Fender Consumer Relations <good this time!>

[-CB-]

Well y'all know I groused about my strings falling apart.  I decided to write to the consumer relations email on the Fender website.

Greetings!

I've been having problems with Fender 150R strings as of late.  The issue is that I've had six (6) .010 ball ends "unravel".  That is, the wrap of the string back upon itself around the endball comes undone. Sometimes this happens when I string up. Other times the string tunes up ok, but starts to slowly go flat and then on retuning will be completely unraveled.

Let me be clear - the strings are not breaking.  The ball ends of the .010 strings are coming off because the wrap is "unwrapping".

This has happened on my several Fender Telecaster guitars, with strings through the body, as well as on guitars with "stop bar" tail pieces.

I'm not the biggest string user.  Not the smallest either.  I purchase only Fender 150R string sets.  That's all I use.  I buy thirty (30) sets at a time, three (3) times a year from Guitar Heaven (online at www.stringdeals.com).  Lisa over there takes good care of me.

The strings showing the problem have a number on the white box 073-0150-006  It also has a "146" in the top line.  Not sure if that is a lot number.  The bar codes of the packs say "7 17669 31012 7".  The strings I'm having problems with were out of stock at Guitar Heaven and gotten in, from distribution, for my order back in summer 07.

Folks, its time to reorder more strings, and I've resorted to ordering spare .010 strings to cover what I think is some manufacturing issue.

I'm not about to switch strings, as the Fender 150R sets give me the tone and playability that I like.  But having a string suddenly go flat... I mean slack flat... when you bend... in the middle of a song. Folks, that gets real old, real quick.  I'm not looking for replacement strings either.  Whats past is past.  I'd just like to share this with you and let you know that a 20 percent failure rate on .010 strings seems awfully excessive to me.

Regards

Charles B

I sent a copy of that to Lisa at Guitar Heaven / www.stringdeals.com.  Her reply

Hi Charles,

I hate to hear about the problem with those strings. I always work in the
office and sometimes am not in the loop with the guys. I've sent a copy to my
salesman and to Mark to see if they have heard of more problems from other
people. I'll let you know what we find out. We will pass it on to the inside sales
staff at Fender also.

Thanks,
Lisa
Guitar Heaven

A fellow named Phil Tripp from Fender sent me a nice email back today

Good morning, Charles--I am sorry to hear of your troubles

If you would kindly provide me with your complete physical shipping

address, I will gladly send you some complimentary sets of 150Rs

Thanks for your support of Fender, Charles, and have a good day

Philip Trapp
Consumer Relations
Fender Musical Instruments

I CC:'d Lisa over at Guitar Heaven / www.stringdeals.com, and she sent me some good feedback

I'm glad they sent the freebies. You are our best customer for the Fender
strings and I'm happy they sent the response and the strings. Let me know if you
need anything. If we don't talk before the holidays I hope you and yours have
Happy ones.

Lisa
Guitar Heaven

So, it looks like things turned out ok (or will).  Gotta say... I wasn't looking for free strings, but they'll get put to good use.  I was more concerned about one of those "oh crap" issues that can happen in manufacturing or with Fender's string supplier.

And, I'll be whackin' out an order for another three dozen sets right after T day.

 

[CD]

My name is Charles too, small world huh? Good luck with those strings. Why don't you use the ones with the bullet ends?

 

[-CB-]

Bullets... more expensive, and work best with strat-type trems.  I use Tele or stop bar.  Balls better (cheaper too).

 

[CD]

I thought you had a strat with a vintage trem. I used to use the bullets on my strat copy with the v-trem back when I first started playing. They stayed in tune pretty well.

 

[-CB-]

I have a  78/79ish Strat with a trem... and I use ball ends, as I dont play it that much and... the trem is set down solid with the top of the body.

 

[-CB-]

Got a package today from Fender Distribution, Ontario.  Some freebie strings.  Not too shabby - they got the gauge right.

 

[bpmorton777]

that'd be ironic and funny as hell if the ball ends unravled on you CB. Well, probably not funny to you but you know what im saying. Good luck with the strings.

Brian

 

[ibob74]

Hey CB, I had a friend who would solder; i.e., "tin", the ball ends and windings of his strings to alleviate that problem.

 

[-CB-]

not a bad idea to save the ones that look a bit not right to begin with

 

[DiMitriR33]

i've had this problem also but now i can't remember who made the strings.

now i solder them (just the first 2 or 3)
if your woried about changing the meals properties steel doesn't make any molecular changes until 1313 deg. F
solder melts around 700

 

[ibob74]

i've had this problem also but now i can't remember who made the strings.

now i solder them (just the first 2 or 3)
if your woried about changing the meals properties steel doesn't make any molecular changes until 1313 deg. F
solder melts around 700

A solder is a fusible metal alloy, with a melting point or melting range of 180 to 190 °C (360 to 370 °F).

 

[-CB-]

Ya know, if you're gonna copy and paste from WikiP, you should source the link here too.

Solder melts all over the place in terms of heat.  There solder, and solder and solder.

Having said that... we visit "properties steel doesn't make any molecular changes until 1313".

That, like solder, depends on the steel alloy - 1312.5F is about mid range of a 50F range.  There may be some oddballs out there too beyond it on the top end.  Granted, the range for steel is rather limited, as mineralization of the carbon is rather the same in all steels (little variation).