The Fender Tele Thinline: A Short History

this video is brought to you with support of TruFire learn practice and play with TruFire [Music] hi this is Keith Williams welcome to five wire World we're interested to help you get the most music from the least gear why did Fender build a Telecaster Thin Line the first version of this guitar is in most ways a regular Telecaster so what was it that brought Fender to design and build this short-lived variant of the famed Telecaster running from just mid-68 until 72 and then what's the story on version 2 with its wide range humbucking pickups also unpopular in its time but later picked up for its unique tones by Tom York of Radiohead and Johnny Buckland of Coldplay so if you want to know the story behind this unique and let's face it pretty cool looking Telecaster variant stay tuned because this is the 5 watt World Short history of the Telecaster Thinline guitars if you enjoy your videos make sure to subscribe or grab a t-shirt hoodie or a stomp preset pack to support what we do here and to become a bigger part of 5 watt World sign up for the friends of 5 Watt on patreon the links are in the description CBS bought Fender Musical Instruments in 1965. changes to Fender came slowly over the end of the 60s and into the 70s and this included changes to the Beloved guitar that started it all the Telecaster the earliest telecasters were made of lightweight Ash had been chosen for its availability and for the Dependable grain pattern and the way it looked with the early semi-transparent finishes but by the mid 60s the ash that Fender had in stock was becoming prohibitably heavy and the weight of some telecasters from those years can rival that of a Les Paul whether the lightweight Ash was no longer available or as has often been stated that the new CBS accountants were unwilling to pay for the lighter wood is now lost to history but the fact that the guitars were too heavy is not Thunder's first attempt to lower the weight was to remove wood from the body where it would be hidden underneath the pickguard they hope to be able to solve the problem without fundamentally changing the design this brief and ultimately unsuccessful experiment yielded what are now affectionately referred to as The Smuggler telecasters for the hidden compartment under the pickguard but this did not make a big enough difference and so they decided to do a redesign for this they turned to Roger rossmisel who had come to work at Fender in 62 after spending the previous decade designing guitars at Rickenbacker Ross misel had been brought to Fender to help develop semi-hollow or thin line guitars like the successful ES-335 series over at Gibson a good example of this offender can also be seen in the fender Coronado which was announced in 65 and was produced from 66 to 72. it was immediately clear to Ross maisel that the answer was to remove more wood from the guitar body so they set out to redesign the body to do just that to create the first Thin Line telecasters to do that they first built bodies that were just a bit thinner hollowing out the back of the body in three areas and then gluing on a thin slice of wood or fill it to the back to enclose the guitar the routed areas ran all along the top then just behind the Cutaway and again down under where the controls would be on the top they did the normal pickup and control routing and added an f-hole to highlight the semi-hollow nature of the guitar in most other ways that mattered it was like a regular Telecaster same pickups same controls and same bridge and Saddles of course the pickguard had to be reshaped to make room for the f-hole so the control plate was incorporated there and the controls removed this was also the first Telecaster where the neck pickup was mounted on the pickguard all previous tellys had the neck pickup screwed to the body Fender would later use this mounting to the pickguard on the American Standard series and it would become a standard feature for all non-vintage series teles to this day the new Thin Line bodies were made from Ash or mahogany the mahogany again highlighting the comparison to Les Paul's perhaps the mahogany guitars were much less common most were made of Ash both Woods normally came in a natural finish so the difference in the Ash and mahogany are immediately apparent [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] there aren't good numbers on how many of the original version 1 thin lines were made but we do know that they were released in July of 68. like most things Fender they might have parts that have been produced much earlier in the year the neck on the 68 in the clip from the Chicago Music Exchange was stamped as having been built in February of 68. these early necks are what are referred to as Maple cap necks the maple fretboards were glued to the maple necks after they'd been routed for the installation of the truss rod for this reason the Walnut skunk stripe that runs down the back of the neck usually where they were routed for the truss rod was then filled with Walnut is missing from the maple cap necks there were some Thin lines with the Rosewood fingerboards but these are very rare those first guitars would have had more of a lacquer finish with the late 68 and later guitars having the thick skin poly finishes that we'd see throughout the 70s on Fender guitars in early 68 it would also seen the loss of cloth covered wire that had been used since the beginning of the 50s interestingly the price of a standard Telecaster in 68 was 259 dollars The Thin Line was launched at 329 dollars you paid a 70 up charge for the hollowing out of the guitar over the standard model so it was marketed as