F# bari semi Tele omg!

[anne]

Been playing this 25.5" vintage config axe in F# for over a year now. It's bell-like, twangy, chunky, whatever I need, but playwise, it's been tolerable at best. Now it's definitely time to do it right: F# C# A D# F# B at 28.625". Being a '69 reissue, it's got all kinds of inscrutable vintage specs.

Just got the Warmoth baritone conversion neck last night!

Replacing the one-piece maple 21-fret neck with 24 frets of maple and ebony.

I think I'll put the turtle sticker on the headstock. Nothing says searing black metal like an adorable cartoon turtle. P.S. Tele headstocks are gross and weird. Upgrayedd.

Upping the 7.25" radius to 10"-16" compound, vintage baby frets to jumbo mega frets.

Swapping the cheap-ass tuners to Sperzels. Got blue knobs too.

For some reason, Fender used 1meg pots (which, to their credit, were CTS) on these single coils back in the day -- the neck pup seemed a little thin, but the bridge one was fine, if a bit loud. In retrospect, I suppose it was highly imbalanced tone-wise. Got 280k replacements from BKP along with one of their badonk tone caps, at strong recommendation from a friend. Gonna shield the bridge pup cavity, too. It's already got BKP Piledrivers for pups, so we're good there.

I do have one question maybe you guys can help me with, though: how the hell am I supposed to get at those electronics with the wires from the neck cavity tethering the pickguard to the body like that?

I f'in love this guitar and I know it can be even more. Can't wait till the UK parts arrive so I can get started!

 

[celticelk]

Awesome project! If I wasn't committed to playing 8-strings for the immediate future, I might try this myself. Unrelated question: that's a funky tuning - how'd you arrive at that?

 

[ShadowFactoryX]

moar pics when done for sure dude!

 

[synrgy]

I do have one question maybe you guys can help me with, though: how the hell am I supposed to get at those electronics with the wires from the neck cavity tethering the pickguard to the body like that?

If it were me:

Get some version of towel or cloth to protect the finish over that area, then simply 'flip' the pickguard over. If there isn't enough lead wire to do that, you don't have to worry about much since you'll have to re-solder your new pots in, anyway. Just snip them, and give yourself more lead with your new connections as you solder them in.

 

[anne]

Awesome project! If I wasn't committed to playing 8-strings for the immediate future, I might try this myself. Unrelated question: that's a funky tuning - how'd you arrive at that?

The bottom four notes make for easy 7ths. All my guitars have some variation on root 5th 3rd 6th. And the other two strings are just reasonably close notes above that make for crowded voicing. It also puts the fifth on top which I find to be the best note to top a rhythm chord. Low power chords can sound pretty lame on single coils, but if you add a third, it seems to beef up quite nicely.

 

[awesomeaustin]

looks interesting. Can't wait to see finished pics

 

[Mysticlamp]

can't wait to see this thing done

 

[samincolour]

Stoked to see more on this!

 

[guy in latvia]

awesome!

out of curiosity is it possible to just move the bridge back (keeping an original 25.5" neck) and get correct baritone intonation?

 

[JamesM]

^ I'm really tired and focusing on my Aerospace homework right now but I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

 

[celticelk]

awesome!

out of curiosity is it possible to just move the bridge back (keeping an original 25.5" neck) and get correct baritone intonation?

No. You might have the correct distance between the neck and bridge, but the fret-to-fret distance is different at 28.625" than it is at 25.5", so all of your fret positions will be off. You really need a new neck for this to work.

 

[anne]

awesome!

out of curiosity is it possible to just move the bridge back (keeping an original 25.5" neck) and get correct baritone intonation?

No, that's not possible. Gotta add frets to the nut end of the neck, following the ratios of the current scale. The second pic shows how they did it -- two frets on the nut end, plus the missing fret overhang that becomes fret 24.

Intonation, while somewhat problematic with the three-saddle bridge, wasn't so much the issue as tension and general playability regardless of tuning. The super tiny fretwire makes it seem like mile-high action and the massively thick neck got rather bothersome after extended playing. I'm equally stoked on the upgrades to those points as much as the longer scale.