Fender Stringmaster T-8 wiring issue

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

I have a 1953 Fender T-8 on which the front neck sounds very thin in comparison with the middle and back neck. A tap on the neck pickup produces no amplified sound, but that pickup still shows an output of 6.5K Ohms. The other pickup reads 8.5, and both measurements were taken out of circuit. However, when it's back in the circuit, there is no readable output on that neck. The other two necks read about 15.5K in output. I am not at all well versed in electronics, but to me the logical culprit here is the switch, which is riveted in, and would probably be a pain to replace. Does anyone have any insight on this issue?

Thanks in advance.

Andy Sandoval · From: Bakersfield, California, USA

Could just be a bad solder connection too. I had a similar issue with my 55' T-8 and wound up sendin my pickup to Jason Lollar for a rewind.

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Thanks, Andy. We reheated the solder joints just to see if that would fix it, and it didn't. Again, I don't know much about electronics, but out of circuit, the pickup is reading 6.5K Ohms, so my thinking is that it almost has to be the switch, but my local repair guy is not convinced.

John Allison · From: Austin, Texas, USA

Have you tried wiring the pickup(s) direct to an output jack (or even just touching the wires to a patch chord plugged into an amp) to see whether you're getting a signal? If you're getting good resistance readings and the magnets are present, I don't see any reason the pickup wouldn't pass a signal to the amp.
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John Allison
Allison Stringed Instruments
Austin, Texas
www.allisonguitars.com

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

John, thanks for the response.
No, I haven't taken the pickup completely out and tested it the way you suggest, but that would be a reasonable next step. Your logic regarding the resistance is what had me thinking it's got to be the switch, and isolating the pickup would a good test. What we did to get it out of the circuit to test it was to just disconnect the hot lead from the switch, and that's when it was reading 6.5K. But then you reconnect that lead, you get nothing from that pickup, but you get sound from the other one, which suggests that the switch works. I don't know enough about electronics to know if there's some way that switch could be only partly faulty so that only the bridge pickup has a complete circuit. That seems unlikely to me, but what do I know.

Craig Hawks · From: North Ridgeville, Ohio, USA

It's both late at night and late on this topic to reply, but here goes. If I don't make sense, let me know and either try again, or just leave you all alone Wink

Engineer by trade, so let's see if I can be helpful. Measuring resistance from the pickup indicates conductance of the wires and that there is neither an open or a short in the coil. It does NOT speak to the magnet or the health of the magnet. And, you do indicate that you do have sound (not good sound, but sound) coming out of the pickup. Suspicion right now has to hint at the pickup. Your next choice is the blender pot. Is one present on this model? If so, is it behaving? Last is the switch. Generally, (i.e. almost always) switches either work or they don't. Occasionally they may be intermittent, but that just means that they stop and start while you wiggle the selector. So, again, I'm back to the PUP. You can continue to play detective or just sent the PUP to be "healed" by the good Mr. Lollar. If you would like to "play" a little. you could reverse the wiring to the pickups. If the problem moves to the "other" pickup, then I'm wrong and you have a switch problem. Sometime the easiest way to do this stuff is with wires with clips on the ends. You can then unsolder the guitar wires and use the test wires with clips to test all connection possibilities and absolutely narrow the problem to the correct component.

Last, don't forget the capacitors and resistors that are in line with PUP's and switch. They can cause problems too.

Hope this helps.

Craig
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JCFSC member since 2005
'56 Fender Stringmaster D-8, '52 Fender Deluxe-8, Late 40's Oahu 6

basilh · From: United Kingdom

If it's a '53 model then there is no blend pot and the wiring is simple, as is the cure.

Presumably it's got the "Slider" switches..
Replace them with mini on/off toggle switches, I did and it also allows you to select EITHER of the pickups, the blend wheel doesn't.

This was the first stage of my mods:-

More info at:-
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=163992

The said guitar in action
HERE

NOTE, you really need to unsolder the pickups to measure and test them "in situ" FWIW IMHO

Stage 2 of the modifications, I now need to make a new plate for the switches.

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Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Thanks for the responses, guys. Since the original post, I've been able to make a little progress on this issue. My original post may not have been clear, but despite a reading of 6.5K ohms on the neck pickup, tested out of circuit, there was no sound at all from that pickup when it was in circuit. All sound from the inside neck was coming from the bridge pickup. So, the neck pickup had appropriate resistance, but produced no sound, while the bridge pickup sounded fine.

