My Frankenstein Telecaster & Why You Need One Too- ASK ZAC EP 10 

My Warmoth Teles are all Frankensteins. They're all responsive, light, and toneful. They're all individual, and all deliver great tone.

What I've come to appreciate is not only the technical side of things, but more importantly, you are very humble, gracious and kind in acknowledging those who have helped you along the way. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes. Thank you for what you do, Zac.

I love that these videos feel like guitar support sessions for guitaraholics anonymous!

I for one have never been that big of a Tele fan until I found this channel. Thanks for all the cool stuff and info you share Zac!

17:45: “I know, it’s a sickness.” Comedy GOLD for us guitarists...

it's not a frankenstein.. it's a LIFESTYLE

I love the Frankenstein approach for Teles and Strats. I have a parts Strat that I put together for about $1300. It sounds better than a lot of Custom Shop Strats I've played and heard. I said to my friend, "It sounds pretty good for a parts Strat, huh?" He replied, "They're ALL parts Strats".........I hadn't looked at it that way, but it's true.

Hey Zac, this channel is such an inspiration - seeing you play shows just how much can be achieved with lots an lots of talent and practice!

That's exactly what I do for all of my Single Tone pot guitars. I leave the Neck pickup unloaded and wide open and have the Tone knob only for the Bridge pickup. This way I can flick back'n'forward between pickups without having to continually dance with the Tone pot. One of my amp customers gave me one of your schematic (a Deluxe) T-shirts as a thank you. I wear it with pride.

Mine started as a MIJ '50s reissue, snot-colored basswood body and maple fretboard. Along the way it gained a Duncan Jerry Donahue lead pickup and a fiesta red swamp ash body from the Warmoth reject bin. Japanese V necks are my favorite.

I’m telecaster crazy after watching these videos and listening to your podcasts. You are an excellent interviewer and you get a lot your guests. Every episode is a great story.

Thank you for mentioning Pat. Glad to hear he's still around. I recognized the licks immediately.

I am liking this new series. You have an incredible memory of all the people that have come through your musical life. My two fav teles are both parts guitars.

Thank you again Zac. As always your sessions are like a guitar education class. The Tele vids are especially interesting. You keep instructing and I'll continue learning. RIP Reggie Young

Very cool story about that guitar! It applies to so much we as guitar players think about and discuss constantly. Thanks for this one Zac. Great playing with great tone as well!

Thanks for your time. Subscribeing to your channel was like picking up a guitar and playing it for the first time knowing your going to enjoy it.

Hi Zac, another excellent show. Informative and laid back style. Can't wait for the next one! Thanks

I'm not sure if I'll ever be any kind of an accomplished musician, but I sure do enjoy playing music. Thank you for sharing that little chapter in your musical journey.

Still one of my fav episodes. There are hungry people but hungry musicians are a special bunch. There were a few times I survived on mayonnaise sandwiches and garden hose water. It was what it was. The price some pay when they really love to play...

great story - i don't have a question, i just want to say super cool of you for answering everyone's questions!

Hey Zac, I love this episode. I just recently assembled a “Frankenstein” Tele myself. Great job with your series! I watch every episode I get the opportunity to. I truly appreciate your knowledge and experience!

I have the best time watching your videos. Stuff for the stripped-down working guitarist, straight-to-the-point pragmatism and very informative. Keep it up, this is precious, thanks!

Your channel has become part of my daily Routine! Thanks!

I'm in the middle of rebuilding my Frankencaster for the second time. Mine is a cheap Chinese Tele that I've changed the pick guard on twice and installed three pickups to turn it into a Nashville Tele. Well now I'm changing the pick guard again and I have a Freeway 10 way switch to install and I'm waiting for my new Peters palm bender to arrive so that I can finish it. I'd love to post a picture of of it when It's finished. Love your channel and your merch that I've purchased. Thanks for all the inspiration.

I just love listening to your stories. Just the same way my guitar pals and me are swapping yarns...it’s just a guitar thing!

Love your Tele. Love your mods. Great tone. Great playing. I need a FrankenTele in my life. Something I can mod out without a worry or care about compromising its value. We live in an era now where history has taught us that if we own a guitar with Fender or Gibson on the headstock and don't mess with it it will eventually be worth more than we paid for it. I need a parts guitar so that I can release my inner guitar tech!!!

Great Post. Double thumbs up for the bender.

