PINE TELES
PINE AS A GUITAR BODY - MY INTRODUCTION
It all started with the Fender Squier Classic Vibe 50's Telecaster. I just loved the idea of using pine wood for a guitar body and read up on why Fender was even doing this. I learned that back in 1949-50, the first Fender Esquire and Broadcaster body prototypes, like the "Snakehead", were made from pine, before they switched to ash, and later the Telecaster model name in 1951. Of course, I didn't even end up purchasing the Squier pine model. I thought I'd put a "pine guitar" (or two, three, four, etc.) together myself! My first pine-bodied axe was my Charvel Telehawk, which features a Tomahawk Custom Guitars body, Warmoth neck, black hardware, Wilkinson bridge, and GFS Neovin pickups. My second pine project was my Jackson '49 Pinecaster, which has a one-piece Iltis body, Warmoth neck, Wilkinson bridge, and a Seymour Duncan Little '59 pickup. For the Charvel pine body, I just applied some oil to keep it natural. For the Jackson body, I brushed on some whitewash, and it looks really good. I also lightly relic'd/aged the chrome hardware on the Jackson, along with the body and pickup. And I wired both up myself. Painting, soldering, and relic'ing - three of my favorite pastimes!
WHAT'S NEXT? MORE PINE...
Because assembling the Charvel Telehawk and the Jackson '49 Pinecaster guitars were so much fun, I decided to do a few more pine guitars with Fender headstock decals. Well, more than a few. Twenty in all (plus one bonus). There are some common themes among the 21:
---each guitar has a 22-fret Mighty Mite neck (one has 21 frets), 5 have V backs, and just 7 of the 21 have rosewood boards (the remaining are maple)
---each one has a Fender headstock decal, Fender neck plate, Schaller straplocks, Electrosocket jack cup, and chrome/nickel hardware
---each guitar is fully relic'd to different degrees (wood and hardware)
---each one is strung with D'Addario EXL110 (10-46) strings
---18 of the 21 pine bodies are from the now-defunct Red Dirt Guitar Works manufacturer that was located in Decatur, Texas
---I painted, stained, and applied tung oil to 20 of the 21 bodies
---I purchased pre-wired Tele harnesses for 3 of them, installed a plug-in EMG active set for one, and hand-wired the remaining 17
---14 of the 21 feature Fender bridges; two have Bigsby vibratos
---I used pickups from 11 different manufacturers - Seymour Duncan, Fender, DiMarzio, GFS, Illusion, TV Jones, Rio Grande, Van Zandt, Lindy Fralin, Golden Age, and EMG
---17 of the guitars have pickguards and many are unique (I hand-cut 2 of the pickguards)
---I used 19 different colors on the 21 bodies (3 are black)
---the guitars represent various real and mythical Fender modified and prototype models from 1948 through 1976; one is an old pine version of a 2011 model
---I used only slotted screws on all pre-1955 representation models
---I made a pine Stratocaster - my amazing Fender '54 Pine Super Strat
---I even made a pine Tele bass - my Fender Vintage Pine Tele Bass
---And yes, I did a striped Van Halen custom tribute model - my Charvel EVH Pine Tele-Wolf
STORIES BEHIND EACH PINE TELE
A 21 PINE SALUTE
1 - Fender ''Nocaster'' Esquire
2 - Fender ''La Cabronita'' Especial Custom
3 - Fender Broadcaster Jr
4 - Fender Telecaster -Bigsby-
5 - Fender Broadcaster
6 - Fender Telecaster -Dirty Harry-
7 - Fender Telecaster -Western-
8 - Fender '51 ''Nocaster'' -No Guard-
9 - Fender Esquire ''Hot Mod'' -No Guard-
10 - Fender Telecaster -Strat Tone-
11 - Fender Esquire -Tapped-
12 - Fender Telecaster -Texas Special-
13 - Fender Tele-Bigsby PAF
14 - Fender TeleStrat
15 - Fender Tele-Soapbar
16 - Fender Telecaster -Strate Plate-
17 - Fender Telecaster -EMG '76-
18 - Fender Esquire -Split Rails-
19 - Fender '49 Spanish Electric
20 - Fender Telecaster -'73 Merlot
21 - Fender '50 Esquire -2 Pickup- [bonus]
MORE PINE SPECS & FACTS
Check out the Pine Teles Specs link for all the specifics at a glance, including painful step-by-step details for each Fender Pine Tele - in order!
TELE FACTS
Other Pine-flavored creations, but with different headstock logos:
Charvel EVH Pine Tele-Wolf
Charvel Telehawk
ESP Phoenix Junior
Fender '54 Pine Super Strat
Fender Vintage Pine Tele Bass
Jackson '49 Pinecaster
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