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Topic: My new D8 Stringmaster |
Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 3 Jul 2018 11:54 am |
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Sticker inside says:
Mary
11-5-53
Just got it in today. Pretty clean for 53. As usual these things are always covered in a layer of grime, so I still need to clean, polish and re-string it. On initial inspection everything is original and working, including case and legs. Switches are a little stiff, and has some scratch in the tone pot. The strings were a little cruddy but all pickups seems to sound good and full. Haven't thoroughly inspected tuners yet but nothing seems loose or slipping. Under the dirt I can already tell the fret boards are extremely well preserved. Body paint is about 98%, just has little nicks around the edges, but not a lot of heavy dings. Beautiful ash wood grain. I have a small stash of spare parts for these long scales but luckily I don't think anything will be needed.
There were some specks of hardened sticky gunk on the front around the right diamond and the spaghetti logo that had picked up red material from the case lining. Careful application of Flitz and gentle rubbing removed it all. This guitar has been around a while but I'm not sure it has seen many owners or much playing. |
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Will Houston
From:
Tempe, Az
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Posted 3 Jul 2018 1:26 pm
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| Nice score, enjoy. |
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Bill Creller
From:
Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)
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Posted 3 Jul 2018 4:08 pm
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Nice one ! Easy to see that it hasn't been banged around at bar gigs etc !! The'54 Dual Pro I had, had Mary's name in it too !
Some DeOxit D5 spray will make that noisy pot sound OK. |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 1:58 am
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| Are the legs and sockets original? I thought the MK1 stringmasters didn't have the legs coming out at an angle like that. |
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Bill Sinclair
From:
Waynesboro, PA, USA
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 5:51 am
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Jeff,
Here's the thread where I compared them:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=324264&highlight=leg+angle+degrees
Looks like about a 10 degree angle on the early ones vs. about 20 on the later. All four of my long scale parts guitars ('53 and '54) had the 10 degree sockets so I assumed the change came about in late '54. Brad's new guitar sure looks like the 20 degree sockets though.
Brad,
Great looking guitar - and it comes with the bridge covers!  |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 7:56 am
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My T-8 Stringmaster is a mite later, it has more angle to the legs.
Erv
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 9:33 am
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I noticed the leg angle too, although I didn't think much about it at first. I certainly don't mind.
The legs are definitely vintage/old, and I assume go with this guitar. The clutches are getting a little sloppy and the white feet come off easily - I'll probably get a new set.
On the leg sockets its hard to say. They're definitely Fender. The screw heads aren't chewed up from tampering, although these screws are beefier and take more abuse. But there are some curious pencil marks near a couple of the sockets, so who knows. Literally an arrow mark or two, as if somebody couldn't remember "righty-tighty-lefty-loosey", but another socket has a mark that looks like a "u".
I had it all apart and cleaned and polished everything. Flitz doesn't work miracles, but it does make everything look better and offers a layer of protection. Since people are always a little sloppy and careless about chewing up Phillips heads I can tell the guitar has probably been at least partially disassembled in the past 65 years. There are a couple of very small areas of chrome pitting, but mostly just some rusty/black screw heads. The pickups were sitting too high and the front neck pickup covers had been scuffed by strings.
Both necks were marked 10-53 under the tuner pans. I was dreading the tuners, but it turns out the back neck pan has the newer style bracket assembly instead of those awful soldered tuners. But on the front neck the 3rd string lollipop button had some ancient ossified masking tape on it for some reason. When I pulled the pan I discovered it was the welded/soldered construction variety, and indeed the star gear on the 3rd string tuner had failed or been replaced with a shiny newer gear. But that tuner was still binding up in both directions. I have one spare tuner pan, the bracket variety but with some minor cosmetic issues on the pan. But it would not fit without widening the cavity just a hair. Instead I pulled a vintage star gear off of it and tried installing it on the original pan. It seemed to turn smoothly in the tightening direction, but would still bind up in the other direction. Basically the worm gear on that particular tuner does not seem to be engaging the star gear well enough. I don't think the weld has ever failed or been repaired, maybe just a defect from the factory. When I tuned up a set of strings it got pretty hard to turn, so I'll have to figure out how to deal with it.
I don't know what to make of the mixed tuner pans. I had a loose soldered tuner pan before, so I knew they were initially used on some Mark I Stringmasters. Either Fender transitioned to the improved designed sometime in 53 and my guitar just happened to get mixed parts from the bin (cuz they were gonna use everything), or somebody was able (or compelled) to install at least one upgraded pan. The back neck bracket style pan is a tight fit in its cavity, but I didn't notice any evidence of widening it.
I also decided that someone has probably ripped off and replaced the original knobs, maybe trying to pass them off as Tele knobs. These are too clean/shiny and have Allen screws. Functionally and visually there is no difference, but its just so stupid and annoys me.
But yeah the bridge covers complete the appearance. They just have to go when you're changing strings! |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 10:34 am
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Here's a better view of the leg angle. You can see the rather straight legs of my 54 quad in the background.
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 4 Jul 2018 2:04 pm
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That guitar is a month older than I am.
I'm pretty clean for a '53 model.
My legs are definitely vintage/old. My clutches are still in pretty good shape, though!
_________________
Lee, from South Texas - Down On The Rio Grande
There are only two options as I see it.
Either I'm right, or there is a sinister conspiracy to conceal the fact that I'm right.
