Working on a guitar. I shouldn’t. I don’t need another one. But I had most of the hardware necessary and more. I’ve even had this neck here for a few years, bought for a project I couldn’t complete when I lost the shop space, but that doesn’t mean I had to use it. Especially seeing as I could pretty much live on the Neville with an occasional Newport excursion for variety; they cover every base I’d ever need covered. But seeing all that hardware has been bugging me, so here we are.
And this one’s different. I swear. Really.
The sort of thing that was probably cool as all hell looking by the standard of Japan in the early ’60s.
Well, actually, it is. Gold foil pickup, which is weird enough to be unique in my arsenal.
The original Teisco gold foil pickups were made as cheaply as possible, which meant that a few cents saved even on the AlNiCo1 magnets was worth exploring. Cobalt ain’t cheap! And practical ceramic magnets were just being created in the 1950s2, and not really perfected until the 60s. So they use a rubberized magnet instead of AlNiCo slugs or bar magnets like Fender pickups or humbuckers of the day. Yes, rubberized, like refrigerator magnets. I like to pretend that if I cracked them open and pulled out the magnets they would have fun, inspirational sayings on them like the magnet I have on my freezer door.
They’re stamped, chromed steel with a gold grid underneath holding it all in place. The sort of thing that was probably cool as all hell looking by the standard of Japan in the early ’60s. I find it refreshingly tacky and so made a guitar that was similarly slightly over-the-top to house one.
And, yes, I know it’s probably the pot calling the kettle sparkly to describe anything as tacky, considering how many snakeskin guitar straps I own, but I use the term entirely with love. Scroll down, you’ll see.
The pickup I went with was a Lollar gold foil in the Teisco style, made to fit into a P90 hole. The originals are meant to just screw onto the body of the guitar — the original Japanese guitars were made to a price point after all — but since the Lollar is attached to a P90 ring I can adjust it easily. I could just as easily have arranged some springs and cut a slightly different hole in a blank pickguard, but I decided I might as well go the easy route.
There was also the benefit of psychological safety. Not knowing for sure if I’d love it or hate it, I knew I could always pull out the GF and slap an AlNiCo pole P90 in with the stock pickguard. Those have a jazzmasteresque neck tone, and I have used them to great effect with my Electrajet. No fussing with odd sized routes or custom pickguard shapes to make it work and results I know I can live with. This was less of a commitment.
The Lollar is a pretty slick package. I had to do some fussing to get the pickup and the ring together with the little spacers Lollar provided, and I was becoming rather frustrated at first, but let’s just say at times like those I find a modicum of double-sided sticky-tape can be most efficacious. Now height adjustments are a breeze.
The guitar — it’s lightweight ash Jazzmaster shape, Surf Green, with standard tele style chrome bridge with brass saddles, chrome control plate, and tele bridge pickup. The gold foil is in the neck, surrounded by a vintage-pearl colored pickguard, and the neck is flame maple with a maple board. Basically, it’s a gigantic slab of a very 50s color, lots of chrome, with just a hint of gold here and there. Maybe you can tell my inspiration.
Of course, a mint, white, or parchment pickguard would have been a better match to a beautiful 57 Chevy, but remember the “tacky?” Gotta’ have that pearloid guard, and considering that neck has been lying around here for a few years it has started to go slightly amber. White pearl won’t work. It has to be slightly aged to match. So Vintage MoTS3 it is!
The neck is Warmoth, modern with the compound radius and side adjuster. The profile is vintage V-Neck, which is ridiculously thick — about an inch, the same dimensions as the original Broadcaster necks. Just how I like it. The Reflex is also a Warmoth vintage V, and the Neville is more than .900, also V neck, so now anything less than that or a Hamer vintage carve just isn’t comfortable. This seems strange to me, considering I have hands like a 13 year old girl, but I have no problem fretting with my thumb and the extra depth seems gentler on the arthritis and never cramps me up. The razor thin profile I used when I was in my teens will cramp me up right quick these days. Obviously shredder necks weren’t the true answer to my miniscule meathooks!
The model isn’t “Reflex” it’s actually “Wobble”, but my dry transfer isn’t done yet so I dropped a waterslide on there to see how it looked and all I had on hand were leftovers from my previous guitar. And, yes, that is my handwriting, digitized and printed on a sticker. So if you don’t like the font, well, there’s not much I can do about it.
