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Fender Tele, Boat Anchor


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Can any members help me with the term 'Boat Anchor' on Fender Teles. I have heard they only came in late 1976 but how do you tell a standard from a Boat Anchor without weighting it. Sorry if this is not a acoustic question but I know lots of members play Teles.

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It's a term thrown by Fenderphiles for "overweight guitars". Whether they be Teles, Strats or whatever (Les Pauls [biggrin] ).

 

For me, when a Tele gets upwards of 9lbs, it starts to enter boat anchor territory. Of course everyone has there own preferences.

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Teles were/are made of ash or poplar bodies and do vary a lot in weight. Ash is generally used for translucent and natural finishes while poplar is often used under paint. "Boat anchor" class depends on the player. The only true boat anchor Tele I've ever been around is the rosewood bodied model......weighs a freakin' ton!!

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The most common woods used for USA made Teles and Strats are ash and alder (not poplar). Ash is much harder, denser, and HEAVIER than alder. Even within it's own species two pieces of ash can vary greatly in weight. Ash also contains very pretty and wide "open" grain, similar to red oak and some maple, which made it a very aesthetically pleasing wood for natural, blond, butterscotch, and sunburst finishes.

 

The original Teles (late 40's) and Strats (early 50's) were made of ash. Because of these unpredictable variations in grain, density and weight of ash, Fender changed over to alder in the mid 50's. Alder is a much more consistent in color, grain and weight, AND cheaper than ash. This change made the Fender guitars much more consistent from one to another. As people started clambering for reissues and "vintage" spec guitars, Fender started to build some models out of ash again (there is a famous batch of mid-70's natural finish ash Strats that were very heavy, and PRETTY).

 

The weight/density variations in guitars also affects the sound. Generally speaking, the heavier an electric guitar the warmer/darker the sound. An ash Tele and an alder Tele will sound very different. I've got three Strats made of different woods, ash, alder, and basswood. Each one sounds very different than the others, the basswood Strat is the "twangiest" of them all, and the ash one is the "ballsiest".

 

A Tele being described as a "boat anchor" is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. I remember walking into a local music store back in the late 80's/early 90's, and the owner of the store asked me to come over a check out two new black Teles that had just arrived. They were the same model, color, price, etc. One weighted a TON, and the other was light as a feather, go figure.

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What I've been led to believe and all disclaimers apply:

 

The earlier ash models were southern swamp ash, which is quite light by comparison to the northern ash. Northern ash was used in the 70s and I'm sure into the early 80s, at least through the Dan Smith Era, after which poplar became all the rage and people actually began weighing their guitars. Some companies even used basswood, which I think is even lighter than poplar. So then they could claim their guitars were lighter.

 

My '77 Tele is northen white ash and weighs a lot. I weighed it once and it was over 9 lbs. Well, that's actually backwards.... it weighs a lot so I assume it's northern ash.

 

In 1978:

swe78.jpg

 

Now:

tele1.jpg

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I recently bought a Fender Custom Shop '66 Telecaster Reissue that Dave's Guitar Shop in La Crosse, Wisconsin special-ordered and happened to receive the day I came up from Iowa to pick up a Martin Custom Shop "D-45V".

 

This Tele has a see-through blond finish on a solid Ash body and still it weighs just 6.4 lbs.! I couldn't believe it was true. Also has a Maple neck with a Madagascar Rosewood fretboard, real pearl dot inlays, and a gold transition-style Fender headstock logo .

 

It was so special that it actually got me "off-task" with the Custom Shop Martin which I had just spent six months anxiously waiting for.

 

I couldn't stop playing this feather-weight Fender Custom Shop guitar, and ended up taking it home, with my Adirondack-topped "D45-V".

 

Easily the best Telecaster I've ever played and a total surprise. I hate "boat anchor" solid-bodies. For me they take all the fun out of playing live on stage.

 

Jack6849

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Most Tele players prefer lightweight instruments usually targeting around 6 lbs. The early variants of the Telecaster appeared in 1950 and were named "Broadcasters", there were several other names used until they settled on "Telecaster" in late 1951. At the time Fender was using Ash on this instrument line, while there were a few Pine bodied guitars that were made in 1950, mostly "Esquires", Fender stayed with Ash until they switched to Alder around 1956-57. Leo Fender was known for his frugality with regard to sourcing parts and supplies. If he got a deal on some wood that's what they'd use on their instruments;

 

 

Now Ash has open pores in it's grain, and in order to create a decent finish, the pores need to be filled with grain filler, then sanded to make a smooth surface. This was a laborious process for workers at Fender back in the early '50s. Eventually they were able to switch over to Alder, which was less costly and did not require any grain filler prep work. It looked similar to Ash, with tighter grain, albeit somewhat heavier.

 

The term "Boat Anchor" is guitar jargon, often used in conjunction with another expression "Tone Turd", meaning a heavy instrument, to be avoided, that might sound more like stone than wood.

 

Speaking of Fender Telecasters, while one can marvel over Leo Fender's ingenuity in designing the Telecaster, they should examine a Rickenbacher B-6 Bakelite lapsteel from the mid to late 1930s. Like a Telecaster, the Rickenbacher B-6 has a detachable neck, height adjustable pickup with individual pole pieces, side mounted input jack, separate Volume and Tone controi knobs, and most importantly, string- thru-body construction. Here's a pic of one that I've had for many years for comparison.

 

normal_042009_031.JPG

 

1936 Rickenbacher B-6 Bakelite lapsteel with 1.5" horseshoe magnet pickup.

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. . . My '77 Tele is northen white ash and weighs a lot. I weighed it once and it was over 9 lbs. Well, that's actually backwards.... it weighs a lot so I assume it's northern ash.

 

In 1978: <snipped pic>

 

Now: <snipped pic>

 

Nice redo on yer 77 - you look pretty happy with it in that pic. [thumbup]

 

When out shopping in the last couple years, I've seen a few new "Swamp Ash" Teles - Fender must have run some off a year or two ago. As I recall, these seemed to have more "flecking" mixed into the areas of no grain than the "northern" Ash.

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Love the Ash Teles. . . . And there's many ways to go, including twang and rock. I've got an AV '52 - here it is factory setup -

 

BK-52TeleAVS.jpg

 

 

I got an extra neck and just for fun modded it toward a certain rocker's Tele/Esquire mashup - here's my AV '52 with a pickguard and neck swap -

 

BTRmod1sm.jpg

 

And a bit of photoshopping -

 

BornToRun-modsm.jpg

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Nice BK! Yeah, My '76 has been upgraded some....Lindy Fralin Blues Special P'ups and brass, compensated saddles.50's knobs. Still have the originals though. Super low action on an all maple neck....Sweet....in her own way.... and when "spanked".... [wink]

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