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Danelectro Owners Club

#3,902
msb said:
My reissue Longhorn was one of the early Korean ones , and was in heavy use for quite some years , and yet has survived without any major dings , chips or even scratches.
It still looks relatively new. God knows , it had enough falls and was knocked over countless times , and yet somehow never got bruised. Tough as nails.
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The patina on my Jerry Jones longhorn is mostly from my sweat reacting with the copper in the paint. There's no clear coat on it. I suppose he did that to be authentic to old Danelectros? Except that this is a modernized one, with more angular body shape, modern bridge and tuners, unpainted (or probably poly-varnished or oiled) neck...

My modern Danos don't show this kind of wear, although that's probably mostly because I've played each of them a lot less than the JJ. Modern Danelectros have modern paint on them (and no actual copper paint).

My dolphin nose bass (2009?) probably has the second most wear on it, including a version of the thumb wear by the neck pickup that you see on the JJ. But the dolphin is matte black. The thumb wear is shiny black that you can only see in certain light.

That's today's report from New Jersey.
 
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#3,903
bigtone23 said:
Seeing these road warrior, honest wear basses reminds me of my first Dano. It was a copperburst 63 Longhorn bass. It was about 19 years old when I got it, and it had more than average wear and tear. I wish there was a picture, but I sold it sometime around 1995 and I wasn't a camera guy until they were conveniently located on my phone(s). The back of the neck had lost all of the copper paint below the 10th fret, there was some exposed wood below the 5th fret, and the top was worn through the copper ring on the lower bass bout from forearm wear. For those 19 years, it must have been played at least 2-4 hours a week to be that worn. The frets were still pretty good because... flatwounds!

I got it on a trade with a friend. He was given the bass and amp (a blue Univox head and 2x12" cab), as they were sitting in storage for a couple years at the Catholic church. He was a member of the church and they knew he played a little guitar. Well, he didn't play this bass at all, but did play the amp a little with his guitar. However, he needed some distortion, so he proposed to trade my Maestro FZ1s Fuzz for the Longhorn. I wasn't using the fuzz (I moved on to a MXR D+), and wanted a bass, so... yeah!

What I can't wrap my head around is the origin story of the gear. It was the bass and amp for the Catholic church in my hometown. I wasn't a member there, so I have no clue. Why would a 1960s/1970s small agricultural town Catholic church have a Longhorn and a blue Univox bass amp head and cab? Next time I see him, I have to find out more about this.

I found this interweb picture and this was the same amp he had. I remember it was tube (2x6L6), 4 input, two volume and 2x12". Would love to have that Longhorn and that amp today!
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Groovy amp - reminds me of this cool Italian amp -

upload_2024-6-19_15-2-19.jpeg
 
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#3,908
Info for a reissue 56 U2 Baritone aka (UB2) Bass VI with a 3x3 coke bottle headstock and early 2000's Innuendo Baritone (Bass VI)
56 UB2 I use Ernie Ball 2837 strings .20-.90 these are probably too short for six inline necks.
Innuendo Baritone (Bass VI) I use D'Addario EXL156. Yes the tremolo is floating and it stays in tune.
I play mostly with a pick and use location and palm muting to control the tone from the strings as well as the tone control. I can also play using the standard bass players two finger technique adjusted for the tight string spacing.
Best part about the Bass VI's is I can find the string sets for under $15.00.
Both string sets are rounds and I wouldn't use flats or half rounds etc. Using the tone control, pickup selection and picking / plucking technique I can get thumpy Motown type sounds and still have the Dano bright twang if needed.
Next time I restring them both I will post the winding length of the low E for both sets since the EB 2837 .90 and the EXL156 .84 are the two strings that are two fat to fit the full winding through the tuner hole without drilling. This should help others shifting a Baritone to Bass VI.
 
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#3,909
I purchased a new DC59 a few years back and enjoy it because it's very light and sounds surprisingly good. However, when I started to switch to flatwounds, on the second string change the tuner broke. I opened the tuner and the gear had stripped. Has anyone switched to a different style of tuner for this reason? The tuners look very cheap.
 
