Fender Stringmaster Solo - Restoring a Trashed Neck

[Tony Oresteen]

In the search for Stringmaster parts for my T8 to Quad project, a number of members here helped me out. In Dec 2021 Bill Quinn had a couple of 22.5" scale necks and a Quad case for a 24.5" scale Quad. I bought both his necks, Quad case and other misc Stringmaster items. Bill was up front about the condition of the necks as they were not in very good shape. I wasn't worried about that, hey it's just wood right?

Back in the day many steel players hacked up their Stringmaster to make them into "pedal steel guitars". The two necks Bill sold me had suffered such a fate.

This is the easy neck. It's a July 1955 22.5" scale neck that is a #2 size neck. It would not have originally had an output jack. As it did not have leg socket holes it must have been part of a T8 or Quad when it left the Fender factory.

Here's what I did with the better of the two necks I bought.



The top side was in good shape. The bottom side is a different story:







The number of holes in the back was astounding!

I set about patching & plugging all the holes:



The output jack hole was too big so I doweled it and filled the connecting rod holes:






Once the glued dowels had dried, I trimmed them flush and patched the big gouges. I routed out a channel and then glued in a piece of poplar. Then I used the router to trim the patch flush. Next was filling the other gouges with wood filler and sanding it all flush.




The jack hole was drilled out to 5/8"

I used Krylon Gloss Blue Ocean Breeze (5506) for the color. It took 4 coats to get everything covered evenly.

I bought a set of original Stringmaster pickups. Bridge Stringmaster pickup read 8.58K North, Neck Stringmaster read 8.77k South. Yes, it has the blend pot & wheel under the cover. Wired just like it was in 1955. The other parts took a while to track down.

Here she is:

Front view:



Rear view:













As a side project I made a flat table with adjustable legs to set the neck on when I play it.

I have set it up in A6 tuning:





Thanks to all the members who helped me find parts!!!!

I did mention that I bought TWO necks from Bill. Here's sneak peak at the hard one:







Stay tuned!!!

[Dennis Belt]

That came out beautifully! Your patience and careful work paid off in spades. I’ll bet it sounds good, too. Congratulations on a job well done!

[Alex Cattaneo]

Wow, I love what you did with that one Tony! Saving the steel population one instrument at a time. You should apply for a UNESCO grant or something.

[Michael Johnstone]

Well done, The 2nd one can be restored using the same techniques - just more of 'em. I did the same thing with a 56 pushbutton triple. I got it cheap and it was hacked up in many of the same ways including 3 layers of different colored paint. But all the parts were there and everything worked. So I took my time, stripped it and had a cabinet maker friend of mine do the routing and wood replacement inlay where whole sections had been crudely excavated for no apparent reason with a hammer and chisel, I took it from there for the filling, sanding, etc. When I got it flawless, I went to see Pat Wilkins, the premier guitar finisher in LA and we poured over old photos and color charts and ended up with finish we called "aged and faded banana pudding". I got most of the metal parts re-plated at a shop I know of that does custom chrome motorcycle parts. After careful reassembly I ended up with a real showpiece and tone monster to the tune of $1800. Sometimes restoring these old warhorses is not a crime but a righteous resurrection.

[Jeff Keyton]

Great Resto jobs on those !

[Miles Lang]

This came out really nice. I thought about getting the single neck kit and finishing it in surf green, but the kit company went out of business.

[Tony Oresteen]

Michael,

Nice job on your T8!!! It really looks good!

As to my "hard neck", it's already done and has paint on it . I did take it in small steps.

Just need to find some time to put the hardware on it.