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Danelectro Owners Club

#4,063
Tonight, I restrung the Silvertone with Ernie Ball Slinky 20-90 6 string bass guitar strings. I'll be honest, I've never liked them on my Danelectro Bass 6. But on the Silvertone, with no truss rod, original tuners, and wood bridge; they worked out pretty well. Obviously I didn't use the first two strings. So the gauges are 42-54-74-90. I would have used standard bass strings with a more robust bridge. The small ball end strings fit the bill nicely.

One thing to note, the E string seems like it will have too much slack to properly wrap around the post. But it fit with two wraps. And it gave me that extra bit of tension I needed so every note on the fretboard isn't flabby, only some of them. I'm gonna let it sit for a day and see how it settles. But I'm already very happy with them.
 
#4,064
Just got a '56 Reissue Danelectro U2. Planning to use it as a Bass VI. The current strings aren't working at E-to-E, so I need different strings. Managed to find an old set of D'Addario XL155s, so that should work. Just hope it doesn't need a truss rod adjustment, which apparently you have to remove the neck to do. I'm not about to try that myself.


danelectro.jpg
 
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#4,065
Got the Dano books volume 1 & 2. Very comprehensive image-wise and also for listing of model & year info. Specific history information is introductory but it is what it is, which offers light on these iconic instruments. (and amps etc) I would have liked more information on the Dano to Coral transition in terms of what changed and what stayed the same etc like some more exhausting history books on Fender/CBS/Fender out there. Just glad it's available. Also (can't post here on tb) a two page pictorial on the "Ladybirds", the swingin' mid '60s all female "topless" band from New Jersey playing (Dano) Coral guitars. (not a fold-out or playing top-less guitars ;) :laugh:)

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edited pic - :) much like the classic B&W pics of Betty Page - innocent by todays... standards?...
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*All & all, the books are a great resource for all things Dano. There are lots of reproductions of old ads, which must have been a major effort to curate and post pics of them by Doug Tulloch & Matt Charros. :thumbsup:
 
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#4,066
deepsounds said:
Just got a '56 Reissue Danelectro U2. Planning to use it as a Bass VI. The current strings aren't working at E-to-E, so I need different strings. Managed to find an old set of D'Addario XL155s, so that should work. Just hope it doesn't need a truss rod adjustment, which apparently you have to remove the neck to do. I'm not about to try that myself.


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So these RI's had a tr?
 
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#4,068
Verne Andru said:
Have you ever watched "Cat on a hot tin roof?" That's Liz Taylor in the 50s when she was at her hottest and I highly doubt that could be made today.
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Well yes, a whole different ball of wax that.., as a life-long student of film I am well aware of the history of provocative (serious) films/film topics over the decades. (can you say Last Tango In Paris?...) But mostly I was referring to society's relationship with what could be considered 'obscene' both female and male body related. Europe has always been ahead of the nude stigma but in today's US, '50s Betty Page is what I personally would consider only mildly titillating. :) I imagine attending a Ladybird show would be very entertaining, but not particularly shocking or provocative.
 
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#4,071
HelpImaRock said:
Yes, the RIs have truss rods. Also, to me, that looks like a RI replacement bridge. I don't remember them having the intonatable bridges, but I could very well be wrong.
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That was the most recent version on Dano RI's. (individual saddles) There were the (vintage) originals, ones (RI) that had a more substantial/beefier plate but still had the angled piece of wood, and those (RI) with metal adjustable saddles.
 
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#4,073
GretschWretch said:
How did you ever manage to glom onto the two Dano books? I've been searching for years, but all I ever find is either "Sold Out" or priced exorbitantly.
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It was weird - since around Covid I kept checking to see if it had been re-issued/second pressing as Doug Tulloch said it eventually would and saw those two books listed along side the 1st edition ones selling for close to $200.

This was on the last page - apparently this is the re-issue. No publishing branding (first was by Centerstream Publishing, LLC out of Anaheim CA) so I assume it was self published using one of the on-line book-making platforms. This would make sense as I have a soft-cover Centerstream book (History of Japanese Electric Guitars) and it's generally better quality.

I think you can still get what I got by Googling Neptune Bound.

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#4,076
Stealth57 said:
My 99 short horn has the truss rod on the neck heel and the rosewood saddle.
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Yah, my Longhorn is also a '99 MII. I guess you have to remove the neck to get at it as it's not visible attached. Luckily mine didn't need adjusting.., yet. The new owners updated here and there including, or I should say excluding the aluminum side position dots like on vintage Dano's. They don't even mention them in the books I got which was somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for more insightful info from the Dano past details that made them unique.
 
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#4,077
JIO said:
Yah, my Longhorn is also a '99 MII. I guess you have to remove the neck to get at it as it's not visible attached. Luckily mine didn't need adjusting.., yet. The new owners updated here and there including, or I should say excluding the aluminum side position dots like on vintage Dano's. They don't even mention them in the books I got which was somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for more insightful info from the Dano past details that made them unique.
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Yes, the truss rod nut isn’t accessible until you unbolt the neck.
 
#4,078
Stealth57 said:
Yes, the truss rod nut isn’t accessible until you unbolt the neck.
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Sounds like a Rickenbacker bridge thing (until more recently) - nostalgia over function. When Dano's originally had two metal beams instead of a tr, there was never a need to remove the neck from the body. "these RI's look just like a vintage Dano!" (until needing to remove the neck to adjust the tr...) As in... if you are gong to add a heel access tr, you need to create a rout to adjust it w/o taking the neck off! Nostalgia as function killer. (or is it just cost-cutting hiding behind nostalgia...)
 
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#4,080
FWIK Nat considered adjustable truss-rods unreliable so he went with the solid metal beams. Fast forward to the reissues and they changed to truss-rods but without the ability to access them for adjustment - that's been fixed on the latest models that have truss-rod access at the tuning machines. The very first thing I get done to my Danos is have an access cavity routed so I can access the neck heel.
 
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