The reason why I really like this video, it shows as long as the "parts" are great parts, it does have to be "every single Fender branded part" stuffed into the telecaster. As long as the guitar fits your playing style, sound that you want and budget.. that's the right guitar for you.

You're right. Everybody needs a "Frankenstein" to experiment with and not cut up a branded instrument and ruin it's resale value. I wanted a Tele with Duncan Hotrails in it. I didn't want to lose my single coil Tele in the process. I like it and it's a nice "limited edition" Fender Tele so it may be worth keeping original. So I rolled my own "Franky". Built from parts I put on all the hardware and features I wanted. No guilt, no butchery. I can change it and it's still just my Tele. I love it.

I've always wanted a Tele with a B bender and either a Hipshot G bender or the pull string. Since I'm mostly retired from performing, I might have some fun with one but I don't really NEED one. It is possible to play those licks without a bender but it does require constant practice....which I don't do anymore.

A local pawnshop wanted $125 for a second-hand DIY Tele kit but after plugging it in an amp to hear it, I noticed a lot of defects that brought the price way down already knowing what was needed and what I wanted to do with it so I was on my way after cashing it out for $80. Its current state as follows: Emerson Pro CTS 500 volume & 250K tone pots while retaining the 0.047uf green cap & volume/tone knobs, a CRL 3-way switch w/a Sprague 0.022uf orange capacitor in the 3rd position, a Switchcraft jack threaded to an Electrosocket, a twin railed SC sized humbucker that's got a P90 reminiscence to it. Long story short, it's almost 100% the way I want it so it's definitely good for the moment... by the way nice video and I'm now a subscriber!

Hey Zac, since I started watching your channel I've started to become obsessed with my Teles, I have 3 but am giving one to my son and keeping two. Cheers. Mike.

Really enjoyed this one, how you wove in the stories and the playing. Thanks, Zac.

Your videos are excellent.Funny story about a LP standard I’ve had for years. It’s gorgeous. AAA top. Well man, I’ve tried a bunch of different mods to it. Four pup changes. Different wiring schemes and other stuff. It would NOT ever sound good live. Until I put SD Greenies in it. And it automatically just became a great guitar. Modding is my passion. Thanks.

The Telecaster is just a great guitar to work on. I love the traditional design and I have several. Grew up on Buck Owns, Johnny Cash, and all the country greats. Still love to go back and listen to those songs, such incredible memories! I also like to mod Tele's, just something about the Tele bridge PU paired with a quality Humbucker Neck PU, makes one power house of a guitar and extremely versatile too. Thats nothing new, they've been doing that since the 60's. Lately I been just building them ground up with Fender bodies / necks, and various PU combinations, just did one for around $800 or so and its killer.

Well done Zac. Thanks for all you are putting up. Trying the finger style is a challenge for me just starting at 60.

Fantastic content, as always Zac! You should have a million subscribers! 🎸🇺🇸🗽🦅🇺🇸

Zac, thanks for bringing this one back, had kinda forgotten about it. Yes now most of mi tele's are "frankened", brass nuts, roller saddles, true lipstick pickups in the neck, rails in the bridge, flipped control plate, jojoba treated necks, (instead of any varnish or clear coat) lots of fun, and much better players.

This is a great story as many of yours…I dont know why I follow these but your style and way of telling is something I like. I have noticed a graudual signs of this tele …Im earlier liked Strato but Tele is the things. Thanks for your fine presentations!

Love this channel, as an older player I would advise not to get rid of guitars..never liked Telecaster..till I found out I wasn't ready for it yet

Love your videos. Thank you for doing them. Guitar sounds fantastic with you playing it. Awesome.

Hello Zac.Glad you mentioned the other Deluxe is on the floor. I enjoy your show and info.

Thanks I share a lot of your thought, and truly enjoyed the vid. I'm an old Harmony Collector and various others including Tele ,Starts/LP's. Have a few Franko's myself. Oh and thanks for letting us know the pedals and amp you were using. Very few people ever tell you.

Great episode! Guitar Resurrection is still going strong! I worked there many years from the late 1990s until 2017.

Why can I only like this video once? Thanks Zac. Cheers from Canada!

Just found this channel, i am also a Telecaster Fan ! I have a 94 Fender Telecaster with a Bareknuckle Cobra T on the Bridge, i play it over a Peavey 5150. I also have a Fender Deluxe Reverb Combo, i am using a Boss Blues Driver on it. Thats all i need at home. I am searching a 12 Sting Telecaster but didnt find it now.

