Danke schön. All right. This core looks hex to me; are these 2010- Fender 9050 flats?
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History of Fender Brand Strings
- Thread starter Linnin
- Start date
Verrry interesting! Did you buy them along with the Ampegs, or have you made multiple purchases of vintage sets? Finally (and I won't bother you further...unless another pressing question occurs), do you also have a picture of the package? Thanks!
Had the Fenders for some time. Based on the package design at least, they would seem to be mid to late 60’s, although I’m happy to be corrected.
Also, I’ve seen early ones with the red packaging and dark blue silks, and ones with mid to dark green silks, although the silks on these are a really intense “teal” or blue green, rather than green per se.
The second photo is the end of the A-string.
This may help. These are pictures of an A string from a Fender Mastersound No. 90 set from the 60s.
As you can see, definitely roundwound, labelled as nickel (and certainly looks and feels like it to me), and also (if I’m not mistaken) appears to be multicore like the 850’s I posted above. Yes, the silks are different colours at each end (interesting, as I can’t recall another example of different coloured silks on bass strings from this era).
Now, given this isn’t an actual string from the 50’s it’s not conclusive proof regarding the structure of the “original” Fender strings….but assuming that the design of the No. 90 set remained consistent since its inception (which I would contend is a reasonable assumption), it is at the very least (and in the absence of any detailed photographs from Mr Terry Foster of the 1950s No. 90 set in his possession), highly suggestive.
I love string porno pics like this
I mean.
Thank you VERY much for this.
Am I imagining it, or does there seem to be some light degree of polishing on the crowns of the wrap winding? If so, shall we call them "1/8 wounds"?
Are the pictures yours?
I'm especially uncertain of what I'm looking at in picture 3. Is the outer silk being wound over by the nickel outer wrap at the end? or is there silk both inside and out, and of the same colour?
If the pics are of a set in your possession, is there a chance you could expose a little more of the core (which indeed does appear to be a very early electric-string rope core, which in turn is, IMO, every bit as huge a revelation about early Fender bass guitar strings as the fact that the original set was roundwound)? I extend the doubt, and query, to the flatwound set (the Fender, not the Ampeg) you posted a while ago, about which I freely admit I've kept wondering since...
Yes, they’re my pics of a few strings I have to hand.
Okay, some more ?multi-core (string) porn….
The green silk/nylon lies under the outer wrap, which as you can see in the first image, becomes progressively more loosely wound towards the tail of the string. I assume this is to facilitate winding around the tuner post, given the lack of actual taper per se.
In the second and third image you can see that the outer wrap becomes more tightly wound again at the tip, which appears crimped flat. In the second image one of those three apparent core wires projecting from the end is visible nestled amidst the green nylon layer under the outer nickel wrap.
The third image shows the A string from the 850 flatwounds above for comparison….my apologies, the image quality isn’t great as it was hard to get both string ends aligned and adequately in focus.
While I can’t be sure, I suspect that green nylon wrap runs the entire length of the string, since if you look closely at the red silk near the ball end in the last image, there appears to be a tiny hint of green peeking through.
I agree there appears to be very slight flattening of the exterior of the round nickel wire wrap. My guess is that this reflects “hand polishing” referred to in several sources I’ve encountered relating to early strings, as well as later ones. There’s a brief discussion here:
Invalid Link Removed
All in all, I find these little details intriguing. It also heavily implies that certain construction techniques used in currently available strings (multicore in Dogal Hellborg strings, or silk wrapping of the core in Thomastik Infeld strings), may in fact originate from the very earliest days of electric bass string manufacture.
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One thing that has me perplexed is that, between 1955 and 1965, a comment was included in one of the catalogue blurbs about the Pure Nickel Wrap line (there is another blurb, alternating with the first in the Link Removed, that did not) which explicitly stated that
"Fender Electric Strings use no fibre fillers that tend to deaden sound and cause rapid dynamic decay of tone and volume."
^ ("fibre" later Webstered to "fiber")
Sure, this discrepancy, between what they'd say back then and what you have in your hands now, could have several possible explanations:
- maybe the green silk inlay does not run the entire length (but I concur with you in believing it in fact does)
- maybe the no-damping-in-Fender-electric-strings thing was only true of guitar (steel guitar etc.) strings, and bass strings were always an exception
- maybe it was only true of early strings from the Fifties, but things changed at some later point, and they kept forgetting to remove the line
- maybe your no. 90 set is from the very late Sixties, at which point the comment was indeed removed from that text, starting from the 1968 catalog
or some combination of the above.
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Great research, and all very valid points!
Sadly, it’s hard to know either way, and given the passage of time, unlikely we’ll ever know for certain.
Furthermore, I keep thinking about that comment posted by Terry Foster:
“Fender doesn't know anything about their own history nor do they particularly care. Their interest is in selling new guitars and accessories, not old ones. Martin Kelly @voxcollector and I know the history. We have primary source information and artifacts (including hundreds of boxes of NOS strings) that they don't have access to. That statement from Fender.com is simply wrong.”