an upscale model and 69 a three-tone Sunburst was added to the factory option on the ash body and custom colors were available for both the Ash and the mahogany the first version model would last in the lineup until it was supplanted by the version 2 and 71 though some version 1 Thin Line guitars were trickling out into 1972. [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is likely Curtis Mayfield a player that greatly informed Genie hendricks's style and is cited as an important influence today by session players and producers like John Leventhal country star Conway Twitty strummed a mahogany bodied version one then in the 90s like many Fender models that weren't popular were released new artists discovered them and made them popular once more Tom York from Radiohead would play many variants of both the version 1 and later version 2 style thin lines and Bill Frizzell used a version 1 style thin line on his Big Sur album and throughout the 2000s in a wonderful Daphne blue I reached out to TruFire to be my sponsor because I've used them for years with over 2 million users worldwide whether you're a beginner intermediate or advanced level player TruFire has lessons to enhance and Inspire your playing get 35 off courses using a promo code 5 watt 35 or like I do sign up for the all access pass to use the entire TruFire catalog I really like true fire and I think if you give them a shot you'll like them too sign up now to start your journey to being a better guitarist I'd like to thank TruFire for their support in making this video the star and you might say the reason for the version 2 thin line was the creation of the new wide range humbucking pickups like Ross maisel moving to Fender from Rickenbacker Seth lover had been lured away from Gibson in 67 and would work offender until 75. lover had been flown out to Fender from Michigan to discuss the job and was offered a salary of twelve thousand dollars a year three thousand more than he was making at Gibson at the time in later interviews lover would joke that he felt Gibson had never really paid him what he was worth of course lover had developed besides numerous amps and other electronics for Gibson the original patent applied for a humbucking pickup for Gibson in the mid 50s that began to be used in guitars in 57. in an interview with guitar historian Tony bacon lovers said that although Leo Fender was still around the CBS owned company as a design consultant lover said of Leo he never did talk to me too much we never really got along too well he never came to visit or anything like that it might be that Leo felt that Fender didn't need to be more like Gibson and in the end lover agreed thinking that the Fender's trademark tone was all about brighter tones and he built that into this new pickup design Fender wanted lover to produce a humbucking pickup that would rival what he'd done for Gibson he did design a hung canceling pickup but one with a fender twist and tone it's very different in construction and very different in sound a quick review of the construction of a Gibson style humbuckers in order to highlight this difference the Gibson pickup has 12 pulled pieces that are metal but they are not magnets and then underneath is a bar magnet the Y drain pickup has pull pieces that are also magnets this Echoes the long-standing fender pickup design that have pull pieces being magnets however also wanted them to be adjustable and so this changed the type of magnet material that they could use the standard alnico magnet material couldn't be reliably threaded so it was decided that a combination of copper nickel and ferrite that could be threaded and was called cunify would be used the pickups also have a lot more windings on the bobbins they often measure in the 10 to 11k range where vintage cell humbuckers tend to measure in the 8 to 9k range that measurement doesn't always directly equate to Output but they are louder than other Fender pickups [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] they also mounted both of the new pickups to the pickguard this was the completion of the move to pick up mounted pickups that began in the version one Thin Line guitars with the neck pickup this is a big change to the sound of a bridge pickup Telly in more ways than one of course the sound of an original style Telecaster Bridge pickup is tied to the pickup being mounted to the solid Metal Bridge plate here there's a move to a non-tremolo 6 saddle Stratocaster bridge on the version 2. by mounting everything to the pickguard and made for an easier assembly at the factory the pickups selector switch and volume and tone pots could be mounted on the pickguard before it needed to be installed in a guitar at installation you had to just connect the output Jack and the bridge ground wire and way you'd go while we're on the wiring they used one Meg pots with the new wide range pickups standard single coil pots like in a standard Tellier Stratocaster are 250k and standard pots in a Gibson humbucker harness are 500k this would allow much more high-end to come through also starting in 71 you get the bullet truss rod and the three screw neck plate now due to the generalization the Fender guitars just got worse as time went on after CBS bought them in 65 until the modern era the bullet truss rod and three screw plate tend to be associated with an erosion of quality but both of these were design ideas from Leo himself the bullet truss ride answered the long-standing Grumble about needing to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod and although the three screw plate is seen as less than the four by most it's now generally believed that the part was fine