Francis Rossi - Wedding gift guitar- Modding project- IT'S DONE!

DrJazzTap

As many of you know I've been yabbering on about doing a Francis Rossi telecaster for my future brother in law's wedding, to be given to him as a surprise wedding gift.

I was looking at getting a Mexican Tele, but I struggled to find one for a decent price (sub £400). Add on top of that, the wedding is about six weeks away. @mart very kindly offered me a rather excellent Classic vibe at a brilliant price, we met up today at a service station and had a socially distanced chat.

I've ordered a Rothko and Frost lime green nitro spray paint, a customised decal for the headstock. That will be his full name with his surname having "ocaster" tagged onto the end of it. I've asked for his initials to go on as well, that will prefix the date of the wedding which will be the serial number.

I'm going to order a customised neck plate, which again will have the date of his wedding etched onto it. Either with the initials of the couple or SQ (for status quo).

In terms of the electrics, we are still umming and ahhing on that one. My friend whose carrying out the work, I believe would like to do a full on three pickup version of the Rossi guitar. I'm trying to keep costs down, so I'm keen to use the existing pickups. I could possibly buy some cheap blade style pickups (artecs) to ape the look of the three pickup guitar.

Step one will be to look at the body. Strip the finish and sort the colour out, i dont think the classic vibe has a swimming pool route for a nashville tele?

I might buy gibson style tunomatic, but again yeah it's keeping the cost down.

And yes....we will be drilling the hole.

At the moment the guitar looks like this, and it sounds lovely, actually a bit sad to put it through the Rossi ringer! But hey ho, he will be absolutely overjoyed when it's done.  Obviously pics and more info to follow!  Thanks again @mart ;;

CarbonCopy

Have you made any progress? I love a bit of Quo!

DrJazzTap

Well i have the paint, went with Dartfords nitro lacquer in lime, and i have the custom decal. 
Trying to get costs uptogether to look at adding a gibson style bridge. In terms of the pickups, I really like the existing oil city pickups.
The cheapest way I've thought of to replica the look of the rossi guitar would be to fit a strat set in with some plastic white covers on top. 
That seems a shame to me, as you'd lose the telecaster voice. Plus its a lot of faffing to get those pickups to fit in the guitar. 

The idea I like at the moment, is to fit a strat middle pickup (a tonerider or oil city) then fit a five way blade switch. I would also like to fit a pull pot to disengage the centre pickup. So that in position three on the blade switch you have the traditional two tele pickups on.

So yeah its gearing towards a "inspired by" rossi telecaster. 

poopot

https://www.guitarfacelift.com/products.htm

He does a Francis Rossi one... get it so you can replicate the wear... or just stick it on!!!!!!!

DrJazzTap

poopot said:

https://www.guitarfacelift.com/products.htm

He does a Francis Rossi one... get it so you can replicate the wear... or just stick it on!!!!!!!

I would be lying to say I haven't looked at getting a francis rossi face mask  

poopot

Deffo get a Rossi face mask!!!!

a few years back we did a wedding and one request from the groom was we “had” to play my generation.

we had a dep bass player for that gig and told him what he had to play... he wasn’t happy with that particular song “got a bloody solo in it ffs” etc etc.

so we told him he had to learn it as one of the guests was roger daltry and he may get up to sing... complete and utter lies!... he didn’t believe us and was having none of it.

so I sent a dm on Facebook to the who and explained exactly what was happening... they sent the best tweet ever!...

Bass monkey spent weeks nailing that bass line after reading that

best bit? We got a roger daltry mask and asked one of the guests to stand at the back of the room with it on... in the half light of the room it looked like roger was there!... bass monkey still tells the story of how he played for the who!!!!

so... yes... get a Rossi mask and get someone to wear it at the back of the room when you hand over the guitar!

