how did you get started in the business?
did you have any special education?
would any have helped?

im sorry for the twenty questions but i love the idea.
i built myself a les paul jr with dual humbuckers, but wasnt too good with the wiring, so i just took a break from it, as i want to go back and make the neck a v-neck since its the size of a classical....

i just recently turned eighteen, and have been thinking about wanting to build instruments for a living for quite some time....

sorry to get so excited...

just the dream that i dont think ill ever achieve but ill try anyway...that sorta thing...

sorry to be so obnoxious,

bout the tele, would it work to take off an eighth of an inch of each end of the pickup, making sure i dont hit anywire (which should be easy, since i wouldnt go anywhere near any) then attach a piece of wood or plastic to the bottom, would i be able to attach it to the tele bridge?
because the pickup fits perfectly in the stewmac bridge, just doesnt attach

the only other idea i had was to just screw the pickup directly into to the body, with springs between the single coils and body, the problem is, since I'd need to take the bridge off to adjust the height, but need the bridge there to know how high it needed to be.... well, it'd be hellish....

i should stop taking up space

-sincerely me

[antihater48]

oh and david...

sorry to barage you,
i realize this is a forum, but if im being annoying, youll tell me right?
i was looking at your SGD Luthier site, looking at he parts and accessories, and although you haved either updated or finished that part of the site, you mention how hipshot products are coming soon
is hipshot just a brand?
the only think hipshot i know of is a bridge that allows you to change your tuning down half or a full step by flicking a switch on the bridge, of course, you need to set it up first, but do you know of what I'm speaking?
do you have any opinions on it?
i've always been interested in it, but im always told my mentors not to even think about it, since it's a bigger bridge, it will take away tone (and sustain if i remember right...) which doesnt seem to make sense to me, since strat bridges take out a lot more wood than a tele or les paul,
it doesnt really make sense to me....
anyone have any opinions?

here is what I'm refering to.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,...g_Bridges.html

[David Schwab]

Yes, Hipshot makes that Tele detuner thing, but they also make guitar and bass tuners, bridges, knobs and other cool stuff.

http://www.hipshotproducts.com/

I use their aluminum bridge and untralite tuners on my basses now. Really high quality parts.

They also make a detuning machine head.

To answer the other questions... I've been building and repairing instruments since about 1974. I started playing guitar and bass around 1969, and started taking them apart and messing with the wiring and stuff shortly after that.

I got into building seriously in the mid 80's when I started working for American Showster Guitars, and then about 1993 I started SGD with a friend that also worked at American Showster.

We made these guitars:

http://www.robbincrosby.net/guitargallery/showster.htm

I personally made that one.

You could remount a Strat pickup onto something to accept the three screws from a Tele bridge. But Tele bridge pickups are a little wider.

I used the Bill Lawrence pickups because I had the two L-250s already. I picked up the bridge pickup when they sold them at Stew-Mac, but they were the newer pickups not made by Bill, and it didn't sound as good as the other two. it was thinner sounding and had less output (and lower DC resistance). It was also microphonic.

I'd just wait until you can get a Tele bridge pickup. There are a lot of inexpensive pickups out there that aren't bad, like Guitar Fetish.

I just picked up a dual rail Tele bridge pickup for like $19 new. If I don't like it I'll rewind it. It was worth it just for the parts!

Lots of cheap pickups here:

http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/pickups_other.htm

They have a $17 Tele bridge pickup.

[Stan H]

Lots of cheap pickups here:

http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/pickups_other.htm

They have a $17 Tele bridge pickup.

OMG....how do they do that?

[David Schwab]

OMG....how do they do that?

Cheap Asian made pickups. Look at Guitar Fetish. Probably the same parts (I think theirs are Artec?).

Now think about how cheap they get them at wholesale!

[Faux Hog]

Antihater

Mounting the bridge pickup directly to the body will work fine but you will be lossing some of the tele character. Part of that sound comes from the pickup directly connecting with the bridge plate and the sadles and ultimately the strings. That's why the strat pickups with the steel plates don't quit get the sound right. Not that it wont be cool. A friend just brought over a dano with a tele bridge mounted directly to the body and its got a really cool Lo-fi sound to it.
The GE Smith signature tele also has the bridge pick up mounted directly to the body. They basicly lopped of the plate just in front of the sadles to allow for mounting and adjustment. This effectively makes the GE smith more like the hawiaan guitars the tele was originally incarnated from. And the wheel goes round.
Your making it. It's your guitar. Make it yours.
If you directly mount a pickup and don't like it the bridge will cover it up.
Also, you're willing to widdle down a pickup, why not wind your own? You got the perfect resource right here. Nothing says a tele has to have certain tuners or pickups or anything. Go nuts, learn from your mistakes.

[antihater48]

wind my own pickup?

that sounds really cool. Is it particularly hard to do?
Was liking the idea of using the double bladed tele pickup from that site. Maybe i'm cheap, need to get a job, or I just notice tone as much as some people might (I have really bad ears...)
So maybe getting the double bladed tele humbucker, than using it fender stray for the neck position. I'm mostly worried if it wounds really bad I wouldn't know how to rewind it well, much less at all, that and that the output difference would be too great... Is that an issue? Or could I just lower the bridge pickup until they are equip volumes?
Sorry if my spelling or punctuation is eapecially attrocious, I'm responding from my girlfriends iPod...
Oh.and about mounting it to the body: I didn't know I'd lose some tele sound... Although I don't want that, my main worry was really being able to adjust the height well,put the bridge on to test it, take omit off to adjust, I don't know how many times i'd care to repeat that- that's my reasoning, even if it's not too solid...

[Faux Hog]

"You don't need a wheather man to know which way the wind blows..."
Bob Dylan.

Trial and error. You may actually enjoy the process of finding the tone you like more then you think. Winding a rudamentary pickup is not very difficult.
There are plenty of resources on the web to help you out. But, don't fool yourself into think winding your own is the cheep route, it ain't. Just like parting togeather a tele from the web is not that cheap (Compared to a mim tele for instance) But the level of satisfaction and accomplishment is certainly greater. You want to make guitars for a living...you have to start somewhere. Good luck.

[antihater48]

forgot something last night...

by the way, has anyone tried the cheap ass pickups yet?
david, will you let me know what you think of the one that you just bought?

[David Schwab]

by the way, has anyone tried the cheap ass pickups yet?
david, will you let me know what you think of the one that you just bought?

I haven't tried any of the GFS pickups, but people seem to like them.

These are probably on par with the pickups found in many Japanese guitars, and even some Fenders.

I'll report back after my pickup arrives and I have a chance to install it.