1975 Fender Telecaster (Modded) Electric Guitar

This is a cool old '75 Tele that has mostly-original features but had a humbucker stuck in the neck position and a mini-switch added to the wiring at some point in the past. This makes the wiring pretty confusing, unfortunately, as the mini-switch adds the bucker in series and parallel, out of phase, and whatnot in all sorts of positions mixed with the original 3-way switch. It's hard to know what's going on but it does give a lot of distinct sounds. If this were my guitar... I might just wire it as normal and then turn that mini switch into a series/parallel flip for the bucker.

It was just in for a level/dress of the frets, cleaning, and setup. It was pretty grungy when it arrived and the body still refuses cleaning. If you try to wipe it down with anything the finish starts ghosting and has an almost "oily" feel to it. Oh well! Weird curing, I suppose.

The saddle height-adjuster screws were rusted-up so I removed them and fit new ones. I also replaced the adjustment screws for intonation with new ones and new springs and that allowed me to feel free to "tilt" the saddles for better compensation by bending the (new) adjuster screws so that the saddles will "turn" as you adjust the screw. It's a good trick to use if you don't want to replace original, non-compensated, barrel saddles but still want your ears not to hurt.

Here are a few "before" snaps... pretty gross...

The frets were quite pitted, too -- I had to "compromise" a bit on the level/dress job so as not to take off too much material.