NEW Monty's Wide Range Humbuckers: Matt Mods My Tele!

Hold on tight folks, because this is going to be a long one...

When I acquired my Ron Kirn Barnbuster, you might have heard me mention that it was somewhat better than my trusty MIJ '52 in pretty much every way - and as a result, I was considering what I should do with the old Fender. I might have even let it slip in an end-of-month Q&A that I'd been talking to somebody about changing it up a little...

Well, the 'somebody' in question was none other than Matt Gleeson of Monty's Guitars. I've long loved his pickups - and his instrument food(!) - so when I got wind of an imminent release of his brand new Wide Range Humbuckers (made with FeCrCo magnets, for anybody who is interested!) a few months back, that got my cogs whirring. I dropped him a line, and we arranged a time for me to take the old '52 up to him to talk through a few plans.

Fast forward to December 2022, and I spent a crazy-long day sat with Matt as he performed the surgery on my Tele, whilst talking me through everything he was doing along the way. The guitar needed a complete refret - but then, the real heavy custom work began....chopping a Callaham bridge in half; designing and machining a routing jig for the bespoke pickguard; using that to craft the pearloid guard, routing out enough space in the body to accommodate the pickups; and then getting it to all fit together.

But considering we were working from a bad Photoshop mock-up that I hacked together, the end result is greater than anything I could have imagined. The guitar looks - and sounds - wonderful, and most importantly, it's now something that I'm ACTUALLY going to use, rather than leave sitting gathering dust as a sorry No. 2!

What do you think? Do you like the design? And the pickups? Comment below!

Amp is a Dr Z Z-Wreck running into a Zilla Studio Pro 2x12 cabinet loaded with Celestion AlNiCo Gold & Fane Ascension A30 speakers. Recorded with Aston Spirit Condenser, '70s Sennheiser MD441 and sE RNR1 ribbon mics, with a Schoeps CMC6 room mic.

0:00 Intro
6:39 Meeting Matt: What Is The Plan?
19:45 Taking Things Apart
20:33 Refretting The Neck
29:39 Chopping Up A Callaham Bridge
30:53 Mocking Up A Pickguard Routing Jig
33:00 Creating The Pearloid Pickguard
33:51 Routing The Body
35:25 Fitting Raw Nickel Humbucker Covers
36:58 Soldering The Electronics
38:40 Reassembly
39:28 Action, Intonation & Cutting The Nut
40:40 First Play Test
42:43 Back Home...
46:32 Through A Dr Z Z-Wreck
49:02 Final Thoughts

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