Fender 8 tuning gear

Tom Johnson · From: Texas, USA

I recently acquired a Fender triple 8 steel. I thought I would try tunings for the necks as shown on Cindy Cashdollar's website http://www.cindycashdollar.com/tunings/

I ran into problems when using the heavy guage wound strings. Long story short I stripped one of the gears and need to find a replacement. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I have seen postings where some of the tuners for later models had beefier gears, but I'm not sure I want to try any surgery on this guitar. So a second question might be what other people use for different tunings on 2 and 3 neck guitars like these that would not require such heavy guage strings. I strung up one neck with her suggested strings for C6 without a problem. The heaviest guage string on that set was 56.

Thanks,

Tom

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Search the Forum for Terry Mueller and you should be able to find his contact information. He can repair Fender tuners with original parts, or at least he could a couple of years ago when he worked on a Fender T-8 for me. He did some top quality brazing and replaced some gears as well. He's done work for others that post here also.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

You ought to clean them up some, too. Pulling on a heavy string with some gunk in the gears is working them too hard. Pull them out (maybe one neck at a time so you don't have withdrawal symptoms) and hit them with WD40 or at least 3-in-One. then clean that out (kerosene?) and lubricate them with a tiny bit of light machine oil. If you don't have room to spread out and smell up, take then to a auto repair place and see what they could do for a few bucks.

Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

those gears need to be lubed - they were originally from the factory, but 60+ years causes the lube to dry up. they aren't like modern sealed tuners. those gears are also brass i believe (not 100%) and they will wear.

i always recommend when buying an old lollipop fender, before you start twisting the gears to take the pans off and check the tuners - i had the same thing happen with my dual 8 on the first restring after it had sat in a case for 40 years. check all the brazing (solder) and look for loose tuners/slop - these will eventually go. you can be nearly assured with an old T-8 especially, that your gonna lose 1-2 tuners. luckily the tuner that went on me was the 8th string so i could continue to play it until i found a replacement tuner.
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'65 Sho-Bud D-10 Permanent • '54 Fender Dual-8 • Clinesmith T-8 • '38 Ric Bakelite • '92 Emmons D-10 Legrande II

Tom Johnson · From: Texas, USA

I should have said that this was really more my fault than the gears or their condition. I took the pan out and cleaned and lubed the gears before attempting to string it up.
The problem was caused by me when I had excess string on the capstan. After I had done the damage I realized that the string was up against the side of the pan when I tried to bring it up to pitch. This is a 72 gauge string.
And I simply was not careful enough.
This guitar is in exceptionally good condition for its age. A newer larger gear probably would have stood the abuse but this one is on me.
The top photo shows the C6 strings with sloppy work. I was lucky here.

This one is the E13 string group where I was more careful.

I am going to see if I can find a replacement for the damaged one. If not then in another post I learned that a forum member had good luck with a repair done by The Twelfth Fret in Portland.

Thanks,
Tom

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

--edit--
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Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

.072!

yeah, that might be pushing it on these old tuners. i dont even like to change strings on my dual, nor do i re-tune, which i will often do on other steels..C6>A6>B11 etc.

i have the old pot metal tuner buttons on my 38 Ric B6 that are starting to crumble and i fear that dreadful day...but it sounds SOOOO good!
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'65 Sho-Bud D-10 Permanent • '54 Fender Dual-8 • Clinesmith T-8 • '38 Ric Bakelite • '92 Emmons D-10 Legrande II

Tom Johnson · From: Texas, USA

Thanks Doug,

I think the worm gear would need to be replaced. I swapped the damaged gear (string Cool

with string one and it is ok over there, but the one I moved to string 8 just started getting stripped again. I do appreciate the offer but I'm afraid I need to replace the shaft too.

Tom

Tom Johnson · From: Texas, USA

I wanted to let you all know how this worked out. I took Lee Cecil's advice and contacted Terry Mueller. He repaired it with original parts he has from these old guitars. I installed it yesterday and it works well.

Tom

Dan Carey · From: Mahopac N.Y

Can you send me the information regarding having the gears repaired or replaced I have the same problem I would appreciate that,

Thank you,

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

There was a thread on this a while back. Basically, those gears are held onto the tuning pan with solder. The lollipop buttons are also held onto the tuner shaft with solder. To remove the gear:

* Remove the pan assembly from the guitar.
* Unsolder the lollipop button and pull it off.
* Unsolder the gear from the pan.
* Remove the gear and the string shaft.
* Find a strip tuner and install it using the
reverse of the above process.

It's really not hard. You will need a small butane or propane torch for the soldering, which you can get at any home improvement store. My local guitar repair shop had a coffee can full of old strip tuners and sold me a strip for $2. Or you can get a complete new strip from Stew Mac.

Tom Johnson · From: Texas, USA

For those, like me, that are reluctant to tackle this yourself, I found these options:
The 12th fret in Portland will install the stew mac tuners. I learned about them from another post on this subject. I called and spoke to someone that does the repairs and the price was reasonable.

The only source I was able to find using original parts (which may not mean anything except that it was possible to replace the afflicted part rather than all the tuning machines) was Terry Mueller
618 529 2844.

This seems to be a fairly common problem. I'm fairly handy myself and usually will work on things like this but the scarcity of parts for these guitars left me concerned that I might have difficulty should I screw up on my first attempt.

The price Terry charged was not a lot more than getting the tuning machines from stew mac and doing it yourself.

Regards,
Tom

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