its been years since i brought a new guitar, as i rarely play now, but i saw these while flicking through the forum, and had always hankered for a thinline to go with my other teles, but the few thinlines made either didnt interest me enough or cost too much for me to warrant getting them. until i found this :














the price was right, i got it second hand, its mint. the non-normal tele features are what made me get it. the set neck, thinline body, bridge, pups and finish all fell perfectly in line for something tele like, but different.

i was bidding on one on ebay last week, then the night before it ended this one came up on buy it now. i done a deal with the guy off of ebay, we both got a fair deal and i thought this guitar had better grain than the one that i was bidding on. turns out the one being bid on went for more than i paid for mine

now to play it

Hey moochy, good find!

I like that they've not only matched the front wood nicely, but paired it to the body wood well too. Tasty. How do those pickups sound?

Enjoy that axe.

Cheers - C

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the guitar came needing a set-up, but im unsure of how to properly remove fret buzz. its along pretty much the whole neck all strings. the action is very low. is it just a case of screwing the bridgepiece up until it stops, assuming i wont have to move it much ?

other than that, its nicely finished. the controls are a bit scratchy, and ive not heard the pups yet but everything else seems very well done. the tuners feel solid, the neck is nice to play, no sharp frets its nicely made. the pickups are apparently very hot, which will be new territory for me.

ive already got plans for it. will probably end up swapping out those scratchy pots, and i will definitely be fitting a bigsby at some point, even if its just for the looks. depending on how i get on with the pups, they might get swapped out. i think id quite like some chrome pups in it.

Congrats! Very nice It's a JA 90 ? About the fret-buzz: Seems like bad adjustment of truss rod. If you get that perfect, I guess you still can get low action , without the buzz. If you're not familiar with doing it , check Fenders 'how to' :
http://www.fender.com/en-NO/support/art ... etup-guide

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A-man

WoW! EXtreemly nice!

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Gary

Oh sa-WEET!!!
Man i'm just drooling over that grain...a thing of beauty.
And to think I never was much of a Tele-man, wow that's nice!
'n-joy

thanks for comments and help. ive adjusted the truss rod, and eliminated 99% of the buzz. however now i have another problem - i think.

to my untrained ear, the G string sounds flat when played open. fretted, it sounds as i would expect, and according to the tuner its in tune. i dont know whether its just my mind playing tricks, but it sounds out when playing an open C, the string sounds flat and has a drone that cuts through the other strings.

one difference to my other guitars is the G is unwound on this. i have heavier guage strings on my other guitars with wound G's. can this be part of the reason it just sounds alien to my ears ?

I hope the first thing you did was put on new strings?

Since you adjusted the truss rod, you might as well wait a day or so before going any further to allow everything to settle in. Do you have any fret buzz on the G?

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Gary

the seller put new strings on it before he sent it, to help get the stretching started, and had loosened them off before posting. however id ont knwo what guage he put on, as i said unwound G string is new to me, so quite thin guage i guess.

there is a tiny bit of buzz on the string. is this an intonation problem ? ill leave it till tomorrow anyway. its good enough to go noodle on and have a go with, even if its not quite perfect yet.

So if you tune the string so it sounds spot on pitch when it's played open then it must sound sharp when fretted, is that right?

A possible explanation is the nut slot is a little too high. Try this: fret the G at the first fret and study the gap between the top of the third fret and the underside of the string. Now fret the string at the third fret and study the gap between the top of the first fret and the underside of the string. Compare those gaps.

If the two gaps are pretty much the same then the nut slot is probably cut to the right depth. If the second gap is significantly bigger than the first then the slot likely is not cut deep enough and needs to be filed a little lower. If the second gap is smaller than the second or there is no gap at all then the slot is already cut too low (this won't be the case with your guitar).

If the nut slot is indeed too high then to fret the string means pressing it down far enough towards the fingerboard to pull it sharp in relation to the open pitch.

...But if your ears are anything like mine I'd trust the tuner first. If the tuner says the string is right I'd go with that.

Cheers - C

PS: by the way, I only just noticed the sculpted neck heel on your Tele. That IS nice. Cool.

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X2 what Ceri said. Next is the nut and the bridge saddles.

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Gary

that is a thing of beauty

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thanks again guys. i probably will leave it as the tuner says its right. maybe its just new guitar sound + that unwound string thats putting me off. ive just restrung another guitar with an unwound G, ill see if its similar once those strings have all settled.

heres a little family shot of my modest telecaster gang. 2002 MIM '72 custom, 1985 MIJ '62 custom and the new 2011 JA-90.









i didnt even know who jim adkins was until i found the guitar. he likes a nice guitar, but i dont care much for his tunes.

Oh man - love that '62! Nothing beats a Telecaster with a double-bound body. Sweet.

BTW: I'd be glad if anyone has knowledge about the trussrod hole on the Jim Adkins Tele. To the best of my memory it's the first time I've seen a legit Fender-logo'd guitar with neither a walnut surround to that hole nor a bullet adjuster. A bit of searching shows it's kosher for the model - but I wonder if there's a story behind why Jim spec'd his model that way? Did his original guitar start with a bullet-end which was then removed, perhaps?

Geeky question, I know...

Cheers - C

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double bound tele body - just something about it that makes it feel really luxurious. dunno if its just me being odd, but i can imagine in 1962 a double bound sunburst tele being quite special.