Williams Keyless S-10, BMI S-10, Evans FET-500LV, Fender Steel King, 2 Roland Cube 80XL's,
Sarno FreeLoader, Goodrich Passive Volume Pedals, Vintage ACE Pack-A-Seat |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 2:35 am
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| Bill Sinclair wrote: |
Jeff,
Here's the thread where I compared them:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=324264&highlight=leg+angle+degrees
Looks like about a 10 degree angle on the early ones vs. about 20 on the later. All four of my long scale parts guitars ('53 and '54) had the 10 degree sockets so I assumed the change came about in late '54. Brad's new guitar sure looks like the 20 degree sockets though.
Brad,
Great looking guitar - and it comes with the bridge covers! |
Unfortunately this thread doesn't give any indication of the change between dead straight (as shown on the quad) and the 10 degree angle. Not sure if this difference is related to date or model. For example, is it possible that the long scale quads had straight legs but the doubles had angled legs. I don't think I've ever seen a long scale double with straight legs. |
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Bill Sinclair
From:
Waynesboro, PA, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 4:04 am
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| Jeff Mead wrote: |
Unfortunately this thread doesn't give any indication of the change between dead straight (as shown on the quad) and the 10 degree angle. |
Jeff,
Note that Brad said "rather straight" and not dead straight. I think the sockets on his quad are probably the 10 degree. I've never seen a Fender console without a little angle. |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 9:09 am
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The quad legs do have a very slight angle, and its all they need. Due to the sheer girth and expanse of the console it is quite stable with the legs still fitting under the top of the guitar. Like a small table really. A wider stance would probably be a nuisance and require too much floor space.
On the D8, because it is so long and narrow, I think a smaller angle would make the gate between the legs at each end look rather strange, and leave the guitar ready to topple over with a bump or a slight breeze.
I've heard of this whole straight to angled change, but I can't really say where. Was probably old threads here, but not sure I read about it in any book (the published info on early Stringmasters is so scant and so poor). Maybe apocryphal? I would tend to think the leg angle was simply different between the larger and smaller consoles, and then when people come along later and try to salvage and mix up parts and find the 10-degree socket they got from an orphaned quad neck doesn't work so well on a D8 build.... I dunno.
I mean, Fender already had some experience putting legs on a console, and to me a narrow or non-existent angle on this long skinny D8 seems like too big and too obvious of a goof. |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 9:38 am
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| Maybe if Fender ever did use dead straight legs it was on a very early pre-production quad or something that Noel or somebody might have complained about. That I could maybe believe. |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 10:10 am
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It looks like the legs on my early quad have quite a spread.
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 11:20 am
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| Oy! And my "late" quad has much straighter legs. Maybe yours got some sockets meant for a D8 |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 11:27 am
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Here, you can compare.
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 11:52 am
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| Doug Beaumier wrote: |
Some early ones. Looks to be a slight angle, not dead straight...
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These are the ones I was thinking of as straight - certainly looks like less than 10 degrees. In the picture it looks like the angle is front to back but not angled at all if you look head on? |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 5 Jul 2018 12:01 pm
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Hmmm, looks straight from above, I think. Camera plays tricks...
But there is a small angle
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 7 Jul 2018 5:53 pm
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| Okay, the side trip to leg land was amusing, but now on to “Maryâ€. Who the heck was she? |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 7 Jul 2018 6:32 pm
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Mary seems to be almost as common on these early builds as Gloria when the company was still rather small. There is a Mary Lemus in a 1970s newspaper photo of original Fender employees which has been posted here before. People believe "Mary" refers to her I think. Searching on the Internet yields mentions of her starting at Fender in 54, but this guitar is late 53.
Jody Carver might know more about her. He had a funny story or two for me about Gloria (Fuentes). I'm not real sure how he's doing though. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 7 Jul 2018 8:04 pm
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Thanks Brad. That was far more interesting than the leg discussion - the kind of thing that songs are written about...
Beauty of a guitar, btw. Excellent score. |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 9 Jul 2018 9:03 pm
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| Bill Creller wrote: |
Nice one ! Easy to see that it hasn't been banged around at bar gigs etc !! The'54 Dual Pro I had, had Mary's name in it too !
Some DeOxit D5 spray will make that noisy pot sound OK. |
Not that I was surprised but I finally got some D5 and it did the trick. The pot had mostly worked itself out anyway, but the spray got it to 100% and now it's quiet and smooth as silk. The neck switches are like new again also, with a nice springy snap to them instead of a very stiff click.
I noticed a similar and pretty clean 55 Mark I D8 on Reverb, although the list price is a tad dear. The squared off case is not quite as cool as mine is. The chrome and finish might be a hair cleaner, with the exception of a couple of cigarette burns. The only real advantage would be the tuners are probably better than what I'm dealing with. Wish I could buy some of those pans.
Anyway this baby is sounding great, in spite of my playing. I'm not sure how the pickups on these differ from later ones, but they are awesome and I'm loving the tones and sustain I can get. Since I had to rewire pots and cap on my old 54 quad (it had a shot cap and tone pot) I'm gratified that this all original wiring and electronics guitar sounds and behaves almost identical to what I ended up with on the quad - both great, and I guess I did something right on that one. |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 9 Jul 2018 9:07 pm
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| Fred Treece wrote: |
Thanks Brad. That was far more interesting than the leg discussion - the kind of thing that songs are written about...
Beauty of a guitar, btw. Excellent score. |
Thanks. Yes I love the history also, and at the end of the day I'm fairly indifferent about the legs, lol. My 1954 quad is a little rougher around the edges, but you can tell where there was maybe a vinyl decal or something on the front that said "DIANE". I would love to know the story behind that. Both of my Fenders have come to me from the West coast, so maybe one or both have some Western Swing pedigree in them. |
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