Telecaster BlackTop HH

After my last adventure installing a new neck on my Telecaster I was obviously left with an orphaned neck. What to do, what to do... Just keep it as a spare part... seems like a waste.. Sell it for some cash to offset the purchasing of the new neck! hmm...seems like a hassle.. Ok.. what's left then? Oh yeah get ANOTHER body for this neck!

To me, guitars are one of a few things you can NEVER have enough of, so what the hell and let's build another Telecaster. Now the first decision to make is obviously : do you want to build it totally from scratch from the ground up, or just find a 'take-off' body so all you have to do is screw on the neck?
I started doing a little digging and pricing things out and it just didn't make any sense to start totally from scratch. I would have to buy everything down to the pickguard, strap mounts etc and with some decent pickups the cost started to go past that of a whole new guitar.

Wanting to keep this a budget build ,just for something 'fun', I had to figure out how much I did want to spend. I noticed people were selling original necks for around $200 or so on Ebay, so I figured with a MIM Tele running about 499 nowadays, if I could find a body that was loaded for less than 300 I would be sitting pretty good. A LOT of bodies that were 'loaded' were being sold for 400 (buy it now) or more and I just didn't want to touch that, so instead I ventured into the actual 'auction' world on ebay for the first time.

As I was searching by price I found several decently priced Telecaster HH BlackTop bodies for sale. A quick readup on the model showed it to be basically a Double Humbucker Mexican Tele. Not totally what I was going for since I was really looking for a 'standard' tele setup, but it looked cool. One in particular was still only at $150 when I first saw so I entered the bidding process. The next few days people kept bidding on it and I had to keep raising my max bid since I was outbid a few times. Finally the auction closing day came and I had noted the auction was going to expire at 10:25am.. as I checked throughout the morning I was still in the lead until about 10:00AM.. oh no! Someone made a higher bid! Not a last minute bidding war! I upped my max bid a decent amount and took the lead again..As the time kept ticking away nothing else seemed to be happening and voila it was mine. A quick paypal payment later and the item was being shipped same day by USPS..

Now the waiting began. Luckily it was being shipped just from 1 state over so it shouldn't take that long. Of course USPS is horrible with it's tracking and me checking every 15 minutes like someone with OCD didn't make it go any faster. Finally I received the delivery. It was packaged VERY well with lots of bubble wrap and double boxed. The body was in pristine condition with the plastic still even on the pickguard (though a few visible 'smudges/scratches' on the plastic cover showing someone had at least tried the guitar when the neck was still attached to it). Overall - GREAT purchasing experience and the body looked great.

Normally the BlackTop Series comes with a 22 Fret Neck. My Neck, coming from my wine red MIM Standard only had 21. This however is not an issue, since the way Fender makes these 22 fret necks is by having a 'lip' for that last fret that sticks out past the neck, so that the length from Nut to Neck-Pocket does not change between 21 and 22 frets.

Left: 21 fret neck ; Right: 22 fret neck clearing showing the extra fret & lip overhang

 
Now I know I want maple on almost all my guitars, but to be honest I thought the Silver/Black/Rosewood combo show by the Pro Guitar Shop on their site looked pretty sharp too! And the sound kicks ass too! Maybe someday I'll venture back into 'rosewood' land. That, by the way, is the GREAT thing about these relatively cheap guitars and why I love Fenders: It is SO easy to change something out and try out something new. Whilst if I had a $3k Les Paul or something I'd be weary to even swap pickups (nor could you swap necks)! As I read in someone's signature in an online forum: "Just because I can afford a $5000 guitar doesn't make it a goo idea". Sure, I have my expensive guitar, and while that one does play the best out of any of my guitars, I seem to have more fun with the cheaper models because I like to tinker with them and don't worry about them getting dinged & scratched etc (not that I ever mean to.. I think 'relic-ing' is the stupidest thing going on out there right now... but that's for another discussion... )

The date on the actual neck seems to say 8 S.. .010. Based on other reports I knew the date was in Spanish, so the only month starting with an S would be September. So it would seem my body date is 8 September 2010 (or 18, or 28 but I can't tell if there ever was a number in front of the 8 because of a hole right there).

Also there's the 'mysterious' FPS stamp other people have mentioned online , with no one knowing anything really about it, though people seem to gravity to the meaning of 'Fender', 'Poly' and 'Spray' as Initials describing the manufacturer and the paint/finish process. The 'serial' number or whatever it is, is almost impossible to read, but seems to say "9 268950" (not sure if there is/was a digit at the position of the space).

Once the neck was on all I could say was 'WOW'! This is one sharp looking guitar! At first I had my reservations because of the 'flipped' control plate and 'amp'-like Volume & Tone Knobs. But seeing it all come together like that REALLY makes this guitar look amazing.

While I was contemplating going with some 0.010's I figured I'd try the 0.009's instead since I had like 10 triple packs laying around of those and since I don't change my strings every week it was about time some of them got used. I could instantly tell the 'cheaper' bridge on this vs my other MIM telecaster. The bridge saddles with their adjustment screws sticking out were already digging into my hand. Obviously I'll have to adjust them or swap them out for a little shorter ones because there's no need for these to be sticking out like a 1/8" of an inch above the saddle itself. (This is also one of my pet peeves with Les Pauls where the bridge just digs into your hand).

Playing the guitar I found the comfort 'belly' cut to be a nice feature, making it hang ever so slightly more comfortable. As I played through some basic chords etc I noticed that the tone knob seems to be a Log-Pot or something. Basically 1 = dark, while from about 2 or 3 to 10 it all sounds the same The Humbuckers give a nice full sound, although compared my Seymour duncans in my other Telecaster they seem to lack a little personality. This could be due to the fact I had to play quietly so I will update this after I've played the guitar a bit more extensively. Also ,  no big surprise here, I found the Standard Neck to almost be a hassle compared to my All-Parts TMO-V Neck. I can see why people like Eric Clapton swear by the V-Neck. It just seems SO much more comfortable, and if anything , I also find the 7.25" Radius to be  much nicer to play on than the standard 9.5. But overall it's a nice guitar - perfect to just throw around and have some fun on :)

Update: After playing for about 30 minutes on it at a much nicer volume all I can say is WOW this thing rocks! Definitely a darker sound than any of my other guitars (even the other humbuckers) , so forget super sparkling clean sounds, but fantastic for basic rock/blues & beyond! It certainly is a great addition to the collection!