2020s Partscaster Pyrographic Telecaster

This is a customer's Telecaster that I worked-on during our holiday break -- and what a guitar it is, eh? It's very lightweight (6 lbs or so?) and features a pyrographic art body with western, cowboy, and retro astronaut themes. I may also be a fan of such things!

The hardware throughout is high quality (Glendale neck plate, nice aftermarket but Fender-decal neck with a V-shape to it, hilarious pickguard, heavy-duty bridge stamped "K" on the back, compensated saddles, aged other hardware, etc.) and, post-setup, it plays the biz as well.

It arrived with a Duncan mini-humbucker/Firebird pickup already installed at the neck and a traditional Telecaster-style bridge with Fralin Tele bridge pickup. The owner wanted to swap that to a TV Jones SuperTron-style pickup and I didn't have a short-Tele bridge on hand, so I cut-down the bridge that was on it, made a quick tortoise surround for the SuperTron, and installed and wired it up.

The resulting guitar has plenty of twang and clarity and does sound Tele-like, but it's also a cleaner, rounder sound as well. This is a "bright" guitar off the bat and I agree with the owner -- it was just too shrill with a normal, Tele-style bridge pickup. With it modded it's just about perfect.

I was happy with the way the bridge cut turned-out -- I do that with my Foredom (Dremel-style tool) using cutoff wheels and then various polishing and grinding tools.