Fender Deluxe 8 String Pickups

[James R Foster]

Good Day All,

Reference the guitar below: Are those stock pickups with the covers removed, or, something else?? Love to read any history on the pickups or electronics of these instruments.

Also, are there any "best years" for these guitars??

Thanks,

James

[James R Foster]

Bump for edits!

[Jack Hanson]

No clue if they're Sentell pickups, but Jerry & Christine Sentell in Sacramento make Stringmaster pickups that look like those. Check out their LS19 and S40 models:

https://www.sentellpickups.net/steel

[James R Foster]

Thanks! I found this on ebay which is making me think people just take the caps off for whatever reason.





I wonder if the older ones have grey bobbins??

[Stephen Cowell]

If the guitar is a Fender Japan then they never came with covers.

[James R Foster]

Youj just blew me away. Had no idea there were MIJ Deluxes. Can I get some more history on that. Explains why there’s so many for sale over there.

[Stephen Cowell]

Youj just blew me away. Had no idea there were MIJ Deluxes. Can I get some more history on that. Explains why there’s so many for sale over there.

The dies were shipped to Japan in the 80's I believe... Mike Stevens told me the tale, he builds the Guit-Steel for Junior Brown and of course was a founder of the Custom Shop... he gets his parts from them. If you look at the tuner ash-tray and find the Fender stamping in the middle is light, this is probably a Japan stamping, the die is worn out. They are actually very good guitars, and at one time (at least) sold for more than USA ones. Japan never bothered with the covers, on a USA SM/Dlx they're not quite tall enough anyway, when the rubber pickup suspension gets stiff you can crack the cover, old SM's should have new surgical tubing installed.

Mike does his Guit-Steel as a string-through-body... there's a sustain block that the strings pass through, he calls this 'hot-rodding' the steel. The big reason Deluxes don't sound quite as good as the other SM's is that the others have the four big screws right behind the bridge which are lacking in the Deluxe. You can tighten up the response of an old SM by tightening these four big screws.

[James R Foster]

Thanks a million!! Any idea about the quality of the pickups on the Japanese models compared to the US? And are ash models better sounding as with Fender guitars?

[Stephen Cowell]

Thanks a million!! Any idea about the quality of the pickups on the Japanese models compared to the US? And are ash models better sounding as with Fender guitars?

Fender Japan made/makes great guitars... Deluxes will have less sustain than Stringmasters due to the missing four screws right behind the string holder... no getting around that... unless you 'hot-rod' it by putting string-through ferrules in it. The pole pieces may be different... it's a great guitar, and as I've said they generally command a premium since they're newer and in better shape. The old guitars have older wood... my '58 T8 sounds huge, my '56 D8 is awesome. Poly finish tends to make the wood take longer to dry out... my '78 Strat never sounded great until I routed the body for a humbucker in the bridge!

[James R Foster]

How about the pickups with the metal covers?? Are those of a different type or sound? IOWs, would they be preferred?

I guess what I'm really getting at, in a round about way, is what's the best, sounding, playing, year and model for 8 stringers? Personal preferences appreciated!

[J Fletcher]

From my experience, the D8 and T8 Stringmasters sound better than the single 8 Deluxe steels , and the 24 1/4 " scale sounds better than the 22 1/2 " scale . Can't comment on the difference between different year pickups .

[Ricky Davis]

Yes Fender used "Swamp-Ash" wood from Start to 1959; then they changed to a regular-ash wood and immediately ALL the 50's Stringmasters BLEW AWAY Anything built with later ash wood from 1960 on....
Ricky