Fender "Panorama" Tremolo System -- American Performer II Jazzmaster

[BenArch58]

Not to mention that Verlaine played most of his parts on Marquee Moon on a Danelectro…

True. Title track was a Dano, "See No Evil" and several other tracks were a Gretsch, it's a Jag on a couple of tracks & I think only "Friction" was the Jazzmaster he is usually associated with.

Apologies for being off thread topic but as a huge Television fan who saw then back in '77, curious about source of your info on guitars Verlaine used?

[drunkengarbagecan]

Is it possible to put some sort of secondary spring inside the main spring to help up its overall compression stiffness? This might be easier than making a new spring.

Now that you mention it, maybe if there’s enough clearance inside the main spring, gun manufacturers do this with pistols a lot where a secondary, narrower spring rides inside of the main spring inside the slide assembly for closing the slide after a round is fired.

Yep, that was my thinking

[TheCappy]

Keep me/us posted on the all parts spring, and if it's any better. I've been eyeing that one as well, but figured it would have the same issues. I currently use 10's (not 11's), so my panorama mostly gets the job done....but it'd be nice to have the option to go to 11's. Good luck!

P.S. - I just got that same guitar / same color. Absolutely love it (minus a few small quirks like the panorama).

Hardware store spring: No, not closed and ground and to tall.

Music store: didn’t have anything but bigsby springs. To big.

All parts spring: got me a half a step lower down to C. Must use the allpart screw and spring stop as stock does not work.

Still to try JMJM spring.

In the process of taking off the tailpiece I broke the high e string so, might as well go down to 10s and back to stock spring.

[bessieboporbach]

Not to mention that Verlaine played most of his parts on Marquee Moon on a Danelectro…

True. Title track was a Dano, "See No Evil" and several other tracks were a Gretsch, it's a Jag on a couple of tracks & I think only "Friction" was the Jazzmaster he is usually associated with.

Apologies for being off thread topic but as a huge Television fan who saw then back in '77, curious about source of your info on guitars Verlaine used?

Found out while lurking here, actually! Also confirmed my suspicion that Richard mostly played a Tele on that record. Not mentioned in the article is that "Little Johnny Jewel" was the Duo-Sonic that eventually went to Patti Smith.

viewtopic.php?t=88492

[mrjosey]

That's too bad about the allparts spring, I was hopeful it would be a success.

And yeah, 10's are where I'm at and it works fine...though not perfect. Hopefully Fender releases an upgraded spring for the panorama. I would assume that if they plan to continue using these in the future, at some point they'll make a change....I'm just not sure they'll make a big deal of it, and they'll probably just quietly replace them on future models.

[TheCappy]

That's too bad about the allparts spring, I was hopeful it would be a success.

And yeah, 10's are where I'm at and it works fine...though not perfect. Hopefully Fender releases an upgraded spring for the panorama. I would assume that if they plan to continue using these in the future, at some point they'll make a change....I'm just not sure they'll make a big deal of it, and they'll probably just quietly replace them on future models.

Yeah and people like you and me will be stuck shelling out $200 for a whole setup instead of just the spring.

[mrjosey]

Exactly...frustrating.

[timtam]

60 Cycle Hum solves most of the range problem that occurs with heavier strings .... by using the stiffer (higher spring constant, or spring rate) Swope Descendant spring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I8ifaYR91U

Also been wondering if this problem makes a case for cutting the trem cavity all the way through, open to the back !? And put a small strat-like cover over it. Thus making it easy to change springs like you do on a strat. Too radical ?

[mrjosey]

Yeah, Puisheen also solved this with a mastery spring...but the issue is neither company just sells the spring....so not sure how to find a spring with more tension.

[andy_tchp]

Couldn't you just 'shim' the bottom of the spring with a suitable sized washer (or two) to provide some pre-load and increase the effective spring pressure?

We used to do this with a 1 cent coin on Borg-Warner 35 automatic transmissions to preload the regulator spring in the valve body - to provide a small increase in line pressure.

