Custom Telecaster – IronGear Steel Twin Dual Coil -Freewayswitch – Stetsbar T-Style tremolo

Hervé Senni

4 years ago

Custom Telecaster

I have built this guitar before departing from France. It’s one of the few guitars I took with me when I relocated to Thailand.

I used the first-price kit from Thomann. I only kept the wood parts and replaced the hardware completely.
I installed Planet wave locking tuners, two rolling trees, a set of IronGear Pickups for Telecaster, a Stetsbar T-Style tremolo, a Free-Way Blade freewayswitch, two push-pull pots, and a pair of strap locks.

It appears that since I bought those locking tuners, the brand Planet Wave was aquired by the famous string company Dadarrio.

I don’t remember the brand of paint I used. I recall buying it on Amazon. The pot was tiny for the price, but it covers a lot. It is intended for rock painting. You can do more than one guitar with it, especially if you are only painting the body. Two coats were enough.

I applied Tru Oil lacquer on the body only. It was the first time I had used this lacquer. I applied three coats, and it was not enough. Since I read on the internet that I should have used up to ten coats. Anyway.

For the pickguard, I used my favorite technique of using fabric and epoxy. For the neck, I used a regular polyurethane varnish that I applied with a cloth. Instead of using two parts of polyurethane varnish, I used Varnish for Parquet Flooring. The mix is already done. If it is hard enough to walk over it for two years, it is more than stiff enough for a guitar neck.

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Concerning Electronic options

The Free-Way Blade offers three different pickup settings for a total of 6 positions. In the downward position, you have access to the standard telecaster wiring. For the three extra possibilities, you can wire it in many different ways.

You can download schematics at the Freewayswitch website, or download the one on the left to get the exact wiring I did.

The three extra options offers both pickups in series, both pickups out of phase in series, and both pickups out of phase in parallel mode.

The two push-pulls enable the second stack of each pickup to activate. In the down position, each pickup is in stack one mode, and in the up position, pickups are in stack two modes.