USA Custom Guitars Tele Clone

Beautifully flamed Tele style maple neck, 10 inch fingerboard radius, 6105 frets, 1.650? nut width, ?C? contour. Neck taper: .830? to .900?. Heel truss rod adjustment. The peghead drilled for vintage styled Kluson tuners. Clear poly finish with a slight amber tint. USACG offers any possible option you could want on a neck. You can select the neck contour, the fingerboard radius, the frets, type of position markers and side dots, the neck thickness and taper, the nut width, and drilling for different tuners just to name a few.

Light weight (3lb. 8oz.) one piece swamp ash Tele style body, finished in vintage two-tone sunburst. Contemporary Tele topside routing. I had a channel routed from the neck pickup cavity to the neck mounting cutout to allow for relatively easy neck adjustments. USACG also does vintage or backside routing. They can also do contour cuts on the body. You can get it built just the way you want it. Check out their website for more info. Clear poly finish. They don?t do lacquer.

Fralin vintage Tele pickups. Callaham vintage ?T? hardware.

I play mainly blues but I also like to play rockabilly, classic and country rock. This instrument can do all of that but I got it primarily for rockabilly and country rock.

Tele?s are not everyones cup of tea but if you are looking for an absolutely crystal clear twang machine, look no further. This is it IN SPADES. I cannot believe how resonant this guitar is ? even unplugged. The lightweight swamp ash body resonates a chord forever. I?m sure the Callaham hardware and the Fralin pickups don?t hurt anything either. You can?t help but want to do some sort of chicken ?pickin with it ? or at least wish you could.

Not only is the crispness, snap, and clarity astounding, it also comes through with great authority. I cannot imagine anything cleaner.

You know that clean sound you hear when you put new strings on your guitar? That sound on this guitar is so intense you can not only hear, you can actually ?feel?, the windings on the strings coming through the speakers. The sensation is hard to explain.

If you aggressively attack the low E and A strings on the lower frets it sounds a lot like a piano. The G has a distinct chimey overtone that is unique to a Tele. The chimey overtone sounds like a glockenspiel. That chime is not found on most Teles you will pick up these days. In fact, I have not heard that chime for so long I almost forgot it existed.

The rythym tones are clear and delicate but well defined. Every single note is heard. For clean rythym work this cannot be beat.

So far I have tried this guitar through three amps. A tweed 5F2-A Princeton clone, a BF Princeton, and a SF Vibro Champ. It sounds like a voice from heaven. All amps have Alnico speakers. I don?t use any effects except a little reverb or tremolo.

As of yet, I haven?t tried it through an amp thats cranked. After three months I am still just enjoying its clean, pure tones.

This has been said by many reviewers before, so it?s nothing profound, but I will say it one more time: old Fender tube amps (especially with Alnico speakers) and Fender single coil guitars are a match that was made in heaven.

Finishing done by USACG?s in house shop (Roxy). The finish on both the neck and body were flawless. The body and neck could not fit together any tighter.

No dead spots or fretting out on this neck. Poly finish is great. Not as sticky as lacquer. This is one of the nicest, slickest necks I have ever played.

For more details and other highly insightful comments on the fit, finish, and assembly of this guitar please refer to my other reviews of the neck and body as separate entities.

Within reason, this guitar will stand up to anything you can throw at it. It will certainly withstand serious playing. The Callaham hardware is bullet proof too. Once you put your baby together you will want to treat her real nice.

The guys at USACG are top notch. Since I was going with a transparent finish, I wanted the body to have a nice grain pattern. I also wanted the body within a certain weight range. I sent USACG a few pictures of bodies that had a grain pattern similar to what I was looking for. They (Thanks, Steve) actually sent me a few pictures of smooth-planed, unshaped body blanks so I could pick out the blank I wanted for the body. I liked that. The body was much lighter than I expected.

I have been playing for about 40 years. Don't play out anymore except for fun. I have 5 Fender amps in various flavors, 2 AV '57 Strats, a Squier Strat, and Epi Dot, a Les Paul Standard and a '73 Martin D41. A lot more have come and gone through the years.

I wanted a plain old classic ash bodied Tele with a little personality and some vintage vibe. Tried the American Vintage ?52. Didn?t like the ?U? shaped neck and it only comes in Butterscotch (everybody has one). Tried all of the other Tele models I could get my hands on. The only model that had the look and feel I was after was the Fender MIM Classic 50?s Tele.

My plan started out simple (as most plans do), get a Classic 50?s Tele in Blonde or Sunburst and upgrade the hardware and the pickups. After mulling over that concept for awhile, I concluded that if I?d be spending that kind of dough I might as well try a custom made aftermarket body and neck.

A wonderful instrument. I could not ask for anything more. For around $1,500, including case and set up work, I got a top of the line Tele clone made to my exact specs. I could have saved a couple of hundred bucks by getting a plain maple neck, a two or three piece body and standard issue hardware, but I thought if I?m going to go the custom route I might as well get ?exactly? what I wanted.

To put things in perspective a Fender American Vintage ?52 Tele goes for around $1,200. Ditto for the AV ?62 Tele. Don?t know if that includes the case. They don?t have one piece bodies or premium grade necks either. Hate to think how much a Fender Custom Shop Tele built this well would have cost. To say nothing of how long it would take to get.

This was my first attempt at assembling an instrument from parts. I am very satisfied with USACG?s product. Would I do it again ? Yes. You cannot get comparable quality unless you go through Fender?s Custom Shop.

Steve Pedicone and Tommy Rosamond at USACG are great guys to work with. Thanks to Bill Callaham for his quality products and for telling me about USACG. Prior to that I had never heard of them.