Tele Mod - CooderCaster

[Mark M.]

I have been a lifelong fan of Ry Cooder’s music. Lately I have been studying his music, harmonizing scales in both Open G and Open D tunings, playing transcriptions and revisiting my longtime interest in slide guitar. So, I decided to modify my Mexican Road Worn Telecaster, replace the pickups with a Teisco-style gold foil in the neck and a Valco-style lap steel in the bridge, like Ry’s main guitar. I am a complete newbie to guitar modification, and I knew this would be a challenge for me to route the body for the new p/u’s, solder and install them, etc. I ordered the pickups from Mojo Pickups in England after researching extensively. I bought a small router and a channel bit, a Tele humbucker pickguard from StewMac, a good carving chisel, and a humbucker routing template, since the Teisco neck pickup I ordered was HB size. I took the risk and dove in, and overall I’m happy with the results.

The router bit was too deep for the pickup cavity, so I had to devise shims to adjust the height and allow me to lower the bit for the correct depth of cut while allowing the bit bearing to ride on the template and avoid damage to the template from the bit. So, this is what I improvised. I applied painter’s tape on the top, super glued the shim to the tape, then applied tape and super glue to the template, allowing me to cleanly remove it all from the top and cleanly remove the template from the shims. Overall, the cut went well but I had to finish it with the chisel. It’s not the prettiest pickup route, but it did the trick.




The bridge pickup/bridge assembly only required a shallow route under the pickups to accommodate some screws that extended down about 3mm. I just built a small fence using the same method as for the shims to create a stopping point for the router. I painted the pickup cavities with shielding paint.



Soldering went surprisingly well, though it took me awhile. I managed not to overheat the volume pot while soldering the ground wires. A win.



The saddle holes on the bridge assembly were a bit too small, and I made the rookie mistake of trying to to drill them out while still installed on the top and inadvertently “relic’d” the top with the rotating drill chuck. Live and learn. I made a bad cut when resizing the pickguard. I’ll need to buy a replacement and try again, but it’s good enough for now.

After attaching the neck I set out on the adventure of adjusting the action and intonation. Because the lap steel pickup is taller than the frets, action had to be set pretty high, which is ok since the primary use will be for slide playing. It is still playable by fretting, but it was a challenge to find the sweet spot where it still intonates properly without going sharp when fretting due to the high action. I’m using half wound 12’s, so there is also considerable string tension. It took a little getting used to and a few fine adjustments, but I think it plays well now.

The sound is glorious! These pickups are loud, fat, and clear as a bell. It’s very close to that Ry Cooder signature tone I love so much. I’m glad I took the chance to do this myself I learned a lot and ended up with a guitar I’m very happy with

[Mick-7]

That was brave of you, I would have practiced first on an old junker!

Ry has a web store from which you cannot buy anything because every single item is sold out -- Store — Ry Cooder

But wait, maybe the website serves other purposes?.... no, nothing to see there at all -- Events — Ry Cooder