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My Gold Schecter PT showed up yesterday. I posted a thread last week or so about my plans fore this guitar - Here's the original thread...

Right now it's on 48-hour approval, since I bought it through Instrument Exchange.

This question is about neck pockets - IIRC, normal tele neck pockets (and necks) hava a straight end, and strats have a curved end. This guitar has a 22-fret fingerboard that overhangs, so it's really hard ro see, but the neck-end appears to be curved. I wouldn't be surprised, as I suspect Schecter puts the same necks on both strat- and tele-style guitars in this quot;Diamond Seriesquot;.

Does anyone know for sure what the neck pocket is like on this axe? Am I going to have problems retrofitting and Fender-standard 21-fret maple neck on this puppy? I'd hate to let XSSIVES' cool Schecter decals go to waste.

my schecter has a curved end but its a usa scorpion so i'd guess its curved (the only way to really know is to take the neck off or maybe ask customer service at schecter)

Hey Rich S we have a lot in common!!! I have been in love with Petes Shecters since the early 80's too.... I watched that Toronto 1982 video so much i wore it out.... lucky for me i found a fellow Who fan who had a dvd made of his Original TV broadcast of the show.... Those Gold teles are so great! I believe the gold one is now in the hands of The Hard Rock.... at least the one from Live Aid is...... Not sure if that was the same tele as the TO 82 gold tele.... I'm sure Pete had more then one...... that is for sure i would imagine with the way Pete mistreated his axes.

Good luck on that project!

I have been wanting to build either a Gold tele or a Black tele copy of Pete's Shecters out of Warmoth parts for years!!!

Next i need a Hiwatt Pete Townshend Signature head and cab from the UK! The amp has all of Petes Mods.... a Friend of mine in The Wholigans has one as Hiwatt sponcers them... -Check out the Wholigans T-Shirts... that is my photo from England on the front... i flew over to see them in London and Oxford

WhoFan

it's not a problem man! take off the neck and check for sure but warmoth will make you a tele headstock neck with a strat heel if you need it. plus, the 22nd fret will hide that anyway!

-Mike

WhoFan: I loved that Toronto concert video. I think it was HBO that ran it for a while; I watched it several times. Do you know if it's still available commercially, or where I can get hooked up with a DVD copy? If so, PM me.

This is now my third PT. I bought a original, black Anderson-era, no-name model in 1984, from Zapf's Music on 5th Street in Philadelphia. That axe is #1 on my never-shoulda-sold-it list.

Later, in a fit of seller's remorse, I bought a red one on 48th Street in NY. Identical to my black one, except red. But it was a very odd red, and I never really took to it.

But I always thought Townsend's gold one was the coolest. I think he only had one. The WhoTabs page on the Schecters seems to indicate that there was more than one black one, plus the more-normal-Tele types with pickguards and in-line controls. It seems there was only one goldtop, with back-loaded, angled controls, just like the black ones. If you want to build a black one, you can still get black Diamond-series PT's from MF for $399, then swap the neck as I hope to.

So far, this guitar is so-so. I haven't plugged it in yet, but acoustically it lacks Tele snap. I'm going to try a new set of 10's on it and see if it improves. Of course, the neck isn't helping much. It's the ugliest piece of maple I've ever seen - the grain looks like plywood sheathing. It's about as rigid as cooked pasta, so that may be why the lack of quot;snapquot;. A big, solid maple log of a neck like the originals should fix that right up. The body is alright, a servicable piece of alder with a decent finish. At first I thought the back was black, but it's stained really dark reddish-brown. The binding's a little sloppy, but it's good enough. Those of us who play like Pete don't keep guitars pristine, anyway.

The wiring's gonna need work; who ever saw knurled-shaft knobs on a Tele? Right now, the tone pot pulls up to tap the humbuckers. I want to change it over to 2-volume, no tone, with a second pull-pot to swap the pickup phase. I love that out-of-phase, Les Paul middle-position sound. The 2 volume controls will let me do the toggle-switch tremolo thing, too.

I'm sure Warmoth would love to make me a curved-heel, Tele-peghead, 21-fret neck for this puppy, but that's big $$$, and I'm hoping to keep this a low-cost project.

Man, I can sure go on about these guitars, huh?

Hi Rich..... Ya i have a dvd of the Who Toronto 82 show but it was just one someone made at home from a worn video tape from the Dec 17 1982 live tv broadcast.... The offical video of this show called Who Rocks America was on VHS for a few years in the mid 80's and then disappeared quick.... i still have a tape of it somewhere from the 80's..... in the 90's in Japan you could find it on offical DVD but it was like $130 to import it from Japan to Toronto Canada! It is now long out of print..... some internet download sites may have it......

I'm pretty sure Pete had at least 2 Gold teles.... I heard Pete's brother Simon has one.... That site has so much info on the Who's gear!!!! Plus the tab is pretty good too!

The Gold teles Pete had i was told were Mahogany.... That maybe why they stained your import PT red on the back. The Black ones were Alder. IN 1981 Pete smashed a Giffin Tele and you could see that the wood was white-ish like alder in colour... There is Photos of Roger picking up the smashed guitar in books and the 1982 tour book. Pete also had an all Rosewood one in 1979 but soon gave it up as it was too heavy...

Some of Petes teles from 1979-81 were not Shecters, they were Griffins..... think that is the right name.... anyway i tracked this guy Roger Griffin down and he builds his own guitars in California now..... he worked for a short time at Fender's Custom Shop i think... anyway i asked him if he would build a tele for me just like he made for Pete.... the anwser i got was pretty strange but in short they were just parts he bought and put together for Pete and put his name on them... Sub-contract type of thing... he said he no longer makes Fender copies and sujested i try another maker.... His site had some interesting guitars he made for Van Halen among many others!!!!!

Pete's tone was so different on the 1982 tour..... i wonder if that is because he switched to Boogie cabs for that tour..... He said Boogie offered him some big money to use their cabs for the Who's Final Tour.... Whatever was different Petes tone had a lot more meat to it and it was more distorted. He still used his famous custom made Hiwatt heads....

WhoFan