Left handed Telecaster Deluxe - ideas please

[sal paradise]

Soo, I accidentally managed to get a 70s style allparts Strat neck at trade price. Of course the natural next step was to order a telecaster deluxe body & pickguard from guitarbuild…

So… questions. What colour? What pickups? What else
Do I need to think of?

My heart says black, but my head says I’ll probably get bored with not. Not sure if LPB is a traditional colour, but those mij reissues sure are lovely. I really like sonic grey as a colour, too.

Should I just go with the Fender cunife reissue pickups? They’re kinda pricey. 250k or 500k pots?

[timtam]

For the full Deluxe experience I'd go CuNiFe and 1meg pots.

[sal paradise]

For the full Deluxe experience I'd go CuNiFe and 1meg pots.

Didn’t realise the Deluxe had 1meg pots. Will do some proper research. Thanks!

The fender Cunifes will cost more than the body & neck

[F15hface]

Gotta be a sparkle finish in my admittedly likely tasteless opinion. The aqua and purple FSR Squier deluxes from a couple of years ago were so cool.

[PapaB]

Humbuckers to me on the bridge are not as critical as they are on the neck, as I long as I get that nice ACDC tone thru an overdriven amp .... They must not be anemic and mix well on the middle position with the neck, especially clean ... but.
The neck has to be full, clear, articulate, must do clean very well, but excell at distortion, and the CuNiFe WRHB does thus admirably. People often say the TVJones Filtertrons sit well between a Fender and a Gibson tone, and this is true. But the WRHBs with CuNiFe magnets do too, albeit a bit more to the HB side. They definitely have a Fender flavour.
So my advice would be get at least one CuNiFe pup of your choice.
As far as color, if black is your thing go for it. Black guitars with matte black pickguards are very popular right now. On these guitars black has always been cool.
But again, since it's your custom, go crazy and try a color of your heart's content! If you like gray, if personally recommend the color of the HER strat, the first one. It's gray, but when strong directional light hits it, it's the colors of a rainbow.
Good luck. And do enjoy your new, custom ax!

[sal paradise]

Gotta be a sparkle finish in my admittedly likely tasteless opinion. The aqua and purple FSR Squier deluxes from a couple of years ago were so cool.

Yeah, those do look cool. But probably a bit fancy for my monochrome lifestyle.

Humbuckers to me on the bridge are not as critical as they are on the neck, as I long as I get that nice ACDC tone thru an overdriven amp .... They must not be anemic and mix well on the middle position with the neck, especially clean ... but.
The neck has to be full, clear, articulate, must do clean very well, but excell at distortion, and the CuNiFe WRHB does thus admirably. People often say the TVJones Filtertrons sit well between a Fender and a Gibson tone, and this is true. But the WRHBs with CuNiFe magnets do too, albeit a bit more to the HB side. They definitely have a Fender flavour.
So my advice would be get at least one CuNiFe pup of your choice.
As far as color, if black is your thing go for it. Black guitars with matte black pickguards are very popular right now. On these guitars black has always been cool.
But again, since it's your custom, go crazy and try a color of your heart's content! If you like gray, if personally recommend the color of the HER strat, the first one. It's gray, but when strong directional light hits it, it's the colors of a rainbow.
Good luck. And do enjoy your new, custom ax!

I did wonder whether wrhb’s are a risk as I’ve never used one. Still tempted by P90s tbh. But the former is a bit more exotic, and I like the idea of getting the real 72 experience. Except the 3 hole neck, I guess.

Colours will be tough. The Her silver is a bit much for me, like the sparkle

I’m definitely thinking in this ballpark…

[MattK]

Sonic gray, all the way! And maybe a parchment guard.

[JVG]

Agree on the parchment guard, unless you’ve already bought black.

For the body - if you were up for something with a bit of showiness i’d suggest Charcoal Frost, but if you want a more understated classy look how about good old sonic blue?

I would definitely go for CuNiFe pickups, though not necessarily Fender. They are damn expensive, but otherwise you may regret only going 80% of the way. That’s what happened to me.

Oh look, a segue to shamelessly show my lefty Deluxe build from a few years ago.

[sal paradise]

Sonic gray, all the way! And maybe a parchment guard.

