So since this is more and more becoming the Mapz axe of choice, why don't y'all yank out your twang planks a lil while with some pics and specs and clips and such?

These are my tele-like geetars, one real, two homemade:



They go in order from top to bottom of age/acquisition.

1. The blue one is MIM, late nineties era. This is my main guitar, and if the house lit on fire, this is the one i would chuck out the window first to save. I have been around a bit with trying various tele things out on it, and am now back to the MIM 6-saddle bridge. The pickups, pickguard, and straplocks are GFS. The pickups are "cool vintage" railbuckers that are old-ish, and i don't know if the current ones are even the same. They are nice though, the bridge is kind of PAF-ish output, wayyy crunchier than the stock MIM, and actually kind of oddly suited to hair metally sorts of sounds, bright crunchy, biting. The neck is lowish output (i prefer for more even brightness balancing with the bridge) and reminds me a lot of a strat neck pickup, minus the hum. The bridge feeds back a fair bit with lots and lots of gain and volume, partly due to the way it is mounted in a metal plate that can ring, partly due to the fact that the rail humbuckers seem a little more feedback-prone than full sized humbuckers. The guitar is heavy, and i was looking for a bit for a lighter #1, but so far nothing has worked quite as well. It is just dialed in right for me i guess.

2. The shit-colored one is the Pinecaster I, built of Lowes lumber(stair stringer material i think). I have tried a lot of different things in this, and now it is back to about where i started, the GFS 3-saddle, and a set of GFS vintage style single coils. The pickups are weak and bright, but the guitar is an odd bird in a lot of ways, so the way they are weak and bright works okay for it. The neck is a Mighty Mite thing that turned out to be way fatter and better than i expected for $100 new. Prolly going to harvest the neck at some point for a sort of mustang/jazzmaster thing that i have waiting in the back of my head at the moment.

3. The last one is my Garbagecaster(alternately, Pinecaster II), built out of boredom, and of donated and found junk from all over. The body is from a lightning struck hemlock tree i cut up, the neck was a $20 or $30 cheap chinese shit factory second that doesn't have a functioning truss rod but just barely sets up for a playable arrangement on this. The pickup is the old, stock, MIM that originally came in the blue guitar, which i have grown to dislike, especially compared to the much ballsier railbucker in that other guitar. The future holds a conversion of this guitar into a Nashville style three-pickup setup with a strat 5-way switch. I want one set up like that, and this guitar is actually, unexpectedly, one i find very comfortable to play, almost as much as the blue one, even though there are more than a few odd things and quirks to the construction of this beast that in theory might have caused it to be uncomfortable.

I see you reversed the control cover there. I've wondered if maybe that'd be a sensible arrangement for myself also, seeing as I've grown up with strats and I reach around there for the volume knob instinctively.

Pinecasters are not all that unheard of, it seems. Dig this toneful hunk of cheese:

LIKE A BURRRD WITHOUT A NAEST... This song rocks.

And I see you drilled your own metal control covers there... did you buy the blank ones from GFS?

I always reverse the control setup, it is the only way that makes sense to me.

Aslo, the newer "Custom Vintage" or whatever they are called, i believe they made them as Squires, are also pine. Which is why they are generally so nice and light also.

The control covers, i just made out of flat stock from the hardware store. Pinecaster I is aluminum, Garbagecaster is steel. The aluminum can be cut with tin snips and then smoothed with files/sandpaper/steel wool, while the steel one needs a hacksaw(or my new favorite, a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade) for the roughing out, as it is too burly for the tinsnips.

Ah, it is actually "Classic Vibe":

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/ ... ric-guitar

Oh geez I had no idea those were pine! I think my friend has one, the bound neck humbuckered deal.

I *think* that only the type i poasted is pine, but i am not sure. I think you said that you had been lurking the TDPRI boards? If not, that is a fine place to search for details on the current crop of Fenders/Squires. The pine ones have been pretty well received in those parts.

I am currently Teleless, and in a strange twist am craving a LP.

Which means I'll probably get a tele sometime soon

I've been feeling the humbucker jones myself recently too. I'll probably wind up with an Agile LP- I really like the Tiger Eye finish- unless by some miracle I land a job that pays real monies. I want a hollowbody as well, but I have a feeling I'd play an LP more- this makes me miss my Eclipse.

Silverburst Tele:



Reverse controls- agreed on it making sense- pickups are... IIRC they're the Tele version of Fender Vintage something-or-other, not the Noiseless, though. Physically heavy guitar. I've since taken the neck pickup cover off. Appears recorded on lots of things.

I know there's shots of me with a plain MIM Standard wine red Tele (main rhythm guitars on Garda's Graphite and Knives) but I don't know where they're off to.

I'm in the same boat. I'd probably snag a Tobacco Burst Agile LP, but I'd have to sell my Semi-Hollow Talman ... and I kind of like having a semi-hollow.

