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The Classic Player Baja Telecaster was designed by Fender's Master Builder, Chris Fleming, who specialises in Teles, and was Mexican built. Out of the box, it suited what I was looking for in a Tele: a traditional looking and sounding Tele with modern playability.

This specific guitar was used by Greg Koch at a clinic here in South Africa. I liked the tone so much I spoke nicely to the local Fender folk, who let me try it, and also let me compare it to everything else they had in stock. Needless to say, the Baja won out in the end, even compared to the US models I tried.

Changes made
Updated 01/03/2008

Screening
I've screened all the cavities with copper tape, which made a big difference, killing easily 90% of the hum the guitar was picking up. It was surprising how much noise was killed with the screening - I have screened many guitars before, but this was easily the most effective result I've ever obtained.

Rewiring
I've now removed the S1 switch, as the two extra out-of-phase sounds it made available didn't really add anything I wanted. I can use the S1 Switch on my Cort G-VT to get rid of the extra mini-toggle switch on that guitar's pickguard. So I've replaced the S1 with a new CTS pot. I didn't want to change the tone of the Baja, so I measured the pot on the S1 and found it was 270K, and made sure that the new pot is exactly the same value.

Pickguard I have fitted a single-ply matte black pickguard, as the guitar looked a little bland with the stock parchment pickguard on the Desert Sand paint job. The contrast with the black p/g is much better, bringing out the finish colour.   The new pickguard is also thicker at .090" compared to the .060" of the stock one. I went for a thicker one, as I wanted to make sure it lay flat, which the vintage-correct thin models don't always do. Two of the holes didn't quite line up, so I plugged the holes in the body with some wooden dowel and tapped new holes. I used a single strip of copper tape to screen the wirung rout from the neck pickup to the control cavity, which also serves to earth the neck pickup cavity screening.
Electrosocket I replaced the normal vintage jack socket cup with a silver electrosocket jack mount and fitted a Switchcraft jack socket. The Electrosocket is a good looking machined aluminum jack, held in place by two angled screws. The jack socket screws directly into the Electrosocket, and holds the jack firmly in place without working loose.
Straplocks I have also fitted Straplocks and felt washers, which is a standard thing I do for all my guitars.
Graph Tech Trem nut Another one of my standard mods, the Trem nuts eliminate a lot of tuning problems to do with the strings binding in the nut. The stock nut had been badly cut by whoever had set the guitar up for Greg Koch (at least I hope they are not cutting nuts with triangular files in Mexico these days!).
Compensated saddles I love the tone of the three section brass saddles, but intonation is a little "iffy". So I got a set of Wilkinson compensated saddles. The design is similar to the stock brass saddles, so they sound the same, but the tops are angled so that the strings leave them at different points, which improves the intonation.

What? No pickups?
I'm NOT going to change pickups! (I know what you are thinking: "Who are you, and what have you done to Alan?"). It's simply not neccessary though - the stock pickups are extremely well matched, without the usual drop in volume when switching to the neck pickup. Quite importantly for me, they keep the Telecaster sound intact, a little warmer sounding than some Teles with this wood combination, but that's not a bad thing in my opinion. The bridge pickup sound is bright without being shrill, the neck pickup is warm without being muddy, while the in between setting is well balanced. The "both pickups in series" option is a great addition, with a lot more power than usually available.