[gibs]

Couldn't you just 'shim' the bottom of the spring with a suitable sized washer (or two) to provide some pre-load and increase the effective spring pressure?

We used to do this with a 1 cent coin on Borg-Warner 35 automatic transmissions to preload the regulator spring in the valve body - to provide a small increase in line pressure.

That would limit the travel even more as it would compress the spring. Opposite of strat terms where pushing the trem down stretches the springs, the offset trem compresses the spring under use, the limited travel with larger strings causes the spring to become more compressed when in the neutral position. So a stronger spring is what’s necessary.

[tammyw]

I wish I could measure these spring rates accurately, but I just don't have a good setup for it. All three must be within about 80-90 lbs/in. I'm not certain if the Descendant spring is any stiffer than the Fender (they're both within my margin of error), but I think the Mastery is slightly higher.

However the Descendant spring has a longer free length of about 1.1 versus the Fender at 1.0, so it will have greater range of deflection. Also is has a slightly smaller coil diameter at about 0.60 versus they others at 0.625, and otherwise looks to be about the same wire diameter and coil pitch as the Fender, so it's basically getting about a half turn more coil with the added length. The smaller diameter should also make it stiffer if all else were the same.

The Mastery spring is about 1.06 long, but the coil pitch is steeper so it has about a half turn less coil than the Fender spring despite being slightly longer. That will give it even greater total deflection, and should increase the spring rate, but it looks like it could also be a different material (at least it's not plated like the other two).

I guess I'll have to pickup some more springs and do some experimentation this week.

[timtam]

I wish I could measure these spring rates accurately, but I just don't have a good setup for it. All three must be within about 80-90 lbs/in. I'm not certain if the Descendant spring is any stiffer than the Fender (they're both within my margin of error), but I think the Mastery is slightly higher.

However the Descendant spring has a longer free length of about 1.1 versus the Fender at 1.0, so it will have greater range of deflection. Also is has a slightly smaller coil diameter at about 0.60 versus they others at 0.625, and otherwise looks to be about the same wire diameter and coil pitch as the Fender, so it's basically getting about a half turn more coil with the added length. The smaller diameter should also make it stiffer if all else were the same.

The Mastery spring is about 1.06 long, but the coil pitch is steeper so it has about a half turn less coil than the Fender spring despite being slightly longer. That will give it even greater total deflection, and should increase the spring rate, but it looks like it could also be a different material (at least it's not plated like the other two).

I guess I'll have to pickup some more springs and do some experimentation this week.

The Fender AVRI/Panorama spring is described crudely by its wire diameter (0.080" = 2.03mm) and number of coils (6).
SPRING TREMOLO ACTION .080 X 6 COIL 0019307000

If we enter the ballpark dimensions from the Fender specs and yours into a spring lookup like Lee Spring's for Compression Springs we get something like the LC 080H 04 S316 with similar spring rate to your estimate ...
https://www.leespring.com/compression-springs
Outside Diameter (inch): 0.6
Free Length (inch): 1
Rate (lb/inch): 89.2
Wire Diameter (inch): 0.08
Material: Stainless Steel Type 316

Within that ballpark - say an OD of 0.6-0.65", free length of 1-1.25", and wire diameter of 0.08-0.1" - we come up with several other spring options of similar dimensions and greater spring rate. Nothing exactly like the Descendant dimensions, but maybe in the same stiffness ball park ?

[tammyw]

I ordered a few different springs from another place, though none of them worked out great. But I played around with this thing a bunch more and wanted to share some other information. This post is probably going to be a mess.

To start with, I was looking at the travel of this thing without any spring on it at all. When it's not under any tension, the pivot bottoms out with the arm practically parallel to the body plane (would be a good half-inch above the pickguard), as you can see in the first picture while it's partially screwed to a piece of scrap wood. At that point, the back edge of the pivot's pillow blocks (attached to the bottom plate) are hitting the top plate. Of course there's going to be flexing in the arