Description
Hoagland Custom, located in sunny Fernandina Beach, Florida, has specialized in custom guitar wiring and pickup making for over 25 years…
& we love what we do!
The original two-pickup Esquire wiring is characterized by the absence of a real tone control. Instead, the second pot acted as a blend or pan control between the two pickups, and this was only engaged with the 3-way pickup selector switch in the rear position. In May 1952, Leo modified the circuit to incorporate a true tone control by skipping the blend functionality and discarding any two-pickup combination.
Today we know that it was not Leo’s idea alone, and this change was mostly made because of Bill Carson’s suggestions. Carson worked as a professional Western swing guitarist and was Leo’s favorite guinea pig for testing his Telecaster and early tweed amp designs. Carson never really liked the blender wiring on his Telecaster and came up with the idea to incorporate a real tone control.
The birth of the 1953 Telecaster wiring.
This does NOT include the control plate.
HARDWARE: (included are dress washers/nuts and switch mounting screws)
- optional chrome control plate & mounting screws (available but NOT included)
- optional gold control plate & mounting screws (available but NOT included)
- optional black control plate & mounting screws (available but NOT included)
- optional nickel control plate & mounting screws (available but NOT included)
- optional “Pure Tone” premium mono output jack
AVAILABLE CAPACITORS:
- Sprague “Orange Drop” poly capacitors (2), as standard & no additional cost
- MojoTone Dijon Premium Foil/Film capacitors (2), $6 upgrade (From the manufacturer: “Mojotone Dijon capacitors are high quality foil/film capacitors made to our exact specification. We like to call them musical capacitors because of their good tone and transparency.”)
- Mallory “Mustard” capacitors (2), $8 upgrade
- Centralab “Royal Blue” mylar-in-oil capacitors (2), $26 upgrade
- Vitamin T “Silver Barrel” paper-in-oil capacitors (2), $28 upgrade
SWITCHING POSITIONS:
- P1 – (switch lever on the right): Bridge pickup alone with tone control engaged. (This is identical to today’s modern Telecaster wiring.)
- P2 – (switch lever in the middle): Neck pickup alone with tone control engaged. (On modern Telecasters, this position engages both pickups wired in parallel.)
- P3 – (switch lever on the left): Neck pickup alone with a bass-y-sounding preset and no further tone control. (On a modern Telecaster, this selects the neck pickup alone with tone control engaged.)
STANDARD INCLUDES:
- 1 CTS or Bourns Pro Series volume control, 250k value, audio taper
- 1 CTS or Bourns Pro Series tone control, 250k value, linear taper
- Sprague “Orange Drop” poly capacitors (2), .047mfd value
- 3-way lever style switch
- Switchcraft mono output jack
- Gavitt vintage style, cloth covered wire
- easy-to-follow wiring diagram
- tech support phone & email
Contact Hoagland Custom with any questions regarding this wiring solution, our custom, handcrafted Hoagland Custom pickups, or any other guitar wiring solution that you might need.
