Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Speaking of Telecasters

#1

I’m thinking about about buying a 50’s “Roadworn” Telecaster. This is a Mexican made model that captures the vintage specs of a Telecaster made in the fifties. I’ve only had 3 Telecasters, well 2 actually… my last one was a partscaster with an Eric Capton Warmoth neck and I have no clue what the body was. Awesome guitar though but did not like the neck.

Before that was an American Professional Tele and before that was a “Player” Telecaster which is a basic, typical Tele made in Mexico. Honestly, the quality was about the same as well as sound and playability… Both guitars were superb. The Mexican made Fenders are very imprssive!

My question is, has anyone tried a 50’s Roadworn Tele? What’s attracting me is first, they relic them from the factory, but mostly they have a chuncky U shaped neck. I prefer bigger necks on all my guitars and most Fenders are rather slim. The downfall is, these have a 7.25" radius rather than the more modern 9.5" that most Fenders have nowadays. I’ve never tried a 7.25" and am wondering how I will like it. I mostly play lead and do quite a bit of blues type bending.

Just wondering if any of you all have tried one or something similar and how you liked it?

Thanks in advance!!

J.W.

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#2

I am not much of an electric player, but I will say that if you bend much up the neck, a 7.25 will have some compromise required. To keep it from fretting out, you’d have to run the action a bit higher. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that is the main reason the tight radiuses went away for the most part. I’d recommend playing something similar before buying one unless you are getting it at a good enough deal where you could sell it without losing much.

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#3

That’s some good advice from Mike. Teles were made for string bending IMHO. 7.25” is a really tight radius. I don’t think that would work for me.

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#4

Of course I’ll give a like to someone who said I gave good advice :slight_smile:

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#5

Thanks guys!

What you said is kinda what I’ve been thinkin too. There’s a reason guitar builders went to 9.5, 10 and 12" radiuses!

The partscaster I had was a 10 - 16" compound radius (gets flatter toward the bridge). I really couldn’t tell much difference going up the neck and being aware that it was a compound radius, I even tried to notice and still couldn’t. I guess a compound radius is ok but a huge downfall is, they cannot be Plek’ed! I called Sweetwater to verify. I would think a compound radius would also be very difficult to maintain when it comes time to level, crown and polish the frets!

The Tele I’m looking at is a good deal but it’s over an hour from home. Wish I was close to a store that had one!

Thanks again!

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#6

I have a little compound to a couple guitars I have. It shouldn’t be too bad for a pro. I took a shot at it and was happy with the results. You are leveling a cone instead of a cylinder. There are formulas to determine the aim point of the level, but in a nutshell, you level in the direction of the string lie instead of perpendicular to the nut. To visualize, think about this: The string spacing is wider at the bridge than the nut. If you shot a laser along the low E and high E strings past the nut (and high enough to clear it), those lasers would cross somewhere beyond the headstock. You’d level by filing toward that point.

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