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callaham hardware

Fender Strat body - Tele neck [8.0 lbs] :: document

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Fender Strat body - Tele neck [8.0 lbs] :: document

A client wanted his favorite guitar documented so I pulled it apart, took photos and wrote down some notes for him.  It's a 2000 Mexi Strat body with a Tele neck that he put together.

The pickguard is loaded with Fender ’57/‘62 pickups measuring 6.42K (neck),  6.45K (middle non-RWRP), 6.45K (bridge).  The middle pickup is non-reverse wound / non-reverse polarity so it is not hum cancelling in positions 2 and 4.

Some details of the audio path components:

  • Master volume, neck & middle p/u tone, bridge p/u tone, 5-way switch
  • 250K audio taper CTS volume pot “GTR ELEC 250KA CTS 0519”
  • 250K linear taper CTS tone pots “EP4985 250K 0521"
  • Sprague Vitamin Q 0.033 µf tone cap (shared)

The bridge is a Callaham Mexican Std vibrato bridge and arm.

The MIM Tele neck's details:

  • Indian Rosewood fingerboard with 9.5"R
  • 0.870" thick, 1-5/8" wide @ 1st fret
  • 0.910" thick, 2" wide @ 12th fret
  • frets 0.103" wide by 0.048" tall
  • vintage style locking tuners

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New bridge & pots :: Warmoth Strat [8.0 lbs]

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New bridge & pots :: Warmoth Strat [8.0 lbs]

This Warmoth Strat is approximately 30 years old and was tough to play.  The player and I found out that the bridge was vintage spaced and pushed the strings far too close to the edge of the fingerboard.  The solution was to swap it out for a new Callaham V/N bridge.  The "V" stands for vintage mount (6 screws) and the "N" is for narrow spacing.  Wow, what a difference in both playability and sustain.  (note the outer 2 bridge mounting screws were omitted as there must have been a 2 point bridge at some time with two large post holes in the body - we may opt to plug thesein the future).  We also replaced the pots as the old ones were pretty rough.  I used an Emerson Custom 500KA pot for the volume and went with Bourns pots for the tones.  I initially had Emersons in for the tones too but found the sweep far too subtle for most of the pot's travel for this guitar (around 2-3 they began to roll off rather quickly).  The Bill Lawrence bridge pickup's plastic mounting tabs were stripped out so they were plugged and re-tapped.

The pot swap was featured over on the vlog (video below).

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Assembly & Setup :: Warmoth Chambered Telecaster [6.66 lbs]

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Assembly & Setup :: Warmoth Chambered Telecaster [6.66 lbs]

Assembly & Setup :: Warmoth Chambered Telecaster [6.66 lbs]

Here's a maple cap / ash body (chambered) Warmoth Tele in for assembly and setup.  The player-spec'd components include a Callaham vintage T bridge and Don Mare "Joel Foy" pickups.  The birdseye maple neck looks really sharp too.  Gravity pulls this guy down at the Mark of the Beast.

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