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Topic: Replacing Fender "knife edge" pivots. |
Tony Russell
From:
North of England
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Posted 27 Nov 2018 8:32 am |
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I have stripped down my Fender Artist D-10 for maintenance and find one pivot blade badly worn in three places, the other worn a bit less. For those not familiar with the thing I'll explain. And, by the way, these Fenders are the ones with the ShoBud undercarriage.
The fingers do not pivot on a rod. The fulcrum is a knife-edge and the fingers have a ">" shape that sits on the knife-edge. This results in almost no friction. The "blade" is some alloy or aluminium (too light and too worn to be steel) and 3.5in x 1in x 1/10th in thick. I don't think the thickness is critical; 2.5mm or even 3mm (with the edge filed a bit sharper at the edge) would do.
Does anyone have any ideas what material I need to search for? I'm not familiar with aluminium grades. I even considered 3mm brass 
Any thoughts would be helpful, from a PSG tech. or a metal workers angle.
One other thought occurred to me, I wondered if the Fender 800 or 2000 used the same knife - it would be logical that an existing part would be used in the new model.
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Tony Russell Davis |
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Rick McNamara
From:
Michigan, USA
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Posted 2 Dec 2018 10:19 am Fender String Holder pivot
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Howdy Tony,
I have done quite a bit of Fender PSG work and have actually made replacement pivot plates(1008-1018 cold rolled steel) for Fenders with the Short Scale style string holder-very similar to the string holder on your Artist model.
Your comment that a small radius versus a knife point will work, is how I make mine, and actually how the edge is on the Short Scale guitars!
The word of caution here has to do with flatness of the plate and uniformity/straightness of the edge(radius). Also. when in place on the guitar, the pivot edge needs to be square(90 degrees) to the strings or the string holders will want to walk sideways.
A friend with a Fender 800 dropped his guiter and unfortunately because the cover that goes over the string holders was missing the guitar landed right on the string holders! Kinda of a "the bread always lands peanut butter side down" scenario!
Anyway, when he looked it over, it now had a problem with several of the string holders sticking during a raise or lower.
I sent him a new top plate(pivot edge for the string holders incorporated into it) which after replacement solved the problem.
Checking the old plate when he returned it, I discovered the pivot edge was deformed in the area of the sticking string holders just enough to cause the problem-only visible with a hardened and ground straight edge.
Fender Short Scale 400, 800 and 2000 are sensitive to side clearance on the string holders and need to have the ability to move back and forth(sideways) a bit(0.003" - 0.005").
Hopefully this helps and my apologies for not writing sooner! I was certain folks would have responded by now!
You might have posted your question on Basil's Fender PSG page. Lots of folks there to help out.
Regards,
Rick |
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Tony Russell
From:
North of England
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Posted 3 Dec 2018 3:58 am
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Thanks Rick - a lot of information there that will be very helpful. I'll check out Basil's pages, he's an old friend of mine anyway.
Thanks again and best wishes, Tony.
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Tony Russell Davis |
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