Harrier Mistral Telecaster Copy
Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 6:39 pm
Well, the rather wet Bank Holiday weather was the ideal opportunity to finally finish (for the time being ) my Telecaster copy project. As you may remember I bought a Harrier Mistral new off eBay for £39.99, direct from Harrier. Seemed like a silly price for a copy, particularly as it is strung through the body. Due to moving etc etc I just hadn’t had time to do any work on this guitar, but also I think I was putting it off to a certain extent because I hadn’t attempted anything like this before. Anyway here is a summary of what I have and haven’t done:
1. The finish and fittings on the body are fine. The pick-ups are more than adequate for home use, so the only thing I’ve done is to fit a Trev Wilkinson bridge with brass compensating saddles. This has improved the sound I think and also the intonation is pretty well spot-on now. To my ear the guitar has that nice, but harsh Tele sound.
2. Wilkinson tuners have been fitted, which are a VAST improvement over the originals.
3. There was plenty of work to do on the neck and frets. Firstly the ends of the frets needed to be smoothed down as they were protruding from the sides of the fretboard. I think this had become worse since moving house (see comments re my Crafter at the end of this posting). The frets were then buffed to remove any roughness. Next to the fretboard, which is UNFINISHED maple ie no varnish. This was quite rough and needed a bit of work to get it smooth. I then applied some Gibson premium fretboard conditioner, which has improved the appearance and feel of the fretboard (Russ not sure what this is exactly - do you know?).
4. Finally the guitar was fitted with Ernie Ball 9’s. Set-up included a little truss-rod adjustment, setting the action (the Wilkinson Bridge even came with an allen key!) and the intonation (used the Zoom G2 tuner for this - very useful).
All in all I’m really pleased with how the guitar has turned out, at it looks good , sounds like a Tele and plays well. OK the neck could be a bit thinner and the nut doesn’t look too robust, so these may be things for the future.
All of the new parts were purchased from http://www.axesrus.com/axecart.htm. Have to say that I’m REALLY impressed with every aspect of their excellent service - they even replaced a tuner that I’d damaged myself (too much midnight oil and the odd pint!) free of charge (thanks again Jackie!). Highly recommended
Finally just a quick mention about my Crafter acoustic (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=941), which had become very difficult to play due to a change in environment ie moving from an older to a newer property. Well thanks are due to Gordon, Bob and Russ - carefully adjusting the truss rod by 1/8th turn at a time did the trick - it's fine now
Best to all and thanks for the advice,
Roger
1. The finish and fittings on the body are fine. The pick-ups are more than adequate for home use, so the only thing I’ve done is to fit a Trev Wilkinson bridge with brass compensating saddles. This has improved the sound I think and also the intonation is pretty well spot-on now. To my ear the guitar has that nice, but harsh Tele sound.
2. Wilkinson tuners have been fitted, which are a VAST improvement over the originals.
3. There was plenty of work to do on the neck and frets. Firstly the ends of the frets needed to be smoothed down as they were protruding from the sides of the fretboard. I think this had become worse since moving house (see comments re my Crafter at the end of this posting). The frets were then buffed to remove any roughness. Next to the fretboard, which is UNFINISHED maple ie no varnish. This was quite rough and needed a bit of work to get it smooth. I then applied some Gibson premium fretboard conditioner, which has improved the appearance and feel of the fretboard (Russ not sure what this is exactly - do you know?).
4. Finally the guitar was fitted with Ernie Ball 9’s. Set-up included a little truss-rod adjustment, setting the action (the Wilkinson Bridge even came with an allen key!) and the intonation (used the Zoom G2 tuner for this - very useful).
All in all I’m really pleased with how the guitar has turned out, at it looks good , sounds like a Tele and plays well. OK the neck could be a bit thinner and the nut doesn’t look too robust, so these may be things for the future.
All of the new parts were purchased from http://www.axesrus.com/axecart.htm. Have to say that I’m REALLY impressed with every aspect of their excellent service - they even replaced a tuner that I’d damaged myself (too much midnight oil and the odd pint!) free of charge (thanks again Jackie!). Highly recommended
Finally just a quick mention about my Crafter acoustic (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=941), which had become very difficult to play due to a change in environment ie moving from an older to a newer property. Well thanks are due to Gordon, Bob and Russ - carefully adjusting the truss rod by 1/8th turn at a time did the trick - it's fine now
Best to all and thanks for the advice,
Roger