CarbonCopy

How about replicating a previous era of that guitar when it still had the Tele pickups? That would be easier.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/bbc/images/002statusquo/08.jpg&imgrefurl=http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/complete/pages/002statusquo.html&docid=y7PaDa-p1fRq4M&tbnid=bs8DToQl__cXUM&vet=1&source=sh/x/im

DrJazzTap

CarbonCopy said:

How about replicating a previous era of that guitar when it still had the Tele pickups? That would be easier.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/bbc/images/002statusquo/08.jpg&imgrefurl=http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/complete/pages/002statusquo.html&docid=y7PaDa-p1fRq4M&tbnid=bs8DToQl__cXUM&vet=1&source=sh/x/im

Yeah I had thought about that mate. Still involves farting around with the bridge. I'm trying to keep costs down atm. Its going to be an inspired by model, I'm gonna get it routed for a middle pickup with nashville wiring.  

steamabacus

A plain white strat pickup cover should fit over the tele neck pickup (I've just checked with a cover and a cheapie tele neck pickup in my parts box). Assuming the bridge pickup is flat poles it should be possible to fashion a plain white plastic top plate to fit on top. Combined with a plain white cover on the middle strat pickup and a new scratchplate, that should get you pretty closed to the correct look (and you keep the Oil City pickups on it which must be good!)

[edit] Or even the covered tele neck pickup in the middle with a cheaper white rails type in the neck!

BeardyAndy

Am I the only one thinking you could save a lot of hassle and use Ronseal instead of nitro?

DrJazzTap

steamabacus said:

A plain white strat pickup cover should fit over the tele neck pickup (I've just checked with a cover and a cheapie tele neck pickup in my parts box). Assuming the bridge pickup is flat poles it should be possible to fashion a plain white plastic top plate to fit on top. Combined with a plain white cover on the middle strat pickup and a new scratchplate, that should get you pretty closed to the correct look (and you keep the Oil City pickups on it which must be good!)

[edit] Or even the covered tele neck pickup in the middle with a cheaper white rails type in the neck!

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, I've just bought a set for £4 from ebay. If I can cut the plastic top off, that might do it. 
I just don't really want to take away too much teleness from the guitar. And i don't want to get involved with farting around with the bridge (might get some compensated saddles though).

BeardyAndy said:

Am I the only one thinking you could save a lot of hassle and use Ronseal instead of nitro?

Haha well having painted my fences twice with Ronseal, I can see why people use cuprinol! 

randella

DrJazzTap said:

Haha well having painted my fences twice with Ronseal, I can see why people use cuprinol! 

Hahaha, I agree.  I've just had to do the third side of my garden with Ronseal as Cuprinol seem to have given up during lockdown and I couldn't get it anywhere.  The Ronseal stuff might have done what it said on the tin if they changed what it said on the tin I had from "one coat" to "at least three coats".

Anyway I'm keeping an eye on the Rossi guitar - the Quo have always been a guilty pleasure of mine, got to see them only the once but I can say that Rossi's nowhere near the grafter on guitar he makes himself out to be

impmann

I have a Mex Tele body that I stained in Crimson Guitars Emerald Green stain then applied tru oil over the top. It looks very Quo like but without being too
much of a clone...

impmann

DrJazzTap

impmann said:

Looks good mate. The rossi guitar has been stripped and has been routed out for a centre pickup

DrJazzTap

So this is the guitar in it's current state. We've managed to find a reasonably priced bridge unit. So we are going to be cutting down the squire plate. The Rossi one is a G&L speed loader, which is about £70-80. Northwest guitars do a very similar unit for about £15.

Next stage is what to do with the pickups. I really like the sound of the oil Citys, and part of me doesnt want to lose the Teleness of it. But again I'm overthinking it. The chap whose receiving it, won't notice such details. Again trying to keep the cost down, although my mate whose doing the relic work and refinishing is doing it at "mates rates" it's still a lot of cash already invested in the guitar. It is a wedding gift and I know he's gonna be over the moon with it.

impmann

I’ve got a ton of that stain left over from doing mine. 
Do you want to ‘borrow’ enough to finish your guitar and then send me back what’s left over?
No stress either way.

DrJazzTap

impmann said:

I’ve got a ton of that stain left over from doing mine. 
Do you want to ‘borrow’ enough to finish your guitar and then send me back what’s left over?
No stress either way.

Thanks very much mate ,  but we've already got the paint sorted bud. The bonus with the rossi guitar i guess, is that its pretty beat up. Again thank you for the very kind offer. 

mart

That’s looking good! It’s already looking completely different from the guitar I sold you.

Sarge

Sell the oil city pickups, buy the appropriate ones and invest the balance? 

DrJazzTap

so this is the latest photo