1969/1960s Fender/Supro Partscaster Res-O-Glas Electric Guitar

Update August 2021: there are house repairs to do and cars to be purchased, so I've been selling-off. Oh no! I do love this guitar but that's my loss. Since originally writing about this in December 2020 I've changed a few things about it so I've updated the blog post with new photos, a new video, and updated description...

So, I get parts traded to me all the time. They hang-out for a while and eventually become things. My buddy Steve traded me the late '60s arctic white fiberglass Res-O-Glas body (it's from a Jazzmaster-shaped Supro Arlington -- the Res-O-Glas version of a Supro Lexington). It was lacking its original Bigsby B5 whammy and all the fittings save the original pickup surrounds and pickguard.

I began to scheme at some point and scrounged-around on eBay and Reverb until I had a '69 Fender Malibu acoustic neck (the guitar itself had been destroyed), some GFS wide-range-layout humbucker pickups, and a Burns TriSonic-style pickup. The GFS units have big Alnico 5 poles so they sound like... DynaSoniBuckers? They call them Surf 180s. The Burns-style unit is slice-n-dice and does a good surf or almost-Tele-like sound depending on how you amp it. I like that it's completely different from the buckers. I was using it for chicken-pickin' just the other day.

Quality Gotoh tuners, neckplate, and bridge rounded-out the rest.

The body had already been drilled for a Fender-style neck plate and the neck pocket actually fits this '60s neck perfectly after I shaved-down its end into a Tele-style flat bottom. I had to do some more routing inside the body to mount the new humbuckers, but ya gotta break a few eggs to make huevos rancheros!

Of course, the bridge had to be moved a little bit and so the weird little "bridge wiring cavity" was exposed. I fit the Burns-style pickup in there and wired it to its own independent jack -- double amps?! Two recording inputs?! You dream it! The rest of the six old slider switch holes got aircraft playing-card backings in them -- all of classic '40s US warbirds.

The result is lovely -- it's got a semihollow/hollowbody vibe going on but even with the crispy humbuckers, it definitely still has a Fender sound to it... mixed with Chicago. The neck shape is basically a carbon copy of a late-'60s Strat neck -- 1 5/8" nut and something definitely medium-C to its rear profile -- plus a cool rounded-off bottom to the headstock that works with the round-feeling body. It looks slick in-person (and in photos).

I used a Bigsby-style non-adjustable aluminum bridge with archtop-style posts for adjustment. It's setup for 3-plain, 3-wound stringing and I just adore the sound of this style of saddle. It gives the goods, that's for sure, and I think the aluminum has a vaguely-'50s allure to it. I don't know -- it's more transparent or fundamental or something. I just know that this saddle/bridge type is one of my favorites and it's simple, too.

Repairs included: fret level dress, fitting bits, wiring, routing, yadda yadda...

Made by: Fender/Supro/Bigsby/et al.

Model: Malibu/Arlington

Made in: lotsaplaces, USA

Body: wood center core with hollowbody fiberglass mounted to it

Bridge: Gotoh ABR-style, aged (tuners are, too)

Fretboard: rosewood, thin

Neck wood: maple, light flame

Pickups: 2x GFS Surf 180, 1x Burns-style TriSonic (Alnico magnets)

Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 46w-10 lights

Neck shape: slim-med C

Board radius: 7 1/4"

Truss rod: adjustable (works)

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-small

Scale length: 25 1/2"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2"

Body length: 19 1/8"

Body width: 13 7/8"

Body depth: 1 3/4"

Weight: 7 lb 0 oz

Condition notes: ...it's a partscaster. It has a ton of wear and everything is modded to some extent. The core of it is '60s. We win. The worst bit is that whoever drilled the holes for the Fender-style neck plate didn't align it correctly... sigh... so it overhangs the body a little... but I'll forgive them. The body itself has filled/touched-up holes near the tailpiece mount where a Bigsby was mounted when it was made. There's some old repairs to the fiberglass both at the endpin and on one shoulder. Everything is stable, though.