In August 1987, just prior to joining the Merchant Marine, I purchased my first Telecaster, a '62 Reissue MIJ Telecaster Custom. It has a beautiful 3-color sunburst over a piece, highly grained,
alder body and a slab rosewood fingerboard.
Originally it had a white guard, vintage-style pups, and steel threaded saddles. Needless to say, those features didn't last long. To
date, it's had 5 different brands of pickups (Fender, EMG, Duncan, Vintage Vibe, and Barden), five different pickguards (Tele white, Gold with a strat pup cutout, Pearl
with a strat pup cutout, black Esquire, and Black with a CC Rider cutout), and four sets of saddles (steel threaded, straight brass, Stew-Mac compensated, and Bardens). I
hardly remember what it originally looked like.
Here's a picture of the guitar as an Esquire in the summer of 2003, with a Duncan Hot Rails and a Dremel-modified bridge plate.
The Telemodders know what a freak I am about Charlie Christian pickups and DC-style Teles. Pete set me up with a good deal on one of his CC Rider pups – it even came with
the pickguard. This pickup required some serious routing in both width and depth. What to cut up? Heck, I had already hacked the 62RI for the EMGs (look carefully neck to the bridge, and
you'll see the routes for a humbucker), so that guitar was the likely candidate.
I brainstormed the idea at the Kisakae Tele design site (left), using a picture of the CC rider pup and pickguard that Pete sent me. Here's the
idea. It looked good, so I began to hack.
I routed, routed, routed, always fearful I would go right through the back of the guitar. My 
peace of mind was restored with the purchase of the Dremel
router collar. Here's a picture (right) in progress. Still needed routing.
The current incarnation features a Vintage Vibe CC Rider pickup in the neck, Joe Barden pickup
in the bridge (compliments of Mandy & Danny Thompson – this pickup was originally in her silver-flake '68 Tele), 250k pots, regular Tele3-way witch, Joe Barden Bridge with
compensated saddles, and Q-parts faux amber/topaz topped knobs. Top it off with a Levy leather strap, and it's ready to go. Here it is as of Independence Day 2004:
The CC Rider pickup is very hot, and has a good single-coil jazz sound. This will become a Tele for my jazz gigs. I am also outing together a song comparing the various Charlie Christian pickups
made for Teles. Watch the Telemodders' discussion board for the results.
Is this the end of the Telemodding experience for this guitar? Probably not, but it's fun while it lasts!