Great video! I agree, it's good to have at least one guitar that you can modify without affecting its value. My red tele (1996 Mexican toploader bought for £175, with a hard case; sunburst in my earlier videos) has the same Gotoh brass bridge as Zac's, and I wired the tone control to the bridge pickup only, for the same reason as he explains in the video. My other mods, if anyone's interested: 1) shielded with aluminium foil, which doesn't alter the tone like copper does. 2) contoured front and back with a belt sander, to make it more comfortable. 3) resprayed red. 4) added a pearloid pickguard. 5) converted from toploader to string-through. 6) installed a Tonerider hot classic pickup set. 7) added a second string tree, to increase the G string angle behind the nut. 8) flipped the control plate. 9) changed the switch for a Gibson-style toggle, just to be different. 10) fitted threaded neck inserts, so the neck is bolted on rather than screwed - this made a real difference to the sound and I've done it to my other guitars too. 11) made and fitted a brass nut (it might be nickel-silver, as it's the same colour as the frets). No B-bender yet, but it is something I've thought about, along with hollowing out the body from behind, to make it lighter. I also have a Squier Jim Root tele, to which I added a tone control and Tonerider Alnico pickups, and covered the body with paisley wrapping paper from Tesco.

Hey Zac! Just finding you on You Tube and love the videos. Seems that getting a Squire or a similar level guitar would be a great first go at learning to tweak your own guitars. Take an inexpensive overall piece and then Frankenstein it with the parts of your choosing and, like you mentioned, won't worry about devaluing a higher-end guitar. Again, love the videos. Thanks!

Great story! Glad I found your channel! I've also now ordered the Ask Zac coffee mug!

I never care for the neck pickup sound on my tele , but that one sounds pretty good . Enjoy your stories . ..please continue .

I have an 06 Tele mim standard in electron blue. It's my only Tele and its been stock for 4 years. Then I started watching your channel and I have changed the bridge to a standard cold-rolled tele bridge and 3 brass compensated saddles. That was enough for a while. Recently I've purchased some '51 Nocaster pickups, a control cover with an angled selector switch, the new standard string tree, and a 3-ply black guard. I dig that classic black guard tone, but I don't have the budget for even a used American tele, let alone a reissue or a vintage guitar. So I'm turning the guitar I have into the guitar I want. Thanks to this channel I have been inspired to get handy. I found your wiring diagram to by pass the tone control for the neck pickup. I don't really understand it yet, but I hope to try this mod when I change my pickups. I love the way a wide open bridge pickup sounds. Does your wiring allow for a tone controlled bridge blended with a bypassed neck pickup in the middle position? Thanks for the information and encouragement. Update: I got all the stuff that I ordered to upgrade my Tele a couple days ago. It was a learning experience to learn to solder and learn to read the tele wiring diagrams. After much effort, some mild troubleshooting, and some burns on my left hand fingers (they don't prevent me from playing, thankfully), Ol' Blue is all upgraded and rewired. My Tele has gone from the guitar I keep out near my chair because it's indestructable and I have a 4 year old to my favorite guitar. It now beats out my LP Jr. The fully open neck is amazing! Even though they don't have as much output as the old pickups, they are much more dynamic and rich. I love it so much. I could not be happier. Thank you, Zac, for the knowledge and inspiration. Also, thank you for introducing me to Roy Buchanan. He's one of my favorites now. All Roy seems to need is his Tele, a cable, and an amp to melt faces. Amazing.

I'm a lefty, so at music stores the choices are limited. Sure, most manufacturers make left handed models, however you cannot hold, play or feel a guitar you buy online. I bought a Tele DIY kit and put it together. It felt and sounded great with the Chinese pickups etc. I started making modifications. Added a nicer pickguard, upgraded the controls, got brass saddles and a brass nut. I LOVE my Monster. It's my favorite guitar.

Great guitar! I love that you mention Steve Wariner! CGP. Was such an underrated triple threat entertainer!

Great video. There's lots of good/great guitars out there that aren't worth a lot of money but worth LOTS of enjoyment! (as greygland says: a LIFESTYLE!)

I love your channel. I love my Mexican parts tele. I got a set of peter florence voodoo te56 pickups in it. I have changed pots and wireing idk how many times. I love it

Love the road stories.

I bought an American Deluxe Tele and I've swapped everything on it except the wood and the tuners; it's even going to get a nitro refin... Love the modular Fender design in that you can mix and match and make your instrument truly yours.

