I mailed it almost 2 years ago - it's all in the Letter To Fender about Stringmaster Tuners thread.

Imagine my surprise when I received this email today from Rose Bishop, the Senior Administrator of Marketing for Fender Musical Instruments:

quote:

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Hi Rick:

Your letter addressed to our Consumer Relations Department has found its way to my desk and I apologize if this response is delayed. I'm not sure when you wrote the letter as I cannot find a date and I wanted to ask if anyone from FenderŽ has contacted you regarding the replacement 4-in-line tuning assemblies for the Stringmaster D8? Unfortunately, I cannot address your concerns, however, I do have access to the marketing managers who might be able to help but needed to determine if it is still necessary to involve them.

Please let me know if this is still an issue and I will see what I can do. Thank you for your loyalty to Fender and its products.

Sincerely,

Rose Bishop
Sr. Administrator/Marketing
Fender Musical Instruments

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and here is my reply:

quote:

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Hi Rose,
Thank you for the email. I wrote that letter almost 2 years ago. Finding replacement tuners for Fender Stringmasters is still an impossiblility - nobody makes the 4-in-line assemblies to fit them. The only solution is to find a "parts" guitar and rob it. Every time somebody does that there is one less Stringmaster in the world.

There is a big resurgence of non-pedal steel guitar, and the Fender Stringmaster is generally considered the holy grail of this type of guitar. I have several of them, and I use them extensively for recording and live performance.

Many of us steelers feel that Fender should support its products and manufacture replacement tuners for these wonderful historic steel guitars. The reply I received at the time gave little hope of that. The existing tuners tend to give out with use, and many a Stringmaster player has found himself in a bad situation because of it. I eventually managed to find tuners on eBay that came from a parted out Stringmaster, but I would rest a lot easier if I could purchase a couple of extras. I know for a fact that there is a significant demand for them. I frequently receive emails from desperate Stringmaster players. This thread about the letter on The Steel Guitar Forum tells the tale.

Fender Japan makes Deluxes and Stringmasters, but they won't sell tuner assemblies seperately. If anyone at Fender cares enough about us Steel Guitar Players to facilitate a solution to this ongoing problem, that would be wonderful.

Thank you for your kind attention,
Rick Alexander http://rickalexander.com

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What do you think of that?

Rose Bishop's email is deleted@fender.com
Now might be a real good time to let Fender know that there is definitely an ongoing need for replacement Stringmaster tuners. I don't know if it'll do any good, but I do know nothing will happen if we don't try.

[This message was edited by Rick Alexander on 21 June 2006 at 05:45 PM.]

String covers would be nice too. And while they are at it why not just make NEW STRINGMASTERS! I mean, after all, now they have the parts..........

It would give Ms. Bishop something to show the marketing managers.

[This message was edited by Rick Alexander on 21 June 2006 at 08:06 AM.]

It is 189,000 yen, which is currently about $1,640. Too bad they are so pricy. I have seen some Tokyo-based shops selling Fender Japan guitars on eBay, maybe they could get tuner assemblies?

Just a thought,

quote:

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Hi Rick:

I am trying to find out what I can about this situation but I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from giving out my e-mail address to the rest of the Stringmaster community. I am getting bombarded with e-mails and while I would like to, I am not in a position to respond to everyone.

Thank you for your understanding.

Rose

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and I replied:

quote:

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Okay Rose, sorry about that. I just figured if you had some corroborating emails to show the marketing execs it might provide a clearer picture of the situation. That way they wouldn't have to wonder if it's just an isolated situation.
The fellers don't expect individual responses, they just wanted their voices to be heard.
We appreciate your concern very much. I'll ask them to stop.

best,
Rick

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So essentially, the point has been made.
Now if she chooses to, she can tell them about the response to this.
Thanks fellers!

quote:

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No problem and assure them that their concerns have been heard.
Thanks,
Rose

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What an amazingly boneheaded move on Fender's part.

What she could have done was capture everyone's email address and then sent them a mailing on the new tuners and info on new lapsteel products.

And as a sidebar, if for example, they were going to start building American made Stringmasters again, I wonder how many they would have to sell in a year for it to make sense to the bean counters?

Excellent strategy!!!

And thank you for pushing the boulder's up a Colorado Mountain and a hot summer day!!! TX
Rgds,
Ron

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JCFSGC member 2005 "Be of Good Cheer"
"55" Stringmaster D8,
"67" Telecaster,
"60"Fender Concert Amp 4-10's

I think for Fender sales and marketing to get behind a revival of the Stringmaster, it would have to be based on the idea that along with folks who are members here, there would be new blood brought into the equation.

It wasn't from the Oahu people, but as a 10 year old back in 1964, I was probably on the very tail end of that era where my parents signed me up for lap steel lessons from a door-to-door salesman. I still have my Supro from those days, but within a few years that company was out of business.

Due to a number of factors that most of us are aware of, lap or non-pedal steel was going through a decline in popularity in those days.

Didn't Fender still produce Stringmasters up until about 1981? If I have my date correct, I am actually amazed that they kept production going that long.

If the instrument was losing popularity in the 60's, I'm surprised Fender kept them going until '81.

It's a whole different ballgame nowadays. The instrument has enjoyed its greatest popularity in years, and the quality guitars are being produced by small builders, in the same way the dobro is becoming increasingly popular, and the waiting lists from the top dobro luthiers are getting pretty lengthy.

Loni, Good to see you posting again my friend
Ron Brennan, Keep em flying buddy. Dont ever give up the faith. Please bear with those like Rick who is the spearhead in this situation and I have promised Rick I will do all I can.

