With
its revolutionary asymmetrical trim, Ferrington Guitars is the world’s
first entirely digitally-imaged and -designed book. It features
the work of Danny Ferrington, renowned luthier, and the artists
for whom he has created personalized guitars, including Pete Townshend,
Elvis Costello, Mike Campbell, the late Kurt Cobain, and many others.
Some of the artists also used their Ferrington Guitars to contribute
original recordings to the audio CD packaged with the book. A profile
of Ferrington is contributed by Orville Schell.teleradius
overview
The Teleradius is my contemporary re-interpretation of the classic Fender® Telecaster®. The Telecaster® is a real workingman's guitar. Mockingly referred to as a “broom handle with strings,” it revolutionized the electric guitar industry in the manner of Henry Ford's Model T. Although cheaply mass-produced and lacking the refinement of rival Gibson instruments, it nonetheless won the hearts of working musicians everywhere. I wanted to create a contemporary, hardworking, yet elegant instrument based on this timeless classic. Having just come back from the NAMM show I was full of ideas for how I would radius the top of the guitar withouth the aid of a computer-controlled lathe.
While the Telecaster® is typically associated with country and western music, it is a little-known fact that this twangy slab of wood is what was used by Jimmy Page to record the first two Led Zeppelin albums. Page blasted the Tele® through tiny tube-powered practice amplifiers to get a huge sound on the recording. Strange but true.
But the Telecaster® is notorious for it's thin trebly tone and susceptibility to high-pitched howling feedback. I wanted my Tele® to easily coax a tube amplifier into controlled overdrive without howling like a monkey on fire. Aside from all of the tonal characteristics of the woods selected for this instrument, I was in need of a carefully selected high-output pickup if I was going to get a fat enough tone to really rock while retaining certain tonal characteristics typical of a Telecaster®. I chose to use Seymour Duncan pickups designed for specific purposes.
wood selection
One-piece mahogany body with a three-sixteenth inch thick maple top.
The body was cut from a single solid piece of mahogany. Mahogany was chosen as the main body wood due to its warm sonic characteristics. Unlike a traditional Telecaster® the back of the body is heavily contoured with a deep cutaway designed for comfortable playing and to reduce the overall weight of the guitar. The mohaogany body was routed for the electronics and hardware before being radiused on a homemade radiusing jig of my own design. Once the radius was complete the maple top was glued to the mahogany body.
The highly-figured birdseye maple top is three-sixteenths of an inch thick. This thin top was necessary in order to bend the maple around the radius carved into the top of the mahogany body. The maple top also required carving around the control so that the bottoms of the knobs would clear the radiused top.
The body is a string-through design, meaning the strings pass through the back of the guitar and the ball-end of the strings are seated in ferrules set into the back of the guitar. The strings then pass through the bridge and over the bridge saddles.
The birdseye maple neck is capped with a birdseye maple fretboard and is bolted to the body using a standard four screw mounting plate. The headstock was hand carved to accentuate the shape of the headstock by providing a two-level effect.
pickups
Close-up of the Seymour Duncan Duckbucker.
- Hot Lead Stack
- By stacking two coils with extra windings around an Alnico 5 bar magnet, the output is boosted without altering the pure single coil sound. You get a hotter, brighter sound with more emphasis on the midrange and greater sustain. By adding a high-frequency bypass filter the output level can be backed off without getting muddy. This was important because when I play live I want the amp to "clean-up" when I back off the volume knob on the guitar, giving me a traditional bright and jangly tone when necessary.
- Duckbucker
- As the Seymour Duncan literature says: Such a silly name for such a serious pickup! Duckbuckers feature six fully adjustable pole pieces and true hum canceling construction together with a unique split blade design. Duckbuckers duplicate all the warm tone, cool output, and outrageous quack of a vintage Fender pickup. All quack, no hum. Just what I was looking to get out of a pickup for the neck position.
hardware
Gotoh™ brand bridge being set up as a replacement for the original “ashtray.”
I originally outfit this guitar with a vintage style stamped steel Telecaster “ashtray” bridge and vintage string trees. It became apparent early on that this was a mistake. Tuning problems were encountered and the bridge saddles were notorious for shifting out of adjustment. I tossed the vintage hardware and picked up a heavy contemporary brass bridge assembly from Gotoh. By far a much better quality piece of hardware.
A Gibson style three-position pickup selector switch was used instead of the traditional Fender Tele switch due to the fact that this guitar would not use a control plate for mounting the electronics.
The master volume control is positioned close to the bridge to allow for turning with the pinky finger, but not as close as a typical Fender Stratocaster, which is too close for my playing style. All hardware is chrome plated.
challenges
The face of the headstock is carved for a two-layer effect.
The headstock of the guitar is a two-level relief carving inspired by the original Fender design. Aniline Dye was carefully applied to accentuate the lower level of the carving, a time consuming and painstaking process, but well worth the effort.
One of the most challenging aspects of this guitar's construction was the radiusing of the top. Since most people, myself included, don't have access to the computer-controlled lathes used to carve the complex arched tops found on factory assembled guitars, it is necessary for us to invent a way to create an archtop in our basements with the tools we have on hand. My end result is outstanding, since rarely does anyone see an archtop Telecaster.
specifications
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