but the neck Pockets were being cut less precisely and that's really where the problem was in those years and finally the microtilt adjustment that was added at this time allows the neck angle to be fine-tuned and set up without the need to shim the neck many of us that have owned either vintage or vintage style fenders have seen pieces of playing cards or even pieces of wood inserted in the neck pocket to my newly adjust the neck angle originally the version 2 guitar was offered in natural Ash finish and that's mostly what we see but it was also offered in very very few version twos were made in Mahogany though they were less common the series 2s were offered from their release in black and three-tone sunbursts as well in 74 they added a walnut brown or mocha as a color option but overall the majority of the guitars were built in that original National finish the series 2 guitars were not particularly popular in the 70s and it was dropped from the line in 79 and then in the 90s the tele Thin Line Deluxe and custom became popular again particularly in the UK the previously mentioned Tom York played version 2 thin lines as well but most prominently of all Johnny Buckland from Coldplay used version 2's almost exclusively and is supposed to have an extensive collection of early 70s guitars as part of one of the biggest bands in the world Buckland put the version to in front of hundreds of thousands of fans out on tour there is a long-running Jim Adkins Thinline style guitar with a set neck and P90s that really has only the f-hole in common with the original thin lines though the ones I've played are very cool guitars most recently fendered offered the version 2 style model again with their American Vintage Series 2 guitars though they weren't particularly popular guitars in their first and second run the redesign of the Telecaster to a Thinline model did achieve the goal of making guitars a reasonable weight at a time when the warehouse was full of heavy Ash I've said here often that my first really good electric guitar was an original 72 Thin Line in natural I ran it through an mxr Distortion plus and an electric mistress flanger into a silver face non-rever Princeton generally doing my best impression of David Gilmore on his first solo record that rig could get amazingly close to Gilmore's original tones even if my hands could not then in the early 2000s Fender built some beautiful two-tone bursts to 69 style thin lines with mahogany bodies down in Mexico I put together a parts Caster with one of the bodies it sounded great and it only weighed about six and a half pounds the influence of the Thinline Telecaster is far-reaching and can even be seen in one of my favorite guitars the very future forward strandberg sail and Deluxe I've said it before but my lightly customized thin line strandberg is the guitar that I'd keep if I had to go down to just one guitar an ergonomic modern super light instrument that seems to divide 5 watt world right down the middle every time I get it out on camera there isn't much you can't do with a great Thin Line Telly style guitar given my history with them I'm not sure why it took me this long to make this video if I missed your favorite part of the Telecaster Thinline Story please put it in the comments for everyone to enjoy I know from experience that I can count on you if you like this video you might enjoy my full history of the Telecaster Short history as well first I need to thank my good friend and Resident Fender history expert Zach Childs from the YouTube Channel's ask Zach and the true tone Lounge Fame I never cease to Marvel at the guitar slinging Encyclopedia of guitar knowledge that is Zach Childs I need to thank John Cordy for coming through with another great clip of intro music on the required instrument he borrowed a parts Caster thin line from the ever Dependable friend of five watt from afar Jake loose more I didn't give John a lot of notice with this request and he joked that maybe his tagline should be changed to the most music in the least time no doubt [Music] [Applause] foreign Chicago music exchange for their permission to use the clip of Nathaniel Murphy playing a rare 68th in line with a mahogany body I need to thank the folks at Guitar point in Frankfurt Germany for their permission to use the clip of the original 72 version 2 Thin Line I find great pics of vintage guitars so often for the videos on guitar points website I feel like they're old friends of mine I need to thank vintage guitar Oldenburg for their permission to use another clip of the masterful Tobias Hoffman playing a late version one from 1972. you can see that even the thick poly finish was heavily checked in the video but it doesn't keep Tobias from pulling amazing things from that guitar I want to thank everyone that stopped by the store and picked up a t-shirt hoodie mug or a stomp preset pack and in particular I want to thank the friends of 5 Watt on patreon it's the Qatar Community I've always wanted your all five watt world I just make the videos if you enjoyed the short history of the Fender Telecaster hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that too YouTube tells me that 60 of the folks that watch my videos aren't subscribed so hit the Subscribe button so you don't miss an episode thanks for hanging with me until the end until next time I'm Keith Williams thanks for being a part of the five wire world foreign [Music]

Channel: five watt world

Views: 85,088

Keywords: five watt world, Keith williams, fender guitars, fender, fender telecaster thinline, fender telecaster, radiohead, coldplay

Id: wb8skh2RGQQ

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023