Jody PS I'm all shook up. Wait, I am in touch with those who can offer some explanation as to a YES or NO.

[This message was edited by Jody Carver on 22 June 2006 at 10:00 AM.]

USA Dodger Blue Forever.
posted 21 June 2006 08:54 PM profile edit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill
All is not lost,Fender has a golden opportunity to do what they do best, keep the faith my friend. The time will come.
Mark Eaton
Member
From: Windsor, Sonoma County, CA
posted 21 June 2006 10:26 PM profile send email edit
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Jody - and I'm not being a smart aleck here - what exactly is it that they do best?
And as a sidebar, if for example, they were going to start building American made Stringmasters again, I wonder how many they would have to sell in a year for it to make sense to the bean counters?

Mark, I have been promising a Fender book based on my life with Fender which has spanned for many many years.I have been dragging my feet on this due to health issues and personal problems, and yet I am still trying to make my promise come true, The frets of life are catching up to me and there is nothing more for me to be proud of to see this dream come true before I buy the farm.. This means much to me and I will do all I can to see your dream and my dream come true as well.

edited Dont give up on FENDER!!!

Thank you.

Jody

[This message was edited by Jody Carver on 24 June 2006 at 08:39 AM.]

But I will follow Rick's advice and not send an e-mail to the lady at Fender, since she has already gotten that message loud and clear.

And I sure would like a signed copy of your book when it's ready to go!

Please don't use Dodger Blue ink. I would prefer mine to be signed in Giants Black.

------------------
Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 22 June 2006 at 10:57 AM.]

I am fairly new here and may be missing the point, but when I owned a Stringmaster, I replaced a strip of tuners with 4 individual guitar tuners (Kluson clones). The only modification I needed to make was to drill a hole through the shaft of each one to put the string through. They fitted right into the pan and worked perfectly.

As far as I am concerned, tuners would be the least of my worries.

Now, the push button neck selecter - there's another story.

[This message was edited by Jeff Mead on 22 June 2006 at 11:31 AM.]

But for all their idiosyncracies, I love Stringmasters and I just wish someone would make replacement 4-in-line tuner assemblies - the correct configuration for these guitars.

Then I read this thread, http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/008993.html and ordered Gotoh TK0875. To do as instructed here, however, you would have to cut off the base strip and I hesitated to spoil its originality to that extent.

I opened the back cover of the bad tuner to find the star gear was OK but couldn't be pulled off. If I could get a good worm gear with shaft and button intact, I could reassemble the tuner on the original base strip. I sent an SOS on WTB section which was responded with a suggestion (Ron, you were a great help!) that I would disassemble a stock Kluson to get the worm out and put it together with the original Stringmaster star gear. Excellent idea! Unfortunately this didnft work because of the different size of the gears and different ratio.

This prompted me to advance the surgery one step further: remove the original star gear from the base strip by cutting it off from the post and install Gotoh tuner parts. This worked! Only the difference from the original is the shape of tunerfs post and location of the hole on the post. Who cares on these differences as long as it works and looks almost identical ? You got a 4-in-line tuner perfect fit for the Stringmaster tuner pan.

Now do I still need a 4-in-line replacement tuner? Oh, yes, absolutely. Although above surgery worked, it was rather a tough task for an ordinary steeler who has no more tool than some screw drivers and a couple of pliers.

quote:

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Hey Rick:

One of our technicians responded with this suggestion:

I play lap steel and sympathize with the consumer concerning parts availability. (I have a 1937 Oahu 6-string that I had to modify to accept a modern pickup.) When I have steel guitar questions I usually get some kind of direction from a web page called “Brad’s Page of Steel”; they have a Resources tab that has links to several vendors for amps, steels, parts, etc.

I hope this has been helpful,
So, as you can see, our own employees also have difficulty getting these parts. Fender does care about its customers but, unfortunately, some things are out of our control. In one last attempt to see if there is another option, I forwarded your message to one of our employees in Japan asking if he had any suggestions but he has been traveling and has been unable to respond. If he responds with any additional information, I will forward it to you.

Thanks again for your loyalty to Fender. On Fender's behalf, I apologize that we have been unable to offer further assistance with this situation.

Rose

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quote:

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Hi Rose,
Thanks for the email and for your efforts. I've known about Brad's page of Steel for some time, he's one of the moderators on the Steel Guitar Forum. There are only a few thousand Steel Players in the world (compared to a few billion guitar players) and as a result it's a fairly tight-knit community. We share info, experience, tips etc - we buy and sell gear to one another and so on. So most Steel Guitar resources are known to all. If someone has a gripe, everybody knows about it. And they're all waiting to see what comes of this.
It would be easy to tool up and fasten tuners to metal strips to fit Stringmasters. The projected profits might not be huge enough to merit such a project being authorized by Fender. However it would go a long way in promoting good will among Steelers, many of whom are currently wondering whether to buy Fender Steel King amplifiers or Peavey NV112s (one of those ongoing debates)

This is from a post on the Steel Guitar Forum by Nathan Hernandez of Riverside CA:

"I brought this up to a friend of mine who used to work at fender in Corona, Ca., and was in the know there. He had told me that all the tooling is there, in Corona, for the Stringmaster stuff. He had seen this stuff with his own two eyes and couldnt believe it was just sitting there along with other types of tooling equipment,,,,going to waste!"

If you'd like to see the thread about this, it's: http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/009378.html
Whether Fender ultimately supports its beloved vintage Stringmasters or not, we very much appreciate your time and interest in our ongoing predicament.

all the best,
Rick Alexander

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