Help me honour a musician I deeply respect?

[CaribooBass]

I guess as I( maybe we?) are getting older there have been musicians that have moved us in our lives.

So here is what I am going to do this year; build a Bass guitar that salutes James Burtons paisley telecaster.

I have no experience with building basses and my knowledge on how to do this is just as Amateur.

Such as, I want a 34 inch scale and apparently you can not achieve this with a tele bass neck and a tele guitar body put together.
What I want to achieve is a bass that looks like it came out in 1969, right down to the switch and year appropriate pick ups.

Yes I did find out, today actually that when Fender made tele basses the body had an upper and lower horn.

So I need some help in how to do this. Yes I am the first one to say this may be a "pie in the sky idea".
I would just like to take care of business in a flash.

Thanks for your help in advance.
Clayton.

 

[Will_White]

You can do it with a standard fender neck if you enlarge the neck pocket slightly, or a 24 fret neck if you want to keep the bridge closer to where a tele would be. You'll need either a custom pickguard that covers the bridge rout or a custom pickup ring for the bridge pickup, and I would use a single coil P in the bridge pickup position. If you want to work off a standard body and neck I would keep the pickups where they are.

 

[JEDI BASS]

Warmoth sells tele bass bodies - Invalid Link Removed

They have some in stock. Just find a painter that will do what you want, and buy a neck with a rounded heel. Then be prepared to find out that you'll be in over your head when it comes time to make a decently playable bass. I would suggest paying someone to do the fretwork, since new necks (even Warmoth necks) have fret ends that will take skin off. And, every new neck needs fret leveling and a slight fallaway to play its best. Be prepared for nothing to actually fit together without sanding or filing. Even tuner holes are too small for ferrules.

Learn to solder and drill holes correctly, and buy a Warmoth pickguard cause nothing else will fit correctly.

Best of luck.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

A Warmoth body and neck would be the most convenient. You might even be able to get them to route for the pickups and locations you want. The other difficulty is that, unless something's changed in the last few years, the paisley pattern Fender used back then, which was just shelf paper at the time, is at best difficult to find. Depending on how you are with finishing it's not super tough to do but if you're paying someone for finishing, assembly and set up it could get expensive.

 

[CaribooBass]

Matt thank you for the reply and you right on both counts.
Warmoth seems to be the best way to get the body for the bass.

As far as the paisley design that would be like the original no such luck.
A good friend of mine and I looked all over the web for a design that was at least tolerable.

Tracy works in a fertility clinic and as she put it " I will not let you put something on your bass that looks like what I see under a microscope".

I am still laughing at that.

I might start it with a Paisley pick guard until I can get a print that I like.

Clayton

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I think Fender has pretty well managed to keep that pattern to themselves. Someone on one of the Telecaster forums some years ago claimed to have reproduced it but I could never get a hold of him to try and get some.

I'd suggest looking for paisley fabric. You might not find the metallics like the original (although I have found fabric with that kind of look) but there are a plethora of colors and patterns. A fabric top isn't too difficult to do. It's mostly just the patience to complete the fill.



I realize those aren't all paisley. It's more to prove that if I can do a fabric top… Plus, I finally got to use "plethora" when not quoting 3 Amigos!

 

[CaribooBass]

I have done a far amount of reading about Sir Leo and the paisley finish comes up in each book.

When the paisley started to get popular, Leo sent out an employee to get every bit of the paisley wall paper he could for miles around.

They apparently rounded up a fare bit but that was all they ended up with for the manufacturer had stopped printing it.

These are the words in the history books and I have not found any others about where to get that same/similar design.

You would figure some one would pick it up as the fender interest increased back in the day. Apparently not.

Clayton.

 

[funkinbottom]

How about a vinyl skin for finish? I've never done one myself, but watching the tutorials it doesn't look to difficult. They make a paisley in a few colors. for guitar or bass, and lefty too.

INZANE DECALS :: Reskin Your Guitar With These Insanely Wicked Designs

 

[Beej]

Rothko and Frost make a reproduction paisley paper:

Buy Paisley Guitar Body Decals | Worldwide Shipping | R&F

Not cheap at all, but pretty accurate.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Well, I happily stand corrected. There appears to be more then one place to get a reasonable version of that Fender paisley. It's almost enough to get me to do just one more Tele.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

Depending on your goals in "saluting" you could poke around a Mandelbrot set or other fractal viewer and find a region and palette to suit and print it. Some regions do have paisely-eque features, though they are clearly fractals, not wallpaper, on examination..

 

[Hoot Enanny]

The Paisley Tele is one of my favorites. After looking at MIJ copies and researching how to build my own using Warmoth, Stew Mac and others I decided to piece together my own "homage bass". I had even considered buying a Squire CV 50 and refinishing the body. Instead, I started with an Olympic White Squire CV 60 that I already owned and picked up a CV 50 neck from Stratosphere. I had to so a little sanding to make the CV50 neck fit the CV60 pocket. That was easy enough. I found the paisley pickguard at carmedon.com. I had previously installed CTS pots and the SD 1/4 pounder as part of an earlier experiment (yes, this was my "let's try this bass").

Added the Fender 9050 flats and I have a great bass that's good enough for me, gets the looks and is fun to play. I have other MIA F & J basses, but people always ask about the "pink one".

Have fun whatever direction you go!

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I guess as I( maybe we?) are getting older there have been musicians that have moved us in our lives.

So here is what I am going to do this year; build a Bass guitar that salutes James Burtons paisley telecaster.

I have no experience with building basses and my knowledge on how to do this is just as Amateur.

Such as, I want a 34 inch scale and apparently you can not achieve this with a tele bass neck and a tele guitar body put together.
What I want to achieve is a bass that looks like it came out in 1969, right down to the switch and year appropriate pick ups.

Yes I did find out, today actually that when Fender made tele basses the body had an upper and lower horn.

So I need some help in how to do this. Yes I am the first one to say this may be a "pie in the sky idea".
I would just like to take care of business in a flash.

Thanks for your help in advance.
Clayton.

Mine worked out just fine