However, there was apparently a short somewhere, because after much fiddling with switches, I was able to get the pickup in question to work, but only when one of the other necks is switched on. In other words, with only the inside neck switched on, only the bridge pickup works, but if you also switch on either of the other necks, you get sound from the neck pickup as well. This only happens on the inside neck; both other necks play fine either individually, or with another neck switched on. While I don't know enough to isolate the problem, I now believe this is due to the way the guitar was originally wired, because I am reasonably certain that the original wiring has not been modified.

After some research, I found that John Tipka, www.juststeelguitar.com has a wiring diagram of an early Stringmaster, and that diagram differs from my guitar. I communicated with John by email, and he has very generous with information. John tells me that he has seen two guitars with the symptoms mine exhibits, and that rewiring the guitar to conform with his diagram will fix this issue. At this point, I'm going to give that a try. While the inside neck plays fine with another neck switched on, there is some loss of volume and a slight change in tone when more than one neck is active.

Basil, your modification is interesting, and it would certainly produce more tonal possibilities. You did a good job of it. I may actually consider something similar, because I really like the sound of these old pickups, but at this point, I'm just trying to get the guitar to sound like it was intended to sound.

Again, thanks for the responses.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

For any of you who decide to do Basil's modification, or decide to drill through the faceplate of any instrument, I recommend that you rest the plate on a slab of wood, to avoid the weight of the drill bending the plate. Another trick, to avoid slipping with the drill and putting marks on the plate, is to cover the plate with masking tape, which you can mark the positions of the holes, then, with a hammer and centrepunch, tap the centre position where the hole will be, and the drill will be less likely to wander. Winking

Hal Braun · From: Eustis, Florida, USA

In case you dont have it.. here are a couple of links to the original wiring diagram..

http://www.hawaiiansteel.com/graphics/pdf/fender_stringmaster_2neck_1953.pdf

http://www.juststeelguitar.com/images/LeverSwitchStringmasterD8Pictorial.gif

basilh · From: United Kingdom

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Basil,

I'm certainly no electronics whiz, but I don't follow that logic. First of all, there's no reason that it couldn't have been wired incorrectly at the factory. When I spoke to Lindy Fralin, he originally suspected the magnets, and he told me that occasionally Fender would send out a guitar, forgetting to charge the magnets. Mistakes happen. A cursory check at the factory might not have revealed the problem; another neck might have been left switched on while checking the inside neck.

I understand what you're saying about the pickups being wired in series, but problems in the switches can produce a situation where only one pickup per neck works; I've seen this firsthand. When I first got the guitar, none of the neck pickups worked at all, but all three bridge pickups did. We cleaned all three switches with contact cleaner, after which both pickups on the outside and middle neck immediately began working.

The guy that worked on this with me is an old hand with a soldering iron and has seen a lot of vintage wiring. If he tells me he's pretty certain that these are the original solder joints, and that it was wired this way from the factory, I tend to think he's right.

Mark Durante · From: St. Pete Beach FL

In the early Stringmasters (without the blend pots for each neck) the master tone control pans the pickups from both on,(tone control all the way down to mid point) to single pickup only, (tone control all the way up). Along with the cap on the tone control, it really produces a pronounced doo-wah effect. This is a very unusual way of wiring and is often misunderstood.
I have edited this post to correct my previous backward explanation, see further details below.
Sorry for the confusion.

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Mark, that's interesting. The tone control on this guitar does indeed have a strong doo-wah effect, but I don't believe that it is operating like you say it should. Here is the only wiring diagram that I have found that is even close to what I have on this guitar:

http://www.juststeelguitar.com/images/Early_StringmasterPictorial.gif

John Tipka's site has this diagram, and he says he found it on page 238 of "The Fender Inside Story", written by Forrest White, Leo Fender's general manager.

I'd be interested to know if anyone can tell by looking whether the tone control, wired this way, would work the way you suggest.

Hugh Holstein · From: Rohnert Park, California, USA

All of my pickups in my 56 Stringmaster D8 measure out at between 8.5K to 8.7K.

Mark Durante · From: St. Pete Beach FL

The diagram in Forrest White's book looks correct.
When the tone control is fully clockwise, (all the way up)you should get just one coil of each neck, then as the tone pot is turned down both coils should be sounding (at mid point), and at all the way down both coils should work with the capacitor cutting the high frequencies. So all the way up it is the most treble/thinnest sound, midway is the normal tone and all the way down is the bassiest. Very unusual and clever, that Leo.

basilh · From: United Kingdom

The Forest White diagram states

Lee Cecil · From: North Carolina, USA

Basil,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look at this. I'll do as you suggest and see if that affects anything.

Thanks again,

Lee

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