Is there such a thing as a 'dog'?

richardhomer

miserneil said:

I have a '77 Custom Telecaster that has a neck pocket like a wizards sleeve, manufactured from the finest concrete and covered, frets 'n all with thick poly goo.

The neck wide range humbucker sounds like you are shouting into a bucket and the bridge pickup will strip paint off walls.

It's been to 2 techs and still comes back shite. I refuse to spend anymore money on it.

It's everything that's bad about a CBS Fender and my bench mark of a dog.

However, its shortly going to be in the classifieds with a flowery description of being from the 'CBS Golden Era' for £3k....

You're doing it wrong! Play it through a vintage amp and it'll be perfect....

Bridgehouse

miserneil said:

Bridgehouse said:

@miserneil For goodness sakes man, swap those pups out - or give it over and let us swap them out.. Shurly it can be saved.

Or just shoot the bugger.

I reckon, if I took the pickups out and cut it in half, I might be able to get to down to around 8lbs in weight....

Pics or GTFO

IvisonGuitars

richardhomer said:

miserneil said:

I have a '77 Custom Telecaster that has a neck pocket like a wizards sleeve, manufactured from the finest concrete and covered, frets 'n all with thick poly goo.

The neck wide range humbucker sounds like you are shouting into a bucket and the bridge pickup will strip paint off walls.

It's been to 2 techs and still comes back shite. I refuse to spend anymore money on it.

It's everything that's bad about a CBS Fender and my bench mark of a dog.

However, its shortly going to be in the classifieds with a flowery description of being from the 'CBS Golden Era' for £3k....

You're doing it wrong! Play it through a vintage amp and it'll be perfect....

Haha! ;-)

impmann

To answer the original question - set up can help a bad guitar, much akin to rolling a turd in glitter. 

But it If the wood isn't much cop, no amount of fret levelling, relief or action adjustment is going to make it miraculously start sounding nice. Likewise dropping expensive boutique pickups into a £50 plywood copy isn't going to make it sound like a "Golden Era" guitar.

Wood is a naturally occurring thing - it has faults and flaws, which is what makes it interesting. Back in the "Golden Era", contrary to what some may think thanks to the bullshit from some, experienced luthiers did NOT "tap test" each piece of wood. Nor did they "carefully select" each piece for grain. Nor did they spend hours pouring over the finest finishes on every instrument, rejecting all the bad ones. In the case of Fender in the late 50s, they were rushed out the door as they had labour shortages as they couldn't afford any more (semi skilled) workers but had a backlog of orders.

So yes, there were Friday afternoon specials. There were good ones. And there were excellent ones too. Much like any production batch before and since.