About Alex_SF

Features: It's a basic Tele, but features go a little more than basic. Lightweight swamp ash (or whatever the Korean equivalent is) body. It's in a natural finish, the way an ash-bodied guitar is supposed to be so you can see that beautiful open wood grain. Sunburst or semi-see-through butterscotch would have been acceptable second choices, but Fender doesn't offer those finish options with this model -- the other finishes for this model (Black and Vintage White) are both opaque, which simply Will Not Do.

Two-piece body, matched so well that it's hard to spot the joint running down the middle, and thick poly lacquer that seems pretty durable. Rounded body edges, which some have complained about but which I like. The birdseye maple neck (and fingerboard!) is also gorgeous, with a satin / matte finish so it's not sticky-feeling, and with abalone dot markers. This guitar is absolutely stunning-looking: very classy without being gaudy at all. Neck is fairly thick, don't know what the exact profile is called but it feels fine to me. Unbranded sealed (Schaller-style) tuners in chrome; vintage-style ashtray bridge unit with three 2-string brass barrel-style saddles instead of individual string saddles. No bridge cover, which is fine by me. Stock pickups are Seymour Duncan APTR-1 neck, APTL-1 bridge ("alnico II pro") for "warm, moderate-output single-coil" (per Seymour Duncan) tone (but don't let that description fool you -- the neck pickup can scream AND twang with the best of them through the right amp). Plastic nut. Basic Tele controls: 3-way selector switch, vol/tone knobs. One-ply black pickguard (stock, but mine had a 1-ply white pickguard when I bought it used). This last part baffled me a bit: on a guitar that looks so classy otherwise, why would they put a cheap-looking 1-ply pickguard on it? It should have a 3-ply black pickguard. Oh yeah, and this is sort of a "Nocaster," i.e. there is no "Telecaster" legend on the machine head, only the Fender logo -- but in fat CBS-era script rather than the vintage "spaghetti" script, which is strange considering some of the other vintage styling aspects of this guitar.

Note: the pickguard on this model is shaped differently from standard Tele pickguards: if you try to swap pickguards, you will need to remove some material from the new pickguard around the neck area, to make the neck notch in the pickguard both wider and deeper.

I've made a couple of significant mods to mine: I added a tortoise (3-ply - HA!) pickguard (which looks fantastic on a natural ash finish guitar with nice grain) and swapped in a GFS Dream 180 humbucker in the neck position. Routing was required. I also added a Fender Super 5-way switch, to allow a wide variety of pickup configurations (neck only in series / parallel; neck (tapped) /bridge in series / parallel; and bridge only), for a very versatile array of sounds. Oh, and a Strat switch tip, which I prefer to the Tele switch tip.

With the mods, this guitar gets a 10 from me. In stock trim, I deduct a couple of points for the 1-ply pickguard and the standard Tele basic-ness of the pickups and wiring (though that last part seems a bit unfair, like docking a Tweed Champ for not having more controls), and an additional point for not coming with a hard or soft case (though mine did come with a TKL aftermarket hardshell case from the previous owner). But I add a point back for the sheer bang for the buck that this guitar gives you at this price point. I considered taking off a point for the vintage bridge without individual saddles, but ended up not letting that affect my rating, because it is adjustable for height and intonation and also looks a little cooler than the newer bridges. And I deduct about 0.1 of a point for the CBS-style "Fender" logo rather than a spaghetti logo on the machine head.