Topic: stripped my telecaster down to the pure wood.

just bought this highway one american telecaster in red wine color. this thing was UGLY,, got me some steel wool, and went rubbing and rubbing,9 hours later, i was amazed at the beautiful wood grane! ididn,t know fender used that nice of wood. has any of you ever experence this? joe

Re: stripped my telecaster down to the pure wood.

You're lucky! Because I have stripped guitars (Epi's and Squiers) to discover the ugly materials they are made of.
I bought an Epiphone LP Junior for very little money, it sounded awful. So I proceeded to take it apart, neck, pckups, bridge, pickguard and all... I discovered that the real nice sunburst was literally only skin-deep. The body was made of nothing else but plywood. It looked like good plywood though...

A Squier Jagmaster looks and sounds like a nice guitar, so I bought two. I stripped one of its black poly coat and underneath showed the real "wood" body: A substance that doesn't even look like wood. It's more like pressed shit or some industrial waste product resembling wood. I was disgusted and gave it good coat of saealer and a professional nitro-lacquer paintjob in surf-green. Don't ever remind me of this experience. All this means that you got a lucky break! Get some info on properly finishing it, maybe with clear lacquer if you like the wood so much!

Play On!

Re: stripped my telecaster down to the pure wood.

this guitar is a american made fender telecaster highway one. the wood looks like oak! joe

Re: stripped my telecaster down to the pure wood.

tricountygas wrote:

this guitar is a american made fender telecaster highway one. the wood looks like oak! joe

More than likely it is an alder body (nothing wrong with alder) if it has wide open grain than it is swamp ash but as stated I'll bet alder. You mentioned that you stripped it to bare wood with steel wool (quite a job) you probley still have sealer on it if you went down to far you will have to reseal it be fore you paint or dye it otherwise the wood will act like a sponge and suck up all your paint, or finish. If you have any questions or if I can help p.m. me.

Good luck,

Bootlegger.
Bootlegger guitars.

Re: stripped my telecaster down to the pure wood.

Oak would make for a very heavy guitar with difficult to control sustain (not impossible but...). Wood can vary tone but often the maker compensates with build details. In the bass world some very heavy woods are used. I couldn't believe the difference between my friends Warwick corvette and my bass. Although the Corvette body is smaller it's much heavier, my Ibanez is bulky but lighter (probably ash/alder/swamp etc). Of course in bass land sustain makes for big muscley notes, in regular guitars it can mean ringing and screeching!

'The sound of the city seems to disappear'