I build my own so they are all different in a way I want. I recently switched to putting "V" profile necks on my #1Tele and Strat , it has given me a better feel in my hands. I am lucky that I have a great pickup builder nearby to get what I want and know it will be great. Partscasters are a lot of fun!

Well done. Thanks for sharing your sickness!

You are my Telephile ASMR; thank you for that! Great info and insight❤

I'm a living room hobbyist but my only electric guitar is already on its way to franken-tele-ville. Cheap Harley Benton kit that I built to look and feel just how I want it (pitch black including the back of the neck + Tru Oil finish, rounded off the edges of the body a little bit, also it's pretty light), 500k CTS pots + 47nF cap, Kluson Tuners, got a Gretsch Filtertron to install in the bridge position and next on the list are Duesenberg Domino P90 & Les Trem, which of course will need some sort of tune-o-matic bridge. Also contemplating the idea of a behind-the-bridge pickup since the trem would leave room for that. Frankenstein guitars, my Spellcaster salutes you 👍

I just bought a charvel Gojira Telecaster. It's the most amazing tele I ever played. I did a review on my chanel. Thanks zakk. Most inspiring and like the story in your video. Glad I subscribed.

Great video Zac! I.m a big fan of Steve Earle and Mike McAdam and Richard Bennett...I also have a Frankenstein tele..Mexican tele..it's the one I do modifications on and it's cool to me..thanks for your video!

Gotta love them partscasters! Just put a partscaster tele together m’self, got a Strat pickup in the middle, and a humberdinker in the neck posish. I can mess with it any ol’ way I want to, ‘cause nobody buys partscasters anyway! 😂

From Leo: Good Story on your Tele. The Tele is a great instrument to experiment with sounds. I have one with a lipstick for the neck, A real lipstick out of a DanElectro. With a slightly overwound bridge and a 4 way pickup selector, it has a sound of its own, without abandoning the more traditional tones. If I ever get tired of it, I can always put it back to standard pickups.

Brilliant video Zac, great content!

Yep I have a Super Tele put together will premium parts bought on Ebay .......I saved a lot of cash and the result was way better than I ever thought would be possible. I could have spent 6 or 7 times what I spent modding on a Deluxe Tele and not been as happy and heck it was a blast watching it take shape .

I built perhaps the first "FrankenTele" back around the end of 1970, beginning of 1971. Was made of solid mahogany with standard bridge pickup and two Gibson SG Standard pickups ... 500k pots and a Stratocaster neck. Loud, heavy and backbreaking! My sons eventually named it, "The NortonCaster ... "

It’s always good to have instruments that can be hacked and manipulated at will. It’s not only great for the needs of the moment, but also invaluable for developing mod skills. I have a parts ‘Tele’ that has been through 3 different bridges (using different acre locations), 2 phases/locations of ferrule routing, 2 paint jobs, 4 different wirings, expanding the control rout, and the neck pickup rout first expanded for a humbucker and then again for a Peavey Super Ferrite. It’s easily one of the best Teles I have played. Plus, it’s been through the trenches with me, so there’s that, too…

I got my ‘89 ASAT Signature at Guitar Res. Great shop!

Filter-tron-y vibe in the middle position there, characteristic instrument, would be gorgeous with that ebony board first neck.

Damn I need a bender now.... that was a great video :).

I made one using an MJT body....a Fender neck with jumbo frets.....an American special neck I believe....a DiMarzio tone zone in the bridge and a true velvet in the neck..... I play it all the time.... it has a 64 reissue Fender bridge.....with threaded screws for the string intonation.....great sounding......easy to play..... it's tahitian coral finish....the neck is maple.....

I was a Les Paul only player since 1974, being into Doobies and Allman brothers. However, in the 1990's I found a guy who had an Ensinada Strat and Tele with a Bandit amp for 400.00. I bought them thinking I would sell the Tele...but then I got inspired playing it. Years before I had played a hollow body Tele in a music store in Sacrameto. The neck to body flatness put me off, but the Ensinada Tele i bought years later really made me think again. I love it for fingerstyle, but also like playing it with a flat pick. I use a 74 Deluxe and same vintage Bassman 10. Cool guitars!!!

Wow! That Adder PU! .. .. Gorgeous!