You know I’m black guard kinda guy though…

Agree on the parchment guard, unless you’ve already bought black.

For the body - if you were up for something with a bit of showiness i’d suggest Charcoal Frost, but if you want a more understated classy look how about good old sonic blue?

I would definitely go for CuNiFe pickups, though not necessarily Fender. They are damn expensive, but otherwise you may regret only going 80% of the way. That’s what happened to me.

Oh look, a segue to shamelessly show my lefty Deluxe build from a few years ago.

But… oh man this is beautiful. What parts did you use? Did you go for 7.25” radius?

Appreciate the advice on pickups, think the new fender wrhb’s are the right choice. I ordered a black guard, can probably ask to change it though

I diy sprayed my other tele sonic blue, so that’s already taken care of

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

Hey Sal!

I‘m with you, Sonic Grey is an awesome color!

Also white Tele Deluxes have their charm.
The only one I ever played live was at a jam-session in Ljubljana where we had a tour stop back in 2019 and the host gave me his „Las Vegas Gold“ FSR model - and I was like… oh boy, I never even held a golden Fender in my hand let alone a sparkling one… and then, oh wow, that is nice… let‘s play some Funk with it!



I ended up building a Firemist Gold Telemaster-Custom…but that‘s another story.

[MattK]

Black guard is pretty nice on natural or walnut finish

[JVG]

But… oh man this is beautiful. What parts did you use? Did you go for 7.25” radius?

Appreciate the advice on pickups, think the new fender wrhb’s are the right choice. I ordered a black guard, can probably ask to change it though

I diy sprayed my other tele sonic blue, so that’s already taken care of

Cheers man!

My Deluxe specs were/are:
Body: 3pc alder, Vintage White gloss poly (Warmoth)
Neck: 1pc maple, 25.5”, 65 Strat asymm. 81-94, gloss nitro (Musikraft)
Fretboard: 7.25” radius, 1 5/8” nut, 9055 frets, dots
Pickups: Creamery “Classic ‘71 Starcaster” set
Strings: nickel plated, roundwound, hex core 10 13 16 25w 34w 44w

The Creamery pickups are great, but if the Fender ones were available when i put this together, i would have used them.

Going back to your first post, black on black looks great too, so maybe stick with your first idea?

PS your sonic blue tele is beautiful!

[sal paradise]

But… oh man this is beautiful. What parts did you use? Did you go for 7.25” radius?

Appreciate the advice on pickups, think the new fender wrhb’s are the right choice. I ordered a black guard, can probably ask to change it though

I diy sprayed my other tele sonic blue, so that’s already taken care of

Cheers man!

My Deluxe specs were/are:
Body: 3pc alder, Vintage White gloss poly (Warmoth)
Neck: 1pc maple, 25.5”, 65 Strat asymm. 81-94, gloss nitro (Musikraft)
Fretboard: 7.25” radius, 1 5/8” nut, 9055 frets, dots
Pickups: Creamery “Classic ‘71 Starcaster” set
Strings: nickel plated, roundwound, hex core 10 13 16 25w 34w 44w

The Creamery pickups are great, but if the Fender ones were available when i put this together, i would have used them.

Going back to your first post, black on black looks great too, so maybe stick with your first idea?

PS your sonic blue tele is beautiful!

My neck has the same nut width, how does it feel I in the hand? Excited to have a Tele with 7.25” radius, I love the feel of that shape fretboard. It’s poly finish from Allparts, should be solid enough.

I’m thinking black now actually. Sonic grey with black guard can look at bit plain, less green/blue seems to come through in pictures I’m looking at.

Did some internets searching this morning & got places to source nearly all the parts now. So gotta find someone to finish the body

[sal paradise]

Body made & is with the finisher.

I think I’ve decided on black. BIG question: nitro, or period correct poly?

[JVG]

Big question indeed!

If you have a preference for one or the other (generally speaking, not specific to this guitar), I would advise to go with that rather than worry about vintage correctness.

If vintage correctness is the driver, then I guess you will need one of those insanely thick poly jobs. (Although the interwebs tells us this will stop your wood from breathing and all the toanz will be banished to somewhere far away )

If you don’t have a preference, go with the cheaper option!