I'm glad I took a break from X3 to check in...
Mike, I should have put a smiley face with that statement. My sense of humor has not gone well in this thread.
I think Craig has me figured out possibly better than most.
Mike I share those builds expecting nothing in return. I do it because there are so many here that love guitars
and it gives me a chance to learn.....
I'm interested very much in what people do or don't like in a guitar and I'm sure that statements like Rain has made
about Tele's such as not liking the metal plate is made with one intention and I'm all ears. Some may remember I made
a few and that plate was either not there or made of wood. The last one I built the player wanted the metal.
 
I understand players having a preference and I understand sometimes players have a selective, possibly limited preference...I don't. If I could afford one of every kind
there is I would probably own them...even though I think some of them are butt-ugly.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rain

spacey
 
(bold) That says it all. A lot of people relate tones to what was used in the past. A lot aren't and any tones that a guitarist are after can be achieved on many, many different guitars.
 
Times have changed. Choices have grown big time and has opened the door for a player to get whatever it is...based on his abilities and knowledge of creating/hearing tones. Hell it can be done now in the box with a Kay guitar. I know...the tone kings will not agree but I still haven't met one that can tell you what they're hearing unless they've been told.
 
If the only way to get the sound of a Strat or LP was by using either one.........think about that. Where would PRS, Ibanez etc...be? Not to mention custom made guitars.....man what a list this would be if I continued.
 
There is much more to it than just tone. Much more. If one wants to know what it's like to play a Strat and what they will sound like playing one there is only one way. If one wants the sound of a Strat there are almost endless ways. Now all the players that have stated that pickups and players are the main factors of tones better be careful if they don't agree.
 

 
 
As for sound... Right off the bat, a classic Les Paul in a Marshall will provide you with a much different starting point then a Telecaster in a Twin Reverb. 
 
 
And then obviously, there are all the alternatives, which are all as equally valid, depending on your priorities.
 
 
 

LP and Marshall.....Tele and Twin. Different starting points that goes without saying. And now we're not limited in creating those sounds.
For those that don't want to play a LP or a Tele but want the sounds there are many alternatives. It's great to have choices for those that want them.
 

spacey
 
I'm interested very much in what people do or don't like in a guitar and I'm sure that statements like Rain has made about Tele's such as not liking the metal plate is made with one intention and I'm all ears.

 
As far as the plate is concerned, there is actually absolutely nothing to it other than aesthetics. I can't image how it could be otherwise. It doesn't interfere with the ergonomics. And it's not like I could be morally offended by it or hold a personal grudge against it or believe that it's wrong. Neither am I on a crusade to prove that that metal plate should be removed from every guitar. I simply don't like it.
 
There are obviously many variations of the Telecaster. Some I like better, some not quite as much, some not at all. But for the sake of this discussion, I suggest that we establish that we're talking about the classic type of Telecaster, with the classic attributes and not one of those custom-made variations. Something most people would associate with the name "Telecaster", not a personal take on it.
 
Something like:

 
Obviously, if you remove that plate that I don't like, that's one less thing not to like for me. If you change that bridge - which I find both uncomfortable and butt-ugly - that's one less thing for me not to like. If you change the headstock, same thing. Pickguard off? All the better.
 
In other word, the further away you move from the traditional Telecaster, the better it is. Like the one I posted earlier.
 
But at the end of the day, I still find the design rudimentary and inelegant. And no amount of tweaking could change that. Because that is simply MY opinion and my tastes, not a universal truth.
 

spacey

Rain

spacey
 
(bold) That says it all. A lot of people relate tones to what was used in the past. A lot aren't and any tones that a guitarist are after can be achieved on many, many different guitars.
 
Times have changed. Choices have grown big time and has opened the door for a player to get whatever it is...based on his abilities and knowledge of creating/hearing tones. Hell it can be done now in the box with a Kay guitar. I know...the tone kings will not agree but I still haven't met one that can tell you what they're hearing unless they've been told.
 
If the only way to get the sound of a Strat or LP was by using either one.........think about that. Where would PRS, Ibanez etc...be? Not to mention custom made guitars.....man what a list this would be if I continued.
 
