New to me B8

[Don Daringer]

Just got my new (maybe 40's) Rickenbacher Panda last night. It has pretty old thin strings on it. I plugged it in to an amp just to see if it worked. Good clean tone, very quiet, no hiss, pots quiet and they turned easily. It seems to have the original tuners in good shape, but as I was tuning up to an open E turning the buttons got progressively harder to turn and I even stopped on the low B string when I got to an A. There is a slight amount of rust or corrosion on the gears. What is a safe fix for this? Does anyone make drop in replacements? Cautions on working with Bakelite?
I also would like to date to it's approximate manufacture. The t style name plate is spelled Rickenbacher, the white panels are metal, the body edges are sharp, 1-1/4”width on the pick up and the stamp on the neck is B8 and stamped in the very low 200's. Love this site for all the knowledge and comments.

[Noah Miller]

I use Tri-Flow teflon lubricant; you can get it with a pin-point applicator, which is perfect for tuner gears. It won't remove rust that's on there, but you'd be surprised just how big of an improvement you can get even with the buildup left on.

I'm not sure who made those tuners, but it's iffy whether you'd fin drop-in replacements.

It's a post-War B6, certainly.

[Allan Revich]

Looks like a nice post-war B6. I believe that a B8 would have 8 strings. I have a B7 of similar vintage.

[Don Daringer]

Thanks for the tip, I put a lubricant on all the tuners gears, put new strings on and it tuned right up. I've got a 46 on the low string and if I hit the string moderately hard it hits the bottom of the top horseshoe. I've got the horseshoe as high as possible. Eventually it will be tuned to a high G tuning. Am I using too heavy of strings? Basically a regular slinky set with two .016's on the high end.