If only I'd got that ad agency job; then I would have had around $30k to just piss away on gear (WTF else would I spend an assload of money on?) and still live comfortably. A girl can dream. I like the hollerbodies, so I'd keep that until I had an extra couple bills kicking about were I in your situation.

Red Tele:


You can't really see that it's red so much, only that there is a lot of gear in that room.

Re: Agile LPs, the 3000s seem like they're much nicer guitars than the 2000s. They're also $200 more new. Better nut and bridge (still decent tuners on both)- and I love the GraphTech saddles on my trusty black Strat- and I'm guessing the electronics are superior, too. The specs, at least, are nicer. That's the thing, though; the 2000s are so damn cheap, and the 3000s, besides having the bound headstock and whatnot, have all the upgrades you know you'll throw at the thing anyhow (minus "name" pickups, and locking tuners if those are your bag). The nut and bridge leaves me thinking; "name" hardware isn't necessarily going to make the thing sound any better save for intonation, but it will make it more enjoyable to play... And yeah, intonation (and how well it stays in tune, and in the case of the saddles, and, for me at least, how often strings break. I have a heavy right hand and the graphite saddles are a plus.)

On the Agile LP-likes, i have a AL-2000, and my dad has a AL-3000. The nut width is a little thinner on my dads(some of the 3000s are thinner, some wider), but other than that, the two guitars feel very similar. Like, VERY similar. Like aside from the abalone/mother-of-toilet-seat inlays, and a better bookmatch top veneer on the 3000, i don't see a whole lot between the guitars at all.

I swapped out the pickups in mine for some duncans but the stock ones were fine, and actually i have one of them currently in my SG in the neck position, and will stick the other one in something whenever i need a fullsize bucker for something.

I never had the slightest problem with anything on the guitar. One thing i did do and always do with LP-ish guitars though, is rewire the thing to 50s style, as i feel that it greatly improves the volume-down brightness/dullness thing that the normal wiring scheme tends to do. That is more of a LP-thing than an Agile thing though. I also remember doing a setup and cutting a couple of the nut slots lower with some sandpaper, but i have had to do that on every single other guitar i own as well, anyhow.

Other than the tone wiring and the pickups though, that guitar is 100% stock. Next to my telecaster it is the most reliable one i own. Really i only rate the tele higher because i like the telecaster shape better for playing. Functionally, the Agile is every bit as good. If i was going to play it live a bunch i might swap out the tuning pegs for some lockers for quicker changes, but i would also want to do that with my tele if that were the case. The stock pegs work fine, actually a lot better than the stupidly quick ratio pegs that came stock on my friends proper Gibson SG Standard.

I got mine back when they were $160. For that price it was kind of ridiculous. It is a very solid guitar.

Huh. Noted. Besides the wood, the hardware had me thinking. I know even the 2000s have decent tuners, not random POS tuners, which might be the biggest hardware issue on inexpensive guitars. Seeing all the GraphTech stuff on the current iterations of the 3000s, which I like from experience (GraphTech nuts and saddles, not the 3000s, which I've never played), I figger'd, perhaps incorrectly, that like most import sorts the rest of the thing would be a corresponding upgrade along with the hardware. (See, though, the previously mentioned non-shitty tuners. IIRC their tuners are the same across the board on all the LP-flavoured models. Grovers, I think?)

Re: locking tuners, I prefer them for convenience's sake, but I can live without them as long as they're decent and hold tune. They don't affect the tone, so I don't change them out, usually. Setups are a given- gotta have my heavy strings and high action.

Not to totally derail Geoff's thread, but what's the neck profile difference like? I liked the neck on my Eclipse as it was thinner side-to-side than a normal LP neck, but still had front-to-back depth, which I like 'cause I have large hands.

Totally random, but I am wondering what's sitting on top of the Fender Champ in the above picture; it looks like a pack of smokes, but I wonder if it's gear. I don't remember. Or who took the picture. Weird.

I hate abalone inlays so I'd want a 2000 regardless.

AMURRICAAA

ahhh the tele thread. I think my current teles will have to come with live shots, I think only the hamer I have without..

here's the newest tele... American Special 2010 I only swaped out the pickguard to be proper Izzy,


THis is the '97 MIM, splittable sc hum in the bridge, controls are vol, vol (pull to split) no tone knob, if I want more bass tone I bring up the neck. Also reversed.



ahh the '72 Deluxe RI, the LP tele.. has a Duncan Distortion in the bridge



the Hamer T-51 (just found out yesterday Fender is doing away with the Hamer line. This one has 2 SC hums in it. I will take it back to stock, it came to me this way.

Bound burst. Love that shit.

Quite a collection you have that Joey.

Does this mean Hamer will no longer offer sexy carved top mahogany guitars?

yup... no more Hamer anything... That's really a shame, I like hamer stuff. Top quality stuff.