The Baritone Esquire Project

My latest "Partscaster" is a Baritone Esquire. I bought the body off The STRATosphere on ebay before Christmas, a bit of an impulse buy since I have always wanted a dark red guitar. It is a Fender Highway 1 in Wine Red with a thin Nitro finish. It did not come with any hardware apart from the string ferrules in the back and jack socket (which I took out).

I had built a rather ugly Baritone before (see below) which I made by moving the bridge towards the end of the body and refretting. The wood was cheap and it was just a test.

Sorry, but this is the best picture I have of this at the moment. This guitar was taken apart and the parts sold - the parts really were worth more than the complete instrument!

I decided to build one properly this time. The Esquire is the one pickup version of the Telecaster. I found that the front pickup was too bassy. With a three-position switch I could have different tones from one pickup, including a modified tone control I had found out about on The Telecaster Forum.

The body when it first arrived.

After a lot of experimenting by plugging my original mongrel baritone through the circuit I came up with this wiring:

The front position bypasses any tone controls

The middle position is a modified Fender TBX pot. In the middle it is flat, one way cuts treble and the other cuts bass.

The rear position cuts the bass a little more with a combination of a capacitor and resistor going to earth.

I used I 3-way OakSwitch, CTS 500k pot, Fender TBX pot mounted on an Allparts plate. Knobs are Fender '52 style, Top Hat Switch tip.

Pickup is a GFS Lil' Puncher Cool Vintage (6.5k). This is a dual blade Humbucker with a more Tele Style vintage tone. Bridge is a Fender Vintage with Bridgeworks saddles.

The pickguard is a Mint Green Esquire from dazbootman and I have fitted an Electrosocket Jack and Straplocks as I do on all my Teles.

The neck was made for me by Tommy Rosamund at USA Custom Guitars.

The spec:

28-5/8" Scale Retro Fit Neck

Heel Adjust Truss Rod, 24 frets,

Maple Neck / Male Fingerboard

1-11/16" nut width, curved bottom nut slot

830" C-Contour, 7.25-9.5" Compound Radius

Dunlop 6105 Frets

Holes for Kluson Tuners

Standard Black Dots, Rolled Edges

Clear Satin Matt Finish

The neck was ordered on 17th December, shipped a month later. It eventually arrived four weeks later. The most nerve wracking part was drilling the neck and tuner holes.

 

So here is the finished guitar. I will post some new mp3s at sometime - I have rewired the guitar since the last batch I did.

Now, the front position is with a standard tone control (the knob on top), the middle is a preset bass cut control (a pot stuffed under the control panel so I can alter it if I want) and the bakc position is still the

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