James B (I'll add the B, so you know I'm not just talking about myself in the third person here!!) kindly approached me about taking on a little mod project he had in mind for his already lovely Fender 'American Original' 60s thinline Telecaster. He had tried a Custom Shop Tele, which had really stuck in his mind tone and feel wise, and wanted to try and capture some of that guitars vibe into his Thinline. So the plan was to carry out some light relic work, replace the pickups with a set closer to the specs of that notable custom shop, replace the wiring to match up, change the pickguard and give some brass bridge saddles a try too. A nice mix of cosmetic and sonic mods I reckon, so was certainly up for being part of that.
The pickup set was the initial conversation piece, the custom shop Tele had one of the ever popular 'Twisted Tele' neck pickups and in the bridge, a Custom Shop specific design which I don't believe they've ever offered outside of a build, the 'OBG', or Original Black Guard. We both did some research and from what we could learn about this design, it is a fairly 'hot' alnico V based, flat pole, enamel wire wound take on the Broadcaster style bridge pickup. I suggested we speak to Tim McNelly at McNelly Pickups to make us a set that suits this. McNelly already make a Strat inspired Tele neck pickup, with the 'Duckling' so that was an easy one. But after a chat with Tim, discussing the OBG specs, he kindly offered to make us one to complete the set, with a light relic to match the new look we're going for with the guitar.
I, rather stupidly, forgot to capture a photo of how the thinline looked before we got started, so he's one James B sent in the early email conversations. The American Original range offered pretty traditional specs overall, nitro finish throughout, true to spec bridge etc etc. First up was stripping the guitar down, and prepping for the light relic work.
Me and James B had quite a chats via email trying to pin down the level of relic, then a really productive final chat in person when dropping the guitar off. Going through lots of photos of original examples, other vintage tele models and even non-teles too like some photos I had taken of a vintage Hofner, to some custom shop fender examples too. Looking at various elements of a guitar, areas that would actually suit the wear from James' playing style, where it rests the guitar when playing etc. Rather than just going at it, this really did help me in attempting to capture the look. It was somewhat of a daunting task ahead of me, carrying out relic work on a particularly nice, good condition production USA Fender. So I wanted to make sure we were on as close to the same page as possible going into the job.
With me references in mind, it was time to get stuck in. The goal was some deeper wear in the right arm rest area, but nothing crazy or broad across the guitars top, moreso focused on the edges. The lower, underside edges, some lacquer checking throughout, and the odd natural ding and wear mark here and there to capture a nice overall look. Neck wise, that nice Custom Shop Tele that inspire this whole project, featured the classic fully worn back of the neck and rolled edge feel, so although the rest of the guitar was fairly light in the relic approach, the back of the neck was due to go right back to the wood. As the neck did have a particularly vibrant vintage tint in the lacquer, this would have meant a pretty big tan line! So I suggested staining the 'worn' area of the back of the neck to make it look played in, and more akin to the custom shop approach in that regard.
During the process I sent photos over to James B, to ensure I didn't go too far with the relic work, and kept it within the boundaries of where we wanted to take it all. Here's some pics from that initial relic process -
Above, this was the first progress photo from the neck processes. Working across the rear of the neck, here I wanted to check with James B as to how far across the neck we wanted to go. More focussed in his most common playing area, or pushed a little further, which was ultimately the direction we went. Which lead me to this stage
See what I mean about a tan line? We could have gone the route of finding a good match for the amber tint, and staining it to suit, but I think based on the body receiving relic work, going the worn in look was the right direction for the neck too.
And here's the neck after working in a varied mix of light stains, building it up until it capture a nice worn in look. It was then finished in Monty's Instrument Food, which means it feels unreal in the hands to play.
The neck then overall received some light relic work, little dinks here and there in the common/natural places, a light roll of the fingerboard edges, some subtle worn in areas on the fingerboard itself, and some light bit of relic work to the tuner buttons etc too.
I must say, the neck was a joy to 'relic'. The lacquer was very thinly applied, reacted to the checking process just as I hoped it would, and the maple along with edges of the chipped nitro reacted really nicely to the varying degrees of staining I applied to make those dinks and exposed bits of maple, look natural and not fresh!
Here's some quick phone photos that I took of the fingerboard work during the overall relic process too. As I don't think the nice Canon DSLR quite picked up on that as well as the basic phone camera did.
Pretty subtle to the fingerboard though, as that was our goal for that. I always wanted to try and capture the look of those late 60s Thinlines. When I was looking at photos of the vintage examples, the fingerboards generally were in good condition, whereas the headstocks would age in a very different way. This was due to the mixture of finishing styles they used at that time, so I wanted to have some cool checking across the headstock but none across the fingerboard other than some fingertip, nail, and edge wear marks.
The bodies lacquer was much, much harder to work with. These were marketed as having a particularly thin nitro finish, designed to natural age with the player a little quicker than the standard approach finish. However, I felt this was a pretty thick and pretty darned hard finish to work with. But managed to get it in the direction we had hoped for in the end. Above is one of the early stages of the arm wear area.
These were the kinds of photos I shared with James B during the early relic stages, to ensure I wasn't taking things too far. Just little, natural nicks and dinks here and there. Body edges, the odd dink across the body, worn heel area, arm rest area etc. Once we were happy with that, I began working on the lacquer checking process, and working in some stains to enhance the dinks and areas of checking that perhaps would look more worn in than other areas of the guitar.
I also, of course, needed to get the brand new pickguard looking a little older and played in, along with a little light wear to the bridge plate. I opted to leave the new Gotoh In-Tune brass saddles as they were, as those generally naturally age pretty quickly through use.
Above is the new custom made 'OBG' inspired McNelly bridge pickup. We also opted for the cool 'open' style cover on the Duckling, which pairs great with the new black pickguard.
I unfortunately didn't capture any photos of the wiring going in, but that was the traditional CRL 3 way, CTS 450G 250k pots, Pure Tone multi contact jack and a SoZo mustard cap. I did pop a solderless connector block on the harness for the tone cap, to allow James B the chance to swap cap values to help with the tone venture, but I believe we went with the 0.022uF spec first which went well and certainly suited the pickups. BIG love for those pickups though, I am tempted to ask Tim to put together a run of this pickup design for me.
This was a really fun project to be a part of, very kind of James B to ask me to be the man to take it on and help capture his vision for the guitar. I really hope that is the case anyway (his feedback and Trustpilot review reflected that, but I'm the eternal worryer lol). I, somewhat selfishly, loved how it came together though and really dig the new look for the guitar. Huge transformation from the original look for the guitar. Lots of character, and tone to back it up too.
James