2000s Korean-made Fender FMT HH Telecaster Electric Guitar





This electric is sold as a Telecaster but the only thing "Tele" about it is the outline of the headstock and body and a through-body hardtail bridge. Everything else is borrowed from the PRS and 80s SuperStrat playbook -- nato (like mahogany) body and neck with a carved, flamed-maple top, skinny 70s Gibson-ish modern neck profile, two humbuckers with a coil-split push/pull pot at the tone control, and a "crimson red" transparent finish with cream binding for trim. Mix-in a contoured body and a big weight reduction over a normal Tele, and this just becomes more alien to the purist.

So -- what about if you don't care for Teles? Then... it's a perfectly-good guitar. It's more comfortable to hold, has a quick feel, won't give your back spasms after a 3-hour set, and the single coil/humbucker mode switch is a feature that gives it two distinct personalities. This is all nice to have for a player looking for something more modern (the pickups are hot and will drive an amp readily), but I have to admit that my own tastes run vintage.

I spruced this up for a customer -- I replaced the broken (and cheesy) push/pull pot with a better-quality unit, fixed some wiring issues, and gave it a good setup.


The flamed-maple, curvy top is decidedly un-Fender, but attractive in a PRS way.



This has jumbo frets, a rosewood fretboard, and giant abalone dot markers.



The controls are recessed and a Gibson-style 3-way is used. The saddles are some sort of really hard steel and the owner had trouble with broken strings. I smoothed the slots in them so hopefully that solves that issue.





The serial number appears to be meaningless per Fender's serial charts, but examples on online forums with close numbers suggest this was made around 2007-2009. The model is still made to this day and -- sheesh -- I'm so out of the loop with modern instruments that I didn't even know Fender was selling Fender-branded Korean-made guitars. I suppose they're doing the same with Chinese-made ones, too, so why not?





Comments

Jcroft said…
Jake, recently had one of these come into my possession, the bottom knob is stuck, wont pull push or turn. Was looking into replacing it, can you recommend a replacement part?
Unknown said…
If you still need to replace this, it is a 500k push/pull pot, this piece on Amazon is a direct replacement

FLEOR 2pcs Push Pull Guitar Pots Short 15mm Split Shaft A500K Audio Taper Guitar Potentiometers https://a.co/d/j4NVywo
Leeroy said…
That guitar is a 2003, clearly evident by the 03 digits. These are Febder standards, not shots in the dark.
Jake Wildwood said…
Leeroy -- when I posted this in 2016, there was some question as to if that serialization held true for these models.
Ron said…
I'm confident this is a 2003. I bought a used Korean model in 2005 and the serial number begins with 03.