The Steel Guitar Forum

Nice guitars, all. I really love the Dual Pro I got from my buddy Garland Nash. I much prefer the tone to the Stringmaster sound, but that's just me. I also like the character in the nicks and dings... a nice refinish is sweet, but there's really something about playing a guitar that's had all that bandstand time!
On the tuners, I've had good luck going to small guitar and repair shops and asking to paw through their tuner bucket- most have a bunch of old tuners they've taken off old guitars when replacing tuners over the years, and you can often find the exact replacement gears needed to get those tuner pans up and running again.

Doug,

Here are some photos of one I have. Never thought of it as having a burst finish, but it does show a darker gradation in areas.

Rich

Hi Rich, yes, yours has the same look. I'm thinking that these finishes may have been done on some of the later Dual 8's... 1953, 54, just before they were discontinued. In '54 Fender introduced the Stratocaster with a 2-tone sunburst finish.

Your D-8 is really clean. I see some other sweet steels in your music room!

Sweet guitar, Doug... congratulations.

I have a Custom that needs its front pickup rewound. Those guitars have a wonderful sound, but I have two issues with them. Most importantly, with only 3 legs, they tend to be real unstable when played in standing position, especially the Customs. Also, the pickup design makes it problematic to play higher than the 14th fret... Murphey-land... for me anyway.

But played down-neck and sitting, they're a cool sound.

Yeah, the trapezoid pickup inhibits a lot of right hand technique, blocking, string muting, and playing on the upper frets. The 3 legs are okay for me because I play seated mostly, but I can see how they could make the guitar unstable when extended. I do like the string spacing and the short scale length though. And the placement of the tone knob makes for convenient boo-wah tone effect.

Doug, Getting back to the finish, I think it could be arguable to refer to it as a burst but very acceptable to call it a shaded walnut finish.
After refering to some of the pictures I have saved I think the shading was done mostly from '54 on and became more even as time progressed. I have a '55 Dual Professional with noticable shading and a '56 Stringmaster T8 that has a more consistant brown but still has the heritage of the shading present. Eventually walnut finished guitars became just an even brown.
Production was up and time costs money.

Yes, "shaded walnut" is a good way to describe it. At first I thought mine had a light tint in certain areas, but now I think those bright areas are just the normal finish and the other areas are painted darker.

The old shaded walnut is such a cool colour. Did you know that Fender shipped at least one Telecaster in the same finish? I certainly didn't...

http://www.indoorstorm.com/56tele.html

Many pictures, scroll down.

Wow! I notice that no price is listed. I'm afraid to ask...

Relax, it's long sold! Over 20k for the whole outfit, I'd imagine.

Here's a 54 SM taken from another thread. I agree with John above that this finish seems to have reached its peak in '54/55. When the Stringmasters in particular got the makeover in '55, the walnut finish progressively became darker and more opaque. At least that has been my own observation.



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Thanks for all the great replies and pictures posted here! This thread has cleared up some of the confusion (in my mind anyway) regarding the so-called "sunburst" finishes on the early Fenders that some players have mentioned here in the past. I always assumed that those guitars had been refinished at some point, but evidently not.

I've seen a wide variety of walnut finishes on Stringmasters. I think it had to do with whomever sprayed them. Some were very light with minimal shading, some with dramatic, almost 'burst-like treatment. The later ones, especially from the mid to late 60's seemed to get dark. Some of the dark ones look almost black.
Maybe the shading was a carryover from the way they finished teles. Blonde teles have a lot more finish, or I guess you'd say pigment, around the edges to hide the end grain. It doesn't look much darker, it's just more opaque where the grain shows on the edges.

Yes, there was also was wide variation in the Fender pedal steel sunburst finishes, depending on who painted them.

Here's an incredibly striking 3-color burst that was posted in the for sale section a few months ago.

Now That's a sunburst finish!