National New Yorker 7 String - Needs Work - NGD!

[Tony Oresteen]

I just got a 1936/37 National New Yorker 7 string with an original case. Scale length is 23". It needs work. Normal for an 88 year old guitar . My plan is to make it a RELIABLE player.

Serial number is B 1257.







Took a while to strip it down. The fret board does NOT split at the 12th fret. I had to remove the whole plastic fretboard to get at the internals. I used a steel putty knife and was able to work it loose. Can't use heat as it is plastic. It was glued on with rubber cement.

The first issue was the microphone jack. It was loose and would rotate so I thought I could tighten it up. No such luck. The locking nut sleeve was seized up and I had to drill it out and then cut it off. I ordered a Switchcraft long jack socket that will fit in the existing hole.




Someone had lined the inside of the guitar with tin foil and did a poor job. I removed it all and will re-line the cavities with copper foil.

Most of the wire was old with plastic insulation that was crumbling. I will rewire with 22g cloth-covered wire. I traced the wiring and did a quick drawing:




There was one wire that was not connected to anything. I've called it a mystery wire as I am not sure where it should go. It is attached to the hidden pickup (neck) metal frame. If I connect it to ground it will cut out two coils like a coil split switch. Anyone know where it goes?

I removed all the old wire and measured the parts.

The bridge pickup measures 9.85k. The neck pickup measures 12.2k.

The caps were in better shape than I expected:

0.02 µF marked, measured 0.023 µF

0.05 µF marked, measured 0.041 µF


The Allen-Bradley pots measured:

562k, 611k, 586k, and 553k. 600K pots? They are marked "EA-1539". They are type J rated at 500v. I don't think the guitar is that hot


The tuners are loose and sloppy. One has been repaired.




I will replace them with Grover STA-TITE 97V

https://grotro.com/product/sta-tite-97-18-series/

I sent Grover an email asking how I get a set of 7 as they come in sets of 6 .

The nut is is very bad shape. I will replace it with a new bone one.



It was put in backwards - left handed player?

I *think* I will be tuning it to a G6 - GBDEGBD .

[Dennis Belt]

That guitar went to the right owner. That’s going to be one sweet steel when you finish with it. Kudos to you for taking the time to fix it right.
Looking forward to your updates.

[Allan Revich]

Those are really cool instruments. Should be fun restoration project. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

[Mike Auman]

Re: pot values - most pots have a 20% manufacturing tolerance, so a 500k pot can be anywhere from 400k to 600k and still be in spec. So I think 500k would be the choice for replacements. If you measure the resistance at the halfway point (set at 12:00 noon) you can tell the pot tapers. Linear (B) taper would read 50% of full value, while audio (A) taper would read 10% to 20% of full value. All readings best made out of the circuit.

[Eric Dahlhoff]

I used to have one of those.
It seemed un-molested, but the bass pickup were not working. It also had aluminum foil inside - I'm pretty sure it was from the factory.
Below is an accurate schematic. Very interesting circuit.
The treble strings from 2 pickups go to a pot, and the bass strings to another pot. Nobody does that any more!!
The pots were actually 200K and I am sure they were original.

[Tony Oresteen]

The pots seem fine and I believe that they are original as are the caps.

Eric,

It's a strange circuit for sure. Mine does not have the hidden pickups connected to the bridge pickup.

Your circuit has the hidden neck coils wired in parallel and mine are all wired in series. Maybe because mine is a 7 string?

[Eric Dahlhoff]

Tony,
I'm pretty sure that your "black mystery wire" was originally Ground. Then it would pretty much match the circuit in mine. Except there seems to be one extra wire there, that I'm guessing is not original.
The only connection between the bridge pickups and the others is Ground.
For clarity I've highlighted Ground in black, the Treble Hots in yellow and the Bass Hots in blue. Hope that makes better sense.

[Tony Oresteen]

Erick,

What you say does make sense except that the middle pair of hidden coils are not connected, making all 4 hidden coils connected in series. I will double check to make sure I didn't miss a wire.



I may wire it with a master vol & master tone and the hidden coils as two blended pickups similar to a Stringmaster.


Thanks!

[Tony Oresteen]

G6 tuning is what I will use on this lap steel. It's the same as the G6 on my 1939ish 6 string Supro (23" scale as well) but has an added high D.

viewtopic.php?t=396875&highlight=




Now I can get the nut made knowing the string sizes.

[Tony Oresteen]

I was able to get a 6 set of Grover V97-18 tuners from Sweetwater plus an extra bass side V97-18 tuner as a repair part. They were on back order from Grover. The pack of six showed up 10 days ago. The spare part tuner showed up last Friday. The cost for the set of 6 was $61.00 or $10.17 per tuner. The cost of the single tuner as a repair part was $ 21.

