The Fender Telecaster was the first true production electric solid body. The unmistakable twang and solid feel make this workhorse a classic guitar design. Fralin’s Tele replacement pickups are a reproduction of the ‘50s style using black fiberboard bobbin parts, cloth leads, and Alnico 5 magnets. We stock the following Fralin Tele Pickups:
Fralin Stock
Neck
Wound to 7K with 43-gauge Plain Enamel wire. Bright, clear, and classic. Comes with nickel cover.
Neck +2%
An 2% overwound version of the stock neck, which matches up well with the higher-output bridge pickups, such as the Blues Special Bridge. Comes with nickel cover.
Bridge
Wound with 42-gauge Plain Enamel wire to approximately 7K. Bright, clear, and classic.
Fralin Blues Special
Neck
Wound with hybrid staggered magnets (flat with raised D) and 5% more turns than stock, this pickup is bright and strong. No cover is included, as Fralin feels that the added output makes the pickup too dark when a cover is added. The coil is taped for protection.
Bridge
Wound with 42-gauge Polynylon for slightly more solid and slightly darker-than-stock sound.
Fralin Steel-Pole
Bridge
Wound on adjustable pole pieces, with bar magnets on the bottom (like a P-90). This is Lindy's highest-output Tele pickup, with the SP43 being roughly equivalent to a Gibson P-90 in output.
About Magnet Staggers
The vintage stagger is the conventional magnet pattern, arrived at by Fender in the early 1950s. At that time all Telecasters came with a 7.25" fretboard radius, and wound G strings were the norm. The stagger was designed to provide a better string-to-string balance than that of the earlier Broadcasters, which had non-staggered poles.
The hybrid stagger is flat with a raised D pole. Fralin feels that this is the more appropriate choice for those modern guitars who have a flatter radius than the vintage Fender guitars and vintage reissues. This is especially true when the radius gets flatter than 12" or so. Additionally, since most players these days use plain G strings (there's a joke in there somewhere), the original logic behind the staggered magnets simply doesn't apply to many modern guitars.