Hello Zac, First off I enjoy your videos, I also love Tele’s and Strats... SG’s too. ( I own one of each, my Tele is like one of yours, it’s an American Professional Butterscotch Blonde 🤙 ). I love the sounds of each and everyone and that’s why I have one of each, if I’m playing some Zeppelin or AC / DC I’ll just grab the SG. Personally I wouldn’t alter either one of them Zac, what I am planning to do though is purchase a body and neck ( Tele Style ) via Warmoth. I’ll go ahead and do something outrageous on that one haha! Two cents from your local peanut gallery 🤙 Enjoy the shows and thanks! Tommy

I took you up on the Brent Mason wiring diagram download - It might come in handy if I can't get the loaded pickguard. Thanks.

Both my Strat and Tele are made from parts and are both truly great. But then again, I think Fenders are the same, just whatever neck happens to be next in line gets married to the body that next in line. The best thing about building your own is you get the frets you want along with everything else.

Two things I cannot recommend highly enough are the Bill Lawrence half-out-of-phase mod, and the bidirectional tone control. The half-out-of-phase mod was implemented on the Jerry Donahue Telecaster. Normally, when two pickups are put out of phase, you end up with a thin nasal sound and big volume drop. That results from the overlap in frequency content of the two pickups, and the substantial cancellation that results. Bill Lawrence found that if you chopped some of the bass off the neck pickup, the resulting cancellations did not substantially affect the resulting volume level. In the JD Tele, shaving bass off the phase-reversed neck pickup (it used a Strat pickup, but that's not critical), and combining it with an unaltered bridge signal, yielded a tone eerily reminiscent of the neck+middle "cluck" setting on a Strat. I implemented this on a guitar of mine, and damn if it didn't sound like a 3-pickup guitar on an axe with 2 pickups! Not any sort of absolute, but I used a 10nf (.01uf) cap in series with the neck. You can start there and season to taste. A great reason to use a push-pull pot. As a perk, it also provides a slightly thinner-sounding neck tone when using just the one pickup. Two new settings/tones for the price of one! Much to my surprise, I've successfully implemented it on a dual humbucker guitar as well. It certainly does NOT sound Strat-like, but it does provide another very usable N+B sound with no volume drop, and no nasal tone. The bidirectional Tone control is something I got from Craig Anderton in Guitar Player, decades back. One of my beefs about tone control caps is that no single cap value is really "right" for all pickups in all positions. I don't know of anyone who switches to their bridge pickup for a dull muted sound, so why is the same cap value used for neck AND bridge? Makes no sense. What I do is use a 1meg linear-taper pot for tone on a Tele (a W-taper with center detente would actually best, but just try finding one). The wiper is tied to the input of the Volume, like normal. One outside lug has a standard cap value going to ground. The other outside lug has a value around 1/4 - 1/5 the value, also going to ground. So if your "standard" value is .022uf, the other might be 4700pf. The pot now becomes essentially two 500k tone/treble-cut pots in parallel, with the middle position of the control being the "no-cut" maximum brightness setting. In one direction from mid-point you get traditional dulling, while in the other you get a kind of "rounding off" of the edges, while still maintaining bark and meat in the tone. The one is better suited to the neck pickup and the other a godsend for the bridge. It does take a bit of getting used to, but not much. The perk is that if one wants to do any "pinky wah" (and I mean, c'mon, it's a Tele), only half the rotation is required from either end-point. No additional routing is needed, it's easily reversible if you don't like it, and you have what amounts to a guitar with dual tone controls. Incidentally, gorgeous tone on that guitar.

I really love the sound of that guitar. It’s not as quacky as the “chicken pickin” tele sound but it has a nice sort of warm roundness to it, reminds me of old guitar sounds from the Chet Atkins era (like you mentioned :). The neck position blends really nicely too

I have a Fender Nashville Telecaster with a body built by Guitar Mill. Mario and company do a AWESOME job

Played a Frankentele for 30 years. Tone machine!

Another good one. Thanks, Zac. Last year I picked up a 2019 American Pro Tele. I has the Seymour Duncan Broadcaster pickups and I like the way it sounds but something wasn't right. I brought it to a guy close by who had worked on some other stuff and asked him to set it up low, with 9s. I was thinking of making a real ploinker out of it. Turns out... I do no like the medium jumbo frets, at all. So now I'm poking around for a neck. I wonder why those darn jumbo frets are so ubiquitous.

Putting together specialist teles is addictive in and of itself.

Awesomeness again. Thanks for your knowledge Stay blessed!

