Fender Telecaster US Guitar

A very pretty Fender Telecaster made in US was given a makeover at the Esprit Guitare workshop.

Overview of this Fender Telecaster

This one arrived without strings at the workshop. And she hasn’t seen any ropes in a while. It seems trivial, like that, but you will see that it is important.

Indeed, an electric guitar neck is subject to two physical constraints.

The first is exerted by the strings, which pull on the handle in one direction, like the string of a bow which bends the wood of the bow. And the handle curves in one direction, very slightly.

The second constraint is posed by the Truss Rod. It is a mechanism in the form of an adjustable metal rod inserted into the length of the handle and which allows a force to be applied in the opposite direction to that induced by the tension of the strings (the first constraint). Thus, we can obtain a flat handle. During adjustment, we will often leave a slight, controlled curvature.

Furthermore, wood is a living, working material. And when you leave a guitar without strings for a long time, and only the force of the Truss Rod is applied to the neck, it will tend to bend too much (depending on the tension that is applied by the Truss Rod setting).

This was unfortunately the case with this beautiful Telecaster, whose Truss Rod was very tight and whose neck took a reverse curvature.

Work completed

We carry out a general overhaul, starting with a good cleaning, checking the electronics, checking the mechanics and screws and polishing the frets. We also go through the stage of complete dismantling of the easel, stripping, cleaning and reassembly.

Finally, we can take care of the handle: loosen the Truss Rod first, to stop the stress on the handle, then place the strings, (which will apply a stress opposite to that of the Truss Rod, for those who followed 😉) and we look at the result.

From there, we can begin the adjustment, finding the right compromise between the tension of the strings, the tension of the Truss Rod and the height of the saddles… Knowing that on this model access to the Truss Rod requires dismantling the pickguard, I’ll let you guess the magnitude of the task, given that we only act on the Truss Rod in small steps and that we control the result by returning the strings to their nominal tension each time… 😉

In short, it was a bit long, but the result is there, this guitar is set.

We refine the setting by adjusting the intonation at the saddles and that’s it. Well, almost.

Given the big variation in stress that we put this handle through, it has not yet reached its cruising curvature… The wood works slowly. So it will certainly have to go back to the workshop after a few weeks for a small final adjustment… Free of charge, of course 😉

Conclusion

This is a very beautiful guitar which had unfortunately been neglected and therefore required special care. Despite everything, it sounds great, with a very typical Telecaster sound and it’s a real pleasure!

Photos

The Esprit Guitare workshop

The Esprit Guitare lutherie workshop welcomes you by appointment for maintenance, repair, setup or customization of guitars, bass, ukulele and more 😉
Feel free to contact us or book an appointment.

Esprit Guitare – a passion for instruments in Martinique.

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