# Telecaster bridge rout location



## Spellcaster (Jan 7, 2008)

I'm doing a restoration for a friend on his '59 Telecaster. Over the years, a number of mods including a pair of Gibson minibuckers and a Tun-o-matic bridge were inflicted on it. Mow, he wants it brought back to stock. I've done the basic stripping of six coats of finish and filled all of the oversize routs in the pickup and control cavities. I assumed it would all be downhill from here....I bought a set of laser cut templates, and since there were faint traces of the original routs, I expected it to be easy. However, having reassembled the neck and a vintage ashtray style bridge in the original locations, I find two issues...for some reason, the original bridge rout is about 3/16 inches higher up the face than it should be to line up with the bridge, which I can solve, but the template is cut so wide that a gap on either the top or bottom seems inevitable. I checked the template on three other bodies and it appears to be consistent with them and I tried two other vintage bridges with the same result. I recall having issues with this on other projects, but this is the first time I'm rerouting and have a measure of control. Can I cut this slightly narrower at the surface and dremel it wider underneath, and somehow twist the assembled bridge/pickup assembly in to the cavity?


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

No expert but ... a dovetail router bit would do that. 

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## cknowles (Jan 29, 2008)

If you can, mount the pickup to the bridge plate then trial fit it to your template. You should then be able to see how much clearance you have to work with.

I think the original routes were intentionally spacious to accommodate bridge and neck alignment adjustments during assembly. Should be no problem routing/installing as you propose.

On my Tele there is just the slightest hint of the pickup route visible on the treble side of the bridge plate.


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