#3,910
jamesrw said:
I purchased a new DC59 a few years back and enjoy it because it's very light and sounds surprisingly good. However, when I started to switch to flatwounds, on the second string change the tuner broke. I opened the tuner and the gear had stripped. Has anyone switched to a different style of tuner for this reason? The tuners look very cheap.
Click to expand...

It depends on the release era of your DC59. During the late 90's to 2004 ish they had a left hand variant that had the upgraded Gotoh tuners as did the Bass 6 (VI) and the Longhorn Pro. I have not found a replacement for those tuning machines. Wayback Machine will show you the versions I'm talking about. Depending on which flats you are putting on the tension could be extremely high compared to round wound strings. The same Internet Archive page will also show you the string gauges used for their instruments. I believe they were rebadged D'addario strings. Good thing is you can get the string tension values which should help in getting a set of strings (flats or round) that are within the values that Danelectro used when selecting the hardware used on your variant of the DC59. Danelectro Bridge Sag ~ Luthiery Laboratories has information on how to deal with Bridge sag depending on which style you have. All Parts used to sell aftermarket bridges for Danelectro but now only the pickups seem to be available from them.

One of the key benefits to a Danelectro guitar / bass / bass 6 (vi) / baritone guitar is the range of tone which can get really bright. I would suggest using foam under round wound strings to get them to sound more like flats and adjusting how you pluck / pick the instrument. I play bass 6 (vi) Danos and I use the round wound strings. EQ and technique allow me to go from really bright to a flats sound. I normally use a pick and palm muting / location of picking or thumb Ala classical guitar or the standard bass two finger method to get the sounds I want. Using these techniques I can go from Motown to Flea bright without changing to another axe. I use exl156 or 2837 Bass VI string sets on my 56 U2 Baritone (now 56 UB2) and Innuendo Baritone.

Hope this helps. The 59DC is a really nice axe.
 
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#3,911
jamesrw said:
I purchased a new DC59 a few years back and enjoy it because it's very light and sounds surprisingly good. However, when I started to switch to flatwounds, on the second string change the tuner broke. I opened the tuner and the gear had stripped. Has anyone switched to a different style of tuner for this reason? The tuners look very cheap.
Click to expand...

Can you take pictures of the tuners?
 
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#3,913
crumb656 said:
Four pics front and back of a Longhorn Pro neck with the upgraded tuners and front and back of a same era 59DC guitar with the stock Dano D logo guitar tuners that were used on Bass, Guitar and Baritone no pro models for a few years

View attachment 5492566 View attachment 5492567 View attachment 5492568 View attachment 5492569
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The only other tuners used were the Gotoh guitar tuners that looked like the bass tuners in the pictures without the slots and center holes the bass tuners have. And they are slightly smaller 10mm headstock hole vice 14mm hole for the bass.
 
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#3,915
Thanks for the replies. I wasn't aware of the string tension issue so will be reading the information that is attached. I think I bought this bass less than 5 years ago, so it is probably stock along with the current models.
Jim
 
#3,916
jamesrw said:
View attachment 5493095 View attachment 5493096
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I believe they are Gotoh tuners. If that is correct then Danelectro '59DC Long Scale Bass - Black this link should help. I've done business with this shop years ago and they were decent. My wife bought me most of the T-Shirts since I'm an old electronics tech. Tubes and tube circuits.

The link is for a 3x3 set.

Long scale bass Light 45 65 80 100 Long scale bass 50 70 85 105 D'Addario from the Danelectro internet archive and Invalid Link Removed at the bottom of the specs on the Sweetwater site. BTW D'Addario are running a 30% off sale on the exl series of guitar and bass strings.
 
#3,917
jamesrw said:
Thanks for the replies. I wasn't aware of the string tension issue so will be reading the information that is attached. I think I bought this bass less than 5 years ago, so it is probably stock along with the current models.
Jim
Click to expand...

Some food for thought:
Tech tips n tools
Tech tips n tools
String gauge discussion with Guitarists and demo still pertinent to bass.
Tech restringing tips.
Food for thought and good info that I have assimilated into my setups.

Have an awesome weekend.
 

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