Japanese Tele electronics overhaul

You may remember this Tele from January ~ I finally convinced the owner to let me change the electronics under the control plate!  The original set was perfectly functional, but hearing the guitar a few live shows convinced me that there was more that the pickups had to offer.

These original components are made of rather thin metal.  The selector lever was prone to bending and with the contacts of the switch itself contained in a plastic casing, it has a tendency to become scratchy after regular use.

The volume and tone controls also required regular cleaning and often loosened off.  They thought enough to install a treble bleed capacitor on the volume pot, but to do that job properly also requires a resistor.  I also wanted to change the capacitor between the volume and tone to one that would smooth out the higher frequencies.

The new assembly ~ complete with treble bleed, and orange drop .22uf capacitor and a no-load tone pot which essentially bypasses the tone control and capacitor when on 10, making the pickups sound like they're wired straight to the jack!

A rather inexpensive upgrade for these guitars that pays dividends in tone!  Also a much more economical solution than replacing the pickups, which were made to original specs for this reissue series of Tele.  The original, chrome coated plastic control knobs were also replaced with a heavier nickel plated brass set, so the overall feel as well as the sound of these new components is of much better quality.