CHAPTER 1 of a GUITAR BUILDING SERIES !
I am building a custom shop telecaster FROM SCRATCH based on the 1951 Nocaster / Blackguard specs.
The first chapter will focus on the initial swamp ash cutting / routing / sanding down to specs.
All steps are done by me with the supervision of the master builders at the Boatyard Guitar Workshop ( London )
I have referenced a couple of Fender Custom Shop vids with interesting info on wood matching and resonance.
• Tone Woods Part II - B...
• Tone Wood: Necks | Fen...
A BIT OF TELECASTER HISTORY :
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele, is the world's first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music. Introduced for national distribution as the Broadcaster in the autumn of 1950, it was the first guitar of its kind manufactured on a substantial scale and has been in continuous production in one form or another since its first incarnation
Early prototypes employed different shapes and ingredients, but the final form was achieved by early 1950, when Fender released the Esquire as the first production solidbody electric guitar. It later became the Broadcaster for a time, and, by mid 1951-and forever after-the Telecaster. (The Esquire then settled in as the Tele’s single-pickup sibling.) Elements such as the adjustable bridge with three steel (later brass) saddles, through-body stringing, a solid swamp ash body, and a bolton maple neck combined to make the guitar both highly functional and sonically eviscerating. Two adjustable pickups-both developed in previous incarnations for Fender’s lap-steel guitars-further enhanced the cutting twang that players of the day were craving.
The so-called "Nocaster" was a short-lived variant of Telecaster. Produced in early to mid-1951, it was the result of legal action from the Gretsch company over the guitar's previous name, the Broadcaster (Gretsch already had the "Broadkaster" name registered for a line of drums). In the interim, before Fender had come up with an alternate name and printed appropriately revised headstock decals, factory workers simply snipped the "Broadcaster" name from its existing stock of decals, so guitars with these decals are identified simply as "Fender", without any model name. By the summer of 1951 the guitar was officially renamed as the Telecaster and has been known as such ever since.
The term Nocaster was coined by collectors to denote these transitional guitars that appeared without a model name on the headstock. Since they were manufactured in this form for only a few months very early in the Broadcaster/Telecaster's history, original Nocasters are highly prized and expensive collector's items. There are no official production numbers, but experts estimate that fewer than 500 Nocasters were produced. Fender has since registered Nocaster as a trademark to denote its modern replicas of this famous rarity.
"Blackguard" Telecasters are those produced between 1950 and 1954, named after their black pickguard. Fender began installing white pickguards on Telecasters in 1956, so any tele before that is considered a "blackguard" tele.
Blackguards had flatpole alnico 3 pickups and ash bodies, which provided a somewhat different sound from that of a modern tele. Also, at least until 1952, their pickup selector was wired differently from the modern 3-way configuration. The switch still had 3 positions, but the first two were both neck-pickup-only selections, one voiced "dark" and one normal. The third position was the bridge pickup, with the neck pickup blended in depending on the position of the tone control.
Blackguards are the most sought after tele's for collectors purposes, and are also quite pricey if you can find one. Fender does make a reissue of the 1952 model that is quite accurate, including the pickup wiring schematics, ash body, and neck shape (blackguards had really deep necks, U-shaped.)