The first time I ever installed a wiring harness in a Gibson ES 335 I was really stressed beforehand. I put it off for days. The idea of trying to get the wiring harness through the f-hole and then work all the components into the correct locations with my big hands seemed like a potentially frustrating job, if not impossible.
When I actually did it I was really surprised how frustration free it really was with good planning and the right tools.
Recently I kept seeing double f hole telecaster bodies coming up on eBay for sale. There are no holes drilled in the top of the body for controls and there is no access panel on the back for you to install the pots and capacitors. Link in the description.
www.ebay.com/str/kevinsgshop?...
I googled to see what a finished guitar looked like and came to a Fender Custom Shop Double F-Hole Esquire built by no other than John Page himself.
John Page led The Fender Research and Development organization and is the founding master builder of the Fender Custom Shop.
About 30 years ago he built what some call the Page-o-Caster which is a very beautiful Esquire guitar that has two F-Holes, a single pickup located in the bridge, one volume and one tone control.
It is said he wanted a Telecaster shaped guitar that was very resonant even when not plugged in. He wanted to be able to write music and play guitar without having to be plugged into an amplifier all the time.
A link to an article about him and this Page-o-Caster are in the description for this video.
www.fendercustomshop.com/feat...
I was encouraged to build a dual f-hole telecaster. Looking at pictures of John - he was not a little guy. If he could get his fingers in there - so could I. I went ahead and ordered the body off of eBay
The body that showed up had two f-holes but was not the body that I had ordered. The body that showed up has a very unusual finish called the chameleon finish. Depending on what angle you look at the body of the guitar you will see the color of the guitar change from green to brown to purple. It is weirdly cool, so I decided to keep it.
I planned on making this guitar body into a telecaster with two traditional single coil pickups.
I would not have a slider 3-way pickup selector switch but would instead have a 3-way toggle switch like a Gibson.
I used tape to measure and line up my three holes I would need to drill for the selector switch, tone control, and volume control into the face of the guitar body.
I used a straight edge and laid out the line with each of the three holes being an inch and a half distance between each.
The body depth of this Telecaster body is a lot shallower than a Gibson 335 and this makes it more difficult to:
1) Insert the wiring into the guitar.
2) Move the wiring inside the guitar.
3) Stand the long stem pots up so they will go through the holes.
I have found that one of the most important tools you can have on your bench is various lengths of surgical forceps. In this project forceps are perfect for holding onto a pot and guiding it into its spot so it can be pulled up through the hole.
Find a link to different sizes of forceps on Amazon found in the description of this video.
www.amazon.com/s?k=forceps&cr...
I broke the capacitor while trying to position the tone control and I needed to perform surgery and replace it.
I broke the bridge hot lead off the three-way switch and ended up having to pull the switch back out and resolder the lead back on.
My big fingers were not friends in this job. It was so difficult trying to get my fingers in and back out of the guitar body.
The pickups I used are my trusty Fender Tex-Mex pickups. For the price they are hard to beat at $79 per set. Link in the description.
www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZYC1ZS8?...
The guitar is as John Page intended and very acoustic/resonant. Kind of like a Fender acoustasonic guitar in how you can play it without being plugged in. Not as loud as an acoustic but much more audible than a typical solid body electric version of a telecaster.
I like the looks and the sound of the guitar. Will I ever build one again? If I ever think I need to be punished for some misdeed I have committed I will order another one of these bodies and go to work assembling another.
All joking aside - if I did build another one of these, I would look for smaller yet quality versions of the pots and three-way switch. This guitar body is not really made for full size pots. Something to consider if you try this.