Are these Fender 8250M's defective??

SeismicAssault · #1 01-23-2009, 10:21 PM

I just got a shipment of two things from MF, and I think both of them are defective. First, I got a pair of Fender straplocks, and one of the two locks doesn't latch on correctly. I can just yank (not too hard) and it comes right off the strap peg. (So back to MF it goes!).

The second thing I got was a set of Fender 8250M strings. I started installing from the G string down (one at a time), and when I got to the E string, I noticed that the ball end is defective (at least I think it is). It looks kind of like this:

0---------------==============

|<--2 inches -->|<---- rest of string --->

The first two inches looks just like the core (it's about 0.045" thickness for the first two inches), then the rest of the string looks normal. But those first two inches are enough to come up through the body of the guitar and over the bridge, so the really skinny part near the ball is sitting in the bridge saddle. I don't think this is normal.

Can anyone chime in on this, or has seen this before? Is this normal?

I also noticed that the silks are grey on these (all the other's I've seen are black), and there are no silks on the ball end, which all the other 8250M's I've used have.

I'll have to see if I can send these back to MF, too. Since I've already cut the strings to length, they might not take them back. Any advice?

Thanks!

BigNoise · #2 01-23-2009, 10:24 PM

raise hell.

toons · #3 01-23-2009, 10:32 PM

That's normal for the 8250's and the thinner part of the string is the taperwound portion that runs through the body and bridge and should sit on the saddle. Once broken in they are a great sounding string for a P-bass.

Rumble Bee · #4 01-23-2009, 10:34 PM

It's normal they have a taper wound 110 to string thru the body. The E string is the only one like that.

Rumble Bee · #5 01-23-2009, 10:36 PM

Sorry Toons, beat me to it.

SeismicAssault · #6 01-23-2009, 10:41 PM

That's strange, because the strings that came on the bass (it's a Fender Frank Bello Signature bass) don't look like that, but the bass is spec'd to have the 8250M's as the standard strings.

Bubba Ghanoosh · #7 01-23-2009, 10:43 PM

Here's the Fender web-site: http://www.fender.com/products//sear...tno=0738250006
"The 8250s are designed to fit Fender's® string-through body basses."

Bongolation · #8 01-23-2009, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeismicAssault

That's strange, because the strings that came on the bass (it's a Fender Frank Bello Signature bass) don't look like that, but the bass is spec'd to have the 8250M's as the standard strings.

I have bough ***MANY*** Fenders that came from the factory with the "wrong" strings according to the spec table.

Why, I have no idea.