Total cost was $82 or an average of $11.71 per tunner. I am very happy with the quality of the Grover tuners. Well worth the cost. I am just happy this is not an 8 string !

There were actually two original tuners that had been repaired (poorly).


I removed the old tuners and filled all the screw holes with tiny dowels (round hardwood toothpicks) and Titebond glue.




After the glue dried, I used a chisel to trim the toothpicks down smooth. Since the headstock is painted black, I used a Sharpie pen to color the dowels black.

One of my pet peeves is seeing a guitar with replacement tuners where the installer didn't take the time to fill & color the old tuner screw holes. Ugh!

The front bushings are slightly larger than the original bushings. I drilled out the tuner holes using a 21/64ths drill bit. Then the new bushings just tapped in.


I then installed the new Grover tuners. Here is the back side view. The original tuners are on the left, the new Grover tuners are on the right. The repaired tuners are circled in red.



The front view:



Why did I replace the tuners? Well after 88 years of use and two tuners repaired (poorly IMHO), it was time to replace them.

If you can't tune it, you can't play it.

You may quote me on that

I am still waiting on my tech to make the new nut. He is backed up but I am in his queue. The National 7 is coming along.

[Tony Oresteen]

Well, life got in the way of this project so it has just sat. Further research showed that the 1936 7 strings had a one-piece fret board. In 1937 National separated the fretboard at the 12th fret. With my 1936 model to get to the electronics you had to remove the entire fretboard. A PITA. With the 1937 model the fret board splits so you can remove the electronics without removing the entire fretboard. Good move on National's part.

I used a jeweler's saw with a #5 blade and gently & slowly cut my fretboard at the 12th fret. This makes servicing the guitar much easier and like the 1937 model.

Today I rewired the guitar. I decided to keep it stock so my notes/schematic and Eric Dahlhoff 's schematic really helped (thanks Eric!). I used 22 gauge cloth wire in white & black (vintage Fender type). It took me 3 hours as I went slowly and labeled all the parts. I was very surprised that the 0.022 uF & the 0.040 uF caps were still good. 88 years old and still working! Every solder joint was re-done and tested.

My next challenged is getting it all to fit back into the body. I ran a few wires logically so I will have to make clearance underneath. It is very tight in there. I replaced the microphone out connector with a Switchcraft long 1/4" mono socket and of course it to some modding it get it in properly.

I have the new nut so at this point it is an assembly & set up job. The hard stuff is done. We are headed out of town so it will some time before I can complete it.

[Martin Lindsay]

Before recutting the nut or assuming it’s backwards, check saddle as well. I have a ’39 NY 7-string which is cut for a light gauge 7th string which seems aimed at re-entrant tunings like Herb Remington used. Try it, you might like it.

[Allan Revich]

Before recutting the nut or assuming it’s backwards, check saddle as well. I have a ’39 NY 7-string which is cut for a light gauge 7th string which seems aimed at re-entrant tunings like Herb Remington used. Try it, you might like it.

Yes! I use a reentrant G6 on my 7-strings. eGBDGBD

[Mike Busam]

This is a cool project! Tony mentioned using a Sharpie to color the tuner hole dowels black. I found a Sharpie branded marker that uses oil based ink and it dries nice and dark black, as opposed to the sometimes purpleish sheen from a standard Sharpie. I've used this to color a number of scratches and nicks in a 1952 black Silvertone. It's called "Sharpie Paint/Peinture." I think I got it at a craft store about a year ago. It hasn't dried out yet.

[Tony Oresteen]

Well, the 1936 National 7 String is complete! I had to rout the insides to make everything fit as when I re-wired it following Eric Dahlhoff's schematic (thanks Eric!) , I put the capacitors where they logicly should be and did not stuff the wires up into the hidden pickups area.

First I made a routing template:

routing templated 800.jpg

Then I removed wood so that the pickup assembly would drop in easily.

Rout inside 800.jpg

I converted the output microphone jack to a 1/4" phono:

output jack 800r.jpg

Note the shrink wrap to prevent shorts. I used 22ga cloth covered wire to do the rewiring.

I then assembled the playing end of the lap steel. Next I cleaned & scraped the 1st half of the fretboard & the neck body. I put thin even coats of rubber cement on both surfaces and clamped the fretboard in place. I let it dry overnight.

The last piece was the nut & strings. The saddle was notched for regular strings - no re-entrant strings.

[Tony Oresteen]

Here she is:

front complete 1000r.jpg

And the tuning:

G6 tuning 7 string_cr.jpg

[Eric Dahlhoff]

Looks great Tony!! A lot of work there.
I love my 7-string New Yorker.
Make good music!