The top is already dinged. I dropped a bridge saddle and it couldn’t have landed worse. Oh well. Fender charges extra to have some intern go drag a guitar on the concrete and hit it with a wrench so they can call it “Road Worn,” right? I could probably find some bullshit justification for why I did it on purpose, too. But let’s be honest, it’s a ginormous guitar so I’m going to be whacking it into things all the time anyway, at least I got the first ding out of the way.
As an aside, for the first time in a long while I’ve started leaving substantial marks on a guitar. I used to play far more gently, mostly on carved and arch tops, and I’d rotate through guitars every few weeks. But I have fewer now and it is almost always one of only three that I will grab out of the rack when I feel the urge.
The Neville, which I play more than all my others combined, is showing actual genuine wear. And not just where the ceiling crashed down on it. It’s crazed and has substantial pick scratches where I strum hard, and I do strum hard at times. I am good to my instruments, and care for them lovingly, but it’s tough love. Besides, if the Neville didn’t want me to smack it it wouldn’t bark when I did so, right? A good tele is touch sensitive. An analog guitar, my friend Griff once said, and the range from a gentle finger style to a borderline Townshendesque windmill provides differences in tone so great it tempts you go play gently and clean then strum hard into the gloriously rich, shimmery harmonic dirt. Just because you can. I’m all rhythm these days, and I do love the shimmer, the jangly jangly tele tone from 80s brit pop that you get with big, acoustic style strumming. It’s just starting to show.
My poor neighbors. I hope they get a few hours less in purgatory for every Saturday afternoon they have to listen to me troubleshoot an amp or learn how to sing a new song. It would be only just.
No beauty shots yet. Still setting it up and the strings will have to come off one or two more times. I have nut work to do, and I flipped the pickup over to see if it made a difference (It doesn’t) and want to flip it back. I haven’t drilled the pickguard holes yet, though I’m certain this is the guard that will stay, it’s almost perfect.
But I will share some quick snap shots of the test fit with all the parts in place. I tried to capture the flame in the neck, but it was hard to capture with the available light. You’ll have to just trust me for now. It has a lot of chatoyance, the flame just dances as the angle of the light changes and I can see it shimmer as I look down while I play, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
Behold!
The sound is interesting. The gold foil is open and almost acoustic sounding when lowered away from the strings, but gets more punchy as it is raised. It is very height sensitive, but I am finding a good balance. It’s bright but not icepicky, and really responds well to the volume knob. Lots of volume difference with pick attack, though it will stay clean as you dig in. I have a Vintage-T in the bridge, which is a perfectly adequate telecaster pickup, and easy to balance without any electronic buttfuckery. I wired it 50s wiring with 250K pots and an .047 cap. No bypass on the volume.
For a pickup I think of as acousticky, the gold foil handles dirt well. It has a little bit of jangle and richness, but not like the jazzmaster or strat pickups. Or normal Tele neck pickups. It’s its own thing, but fits right into the genre, staying bright and rich rather than getting midrangy and dark. I don’t know that it would be my first choice if I was the only guitar in a band context, but I built this for my singer-songwriter shtick and it is absolutely perfect for that, dirty enough to do alt country if I want, but clean and touchy for rhythm when I want.
It also responds to impedance changes weirdly. Drop a high impedance load in front, like a Performance Enhancer, and it pretty much sounds the same. Just slightly louder with the tiniest bit of dirt, which is where I have that set. A lower impedance (but still reasonable) load doesn’t change character much like it does on the bridge pickup. And running it into a fuzz without a buffer is just bananas, it never cleans up!
I’m tempted to pull something off my board and drop the one knob or the buzz-fuzz on there just to spend a weekend annoying the crap out of neighbors. I’d be doing them a favor, you know, getting them out of limbo and all that.
I should probably have made this post on greenairguitars.com, considering the headstock logo, but I haven’t bothered to set up a blog that doesn’t look like ass there. Maybe the next time I’m imprisoned in my house for months by the government I’ll pretty that one up, too. Until then, keep an eye here for when I get some pics in better light.
1. AlNiCo: Aluminum Nickle Cobalt. The composition of magnets used before Ceramic magnets became common, and still used for most vintage style guitar pickups today. 2. 1952, to be exact. Though ferrite compounds were discovered in the 1930s, which is how TDK was founded, modern ceramic magnets started with synthesizing barium hexaferrite in the 50s and then the generally superior strontium hexaferrite in the 1960s, both by Phillips. 3. MoTS: Mother of Toilet Seat. The plastic or celloloid material meant to look like Mother of Pearl