Makes me wonder how reliable any statement or marketing material from Fender is. I suppose, based on what he says, he is in the best position to settle the issue once and for all. Here’s hoping he may do so one day…..
No idea….there’s a lot of people far more knowledgeable and experienced than I in these things who no longer seem to post regularly, or at all.
That seems to be the case for Talkbass in general, ever since the Great Upgrade….my visits are certainly far less frequent than they used to be.
They disappeared long before the Great Upgrade……funny how that’s now an epoch of time we measure things by…But I do remember him being somewhat of a Fender fan, maybe to a fault, and his account was banned at least once.
Hi everybody! I was trying to ask in this topic, but got no answer 
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/fe...-core-or-hex-core-different-packages.1662812/
did they change the CORE of the 8250M set?
someone says that they were round core before 2010, when they still had the grey silk.
then the info disappeared from the box in 2010 (red/black pack) when they switched to the "made in USA" line, and with the recent white package they are labelled as "hex core".
now, I've never used them with the grey silk, but I've used them after 2010 with the red-black back, and I really liked them. I'm waiting for a bass (an American Standard Jazz, 2008) to put them on, but I have the white package.
will they be the same or in the first batch of 2010 they were round core?
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/fe...-core-or-hex-core-different-packages.1662812/did they change the CORE of the 8250M set?
someone says that they were round core before 2010, when they still had the grey silk.
then the info disappeared from the box in 2010 (red/black pack) when they switched to the "made in USA" line, and with the recent white package they are labelled as "hex core".
now, I've never used them with the grey silk, but I've used them after 2010 with the red-black back, and I really liked them. I'm waiting for a bass (an American Standard Jazz, 2008) to put them on, but I have the white package.
will they be the same or in the first batch of 2010 they were round core?
According to @hasbeen, who supervised the 2009 transition to the outsourced string product range for Fender,Hi everybody! I was trying to ask in this topic, but got no answer
did they change the CORE of the 8250M set?
someone says that they were round core before 2010, when they still had the grey silk.
then the info disappeared from the box in 2010 (red/black pack) when they switched to the "made in USA" line, and with the recent white package they are labelled as "hex core".
now, I've never used them with the grey silk, but I've used them after 2010 with the red-black back, and I really liked them. I'm waiting for a bass (an American Standard Jazz, 2008) to put them on, but I have the white package.
will they be the same or in the first batch of 2010 they were round core?
He's specifically talking about the then-new flats, but I find it very unlikely they would refuse to do roundcore flats but accept to do roundcore rounds: they were probably not willing to do roundcore strings, period.
In other words, not only the 2018 (big G-string gauge number, circled by coiled strings: white background) but also the 2010 (big F in round red circle; black background) packet version has hex cores, even though only the more recent one explicitly says so.
All the above, regardless of whether or not said manufacturer is D'Addario, as never disclosed, but strongly suspected by everyone and their dog.
thanks, I guess you're right
I may be one of the few who likes post-2010 Fender strings, and I'd be happy if they are made the same way as the last sets I've used, talking about the 8250.
the 7250 are one of my favourite.
personally, this thing is not important, because having used the 7250 and EXL on many basses, I can't consider them "the same". maybe D'Addario produces them, but they are different in feeling and stiffness.
same for the 9050 and the Chromes.
the 7150 are also a different beast, and something the D'Addario's catalogue don't offer.
same factory, different product. some type of strings are just similar, as an Ernie Ball Slinky is similar to a D'Addario EXL or Fender 7250, or the flats of these brands are similar in "style", but different in feeling, tension and sound.
(IMHO, the 7250 are more similar to the Ernie Ball Slinky in tension. I'm using both of them on a Fender Mike Dirnt, and they intonate the same, the neck doesn't move when I change set/brand, and the only difference is that the EB probably have less nickel plating, so that after a while you can see "darker" spots where the nickel fades).
when I mounted a D'Addario EXL set (same gauge, 45-105), I had to give some relief to the neck and the saddles changed completely their position to have a correct intonation.
hasbeen
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You are correct. They wouldn't do round core at all.
just to add to the topic: yesterday I changed the old Ernie Ball 45-105 I had on my Mike Dirnt, and put a set of Fender 7250M.
neck, intonation and action were identical, no changes at all, green light on every fret from the tuner
the only real difference I notice every time is that the Fender set is "mellower" from the start, where the EB set is brighter, and I trace it back to the aforementioned difference in plating. thanks, you are a great resource for this forum and humanity (aka: bass players)
I just mounted an 8250M set yesterday, and it's exactly as I remember it form the red/black box.
they've changed a lot during their history. the actual strings are kind of "standard" nickel plated like D'Addario and others, with small differences in tension and feeling.
they've changed a lot during their history. the actual strings are kind of "standard" nickel plated like D'Addario and others, with small differences in tension and feeling.