ALL of my Teles are Frankensteins. Love ‘em!

I have an ‘82 Fullerton reissue jazz bass - love the Fullerton’s

I bought a Frankinstein Tele Custom made non-Fender back in 1982. Solid Koa body from Hawaii with a solid brass Kahler vibroto. super heavy for a Tele but what a great guitar. . It has a Seymore Dunkin Humbucker in the Bridge and Fender single coil in the Neck position. A thin taper slim neck, I bought it from this guy in Huntington Beach for $300.00 , kinna pricey back then Hah. Cool B Bender

great vid bro! talk about a "frankentele" i have a wild one! started out as something a friend put together and me and another friend gave to another friend lol..... then years passed and it was forgotten about... then i bought this old retired police car.va state police car 1999 crown vic p71... the same guy we gave that frankentele to just had to have the lightbar so he traded me that old tele for the lightbar! im not sure what the body is but its a tele clone...6 saddle bridge....the neck was off a peavey rockmaster... i replaced the pups/wiring with a gfs 63 vintage voiced(bridge) pro series unit and replaced the neck with a guitarmadness 72 era unit...i knew the 63 bridge gfs was a great budget unit...but never heard of the neck one... man this thing has magical tones! its my most fave tele that i own...the body has small chunks missing and i colored all the bad spots with a dark blue sharpie.....i bet mr paisley himself would like this one! i named her my "peaveykaster".....o ya i also put bent steel saddles on the bridge....

Brilliant video!🤗🤗

I think you really touched on one of the magics of the Telecaster here, modifications. I cannot think of an easier guitar to modify. With my mods, whether I am purchasing another to mod or changing one I own, is to not rout or try to add new screw holes. I always want to be able to back to the original if I want. Having a universal neck rout is great to be able to swap out various neck pickups. I want to try a P90 and Charlie Christian option. Tim Lerch loves his CC. Curious on your opinion on the Brent Mason control setup with three pots and the blend? I am putting in a middle position Duncan Strat Stack in an ash body with the SD Mini HB already there.

I put a Warmoth conversion neck - 24.75” scale w/compound radius - 10-16 - on my Squier Classic Vibe ‘50’s Blonde Telecaster and I absolutely love it now. I put a boiled linseed finish on the neck and it’s satin in feel. It makes it much easier to play as stretches are getting harder for me due to a genetic blood disease that’s putting iron in my joints. The Tele has Alnico III’s in it, which I love. Have you ever played a short-scale Tele?

Fun episode Zac, thanks for all the great videos. Btw, Chet and Merle were not finger pickers they were thumb pickers (I saw Thom Bresh correct a fellow once about that). :)

Agreed- telecasters are a way of life

Another great vid, Zac. I have a B-Bender Tele too (late-1990's CIJ Paisley with a Forest Lee bender). I've owned a few benders over the years actually, but I really stopped using them for some of the same reasons you describe. It's almost like, if you aren't Clarence White (and who is, lol?), why bother? Let the steel player cover that ground. The bender became somewhat of a "trick" guitar for me, so I put it down. I will say though, that 8 lbs Tele sounds really good. I mean, really good!

Start with a neck. And build it. Addictive, expensive but a worthy undertaking. I'm building my fourth guitar lately. It's not a Tele. LOL! It's a 24" scale hardtail DuoSonic with a vintage style Jaguar replacement neck from Alparts. It gets a Starwood tele neck pup (TV Jones!). Allagree Chameleon for the bridge. Crazy wiring soon- awaiting pickguard. Plays great though! I want an SG to mod out next.

Great videos, thank you!

Oddly enough, my latest Tele is a model made by J&D guitars! It feels to me, that they made it for my hands! To have it really made for me, it would have to come Fender's Custom Shop! Maple fretboard, no skunk stripe, ash tray bridge, strings through body, or top load, fits my '67 ashtray cover! I met Phil, when he was making a Tele for Don Mclean! The same NAMM show where I met Albert Lee, and had lunch with Tommy Tedesco!

Binding on a tele body looks really nice.

I've done 3 Franks...it's the only way to go for me now. I LOVE a hard V neck w/ 7.25" radius, vintage wire and a 2pc neck maple/maple...NO ONE offers a guitar with those neck specs. Who else but me would buy them? I started with a Hardtail Strat, then a Nocaster-ish Tele and a bound black Tele like yours, but I installed Charlie Christian pickups.