GUITAR: Profile Silhouette Telecaster - 1980s Japan

I know, this is not a pedal and it's also just a Telecaster - not exactly big news - but hey, it's my blog and I'll post what I want.   

Picked up this Profile Silhouette Telecaster on the weekend for a pretty decent price - second-hand Squier money.  It had been sitting in a case in a garage for years - it used to belong to the sellers' auntie.  I could not find a reference to this model anywhere, and there's very limited information available about these guitars in general, hence the length of this post.

The story goes something along these lines:  Sometime in the 1980s the owner of an Australian music store took his favourite US made Strat to Japan and said "build some of these".  Turned out they were very close to American Fenders and were half the price at the time.  This sounds like a reasonable premise.

What I've read but can't verify:  This is supposed to have pre-dated Fender Japan.  Some say they were made in the Cushin Gakki factory, which is where Japanese Charvel and Jackson were made.  Some say made by FujiGen.

PROFILE SILHOUETTE TELECASTER CUSTOM

What I think I have so far;

• Two-piece Ash body, possibly Sen given the Japanese connection (bound front and back)

• Rock maple neck, fat C I would say

• Kluson style tuners, stamped "Deluxe"

• Weird bridge, the same as Tokai Breezysounds (but with original tele bridge string spacing)

• No identifying marks to be found in terms of serial numbers etc.  Just a mark where a sticker was on the back of the neck plate

• Code in the neck pocket is 8-116

• Noble pots, which seem to be common on decent Japanese guitars from this period

• Standard greenie 47n cap

• DM-30 three-way switch, also common on Japanese guitars from the period

• Poly finish 

• 5 Screw scratch plate

I think this mark on the plate is where the Made in Japan sticker once was.

The bridge looks identical to a Tokai Breezysound, minus the Tokai branding.  Obviously a departure from a traditional Telecast here - they've clearly gone for function rather than sticking with vintage correct.

It is however vintage correct spacing, not the smaller import size.

Nice fully machined metal knobs, hardware has a decent patina and despite not being correct for a Tele, I quite like the switch end.

I've read that some folks think that all Profile guitars had plywood bodies.  This one most certainly does not.  Solid wood, no front and back veneer to hide cheap wood underneath.

Regular Tele thickness

Nice skunk stripe and I'm pretty sure this is rock maple.

The neck join is really tidy - no stress fractures around the finish 

It has Noble pots, which were in a lot of the better Japanese guitars back in the day.  As expected, the wiring is not great.

47n cap, 500k pots.  One linear, the other log

Pickups are not ceramic, that much is obvious - no identifying marks.  

Some kind of code in the neck pocket.