There is much more to it than just tone. Much more. If one wants to know what it's like to play a Strat and what they will sound like playing one there is only one way. If one wants the sound of a Strat there are almost endless ways. Now all the players that have stated that pickups and players are the main factors of tones better be careful if they don't agree.
 

 
 
As for sound... Right off the bat, a classic Les Paul in a Marshall will provide you with a much different starting point then a Telecaster in a Twin Reverb. 
 
 
And then obviously, there are all the alternatives, which are all as equally valid, depending on your priorities.
 
 
 

LP and Marshall.....Tele and Twin. Different starting points that goes without saying. And now we're not limited in creating those sounds.
For those that don't want to play a LP or a Tele but want the sounds there are many alternatives. It's great to have choices for those that want them.
 

Agreed 100%

Spacey,
 
I am actually glad that I missinterpretted you.  Yes, maybe more smileys would help.
 
So, Rain...if I was to buy a Tele, it would probably be more along the lines of Leo's later creations.  These get me closer to what I like in guitars.  I liked this "Black Ice" version the minute I spotted it.
 

 
This ones a little to bright for my taste, but I like the maple cap.  Incidently, I have always favored maple necks on Fenders or in this case...Fender 2.0
 

 

Why are bumpers less popular than fenders these days?
Why are Gibsons less popular than Martinezes these days?

Let alone One-Hour-Martinizing.

yorolpal
Let alone One-Hour-Martinizing.

Wasn't that a Dean Martin special?
(Oh wait, that was One Hour Martini-izing.  Nevermind.)

MakeShift
Spacey,
 
I am actually glad that I missinterpretted you.  Yes, maybe more smileys would help.
 
So, Rain...if I was to buy a Tele, it would probably be more along the lines of Leo's later creations.  These get me closer to what I like in guitars.  I liked this "Black Ice" version the minute I spotted it.
 

 
This ones a little to bright for my taste, but I like the maple cap.  Incidently, I have always favored maple necks on Fenders or in this case...Fender 2.0
 

 

There is something very nice about that black one - and I love this kind of transparent black finish. On top of it, it has the tune-o-matic type of bridge AND the knobs aren't as much in the way. 
 
That being said, and that is just my opinion, there's something "unfinished" about the Tele design itself. It's like there is a guitar screaming to get out in that piece of wood but it's been abandoned after a first approximative rough cut.  
 
Not much different than something like this: 
 

 
 
Again, just my opinion and it's strictly in regards to aesthetics.
 
Maybe it's because the guitar is close to traditional designs, which makes it hard for it not to look like a cheaper/unfinished/mass-produced 2D version of a hollowbody, and not daring enough to stand out on its own as something radically new, like the Strat or the Flying V.

I owned a Strat for a couple of years and ended up selling it because I'm not crazy about those single-coil pickups. Sure, I could have got a model with a humbucker, but that's only one. I cut my teeth on a 1970s SG (the three-pickup model; don't remember if it was a 'special' in those days or not) and that's the sound I got used to and came to expect from any electric guitar I played. And why did I go for the SG? Because I never liked the weight of an LP around my neck.
 
After selling my Strat, since I didn't have the coin for a Gibson and didn't want to settle for a plank-on-a-stick Epiphone (please forgive me, Epiphone fans; I've just never played any Epiphone I've liked, acoustic or electric), I grabbed the cheapest thing I could find that was light weight with humbuckers and reasonable intonation/action: an Ibanez GAX07LTD, the one with the lizard thing on the front. Yeah, it looks weird and most players will likely think it's junk. But it does the job and I like the weight and the sound.
 
That was two years ago. Last week, I picked up an almost-matching Ibanez short-scale bass, the Mikro (something-something). I hadn't intended the color to be the same and didn't even realize it until I got it home, but again, I like the weight and the sound. The only drawback is the bridge; adjusted right to their limits, two of the strings are still out by about 4 cents; drives me a bit whacko, but to be honest, I can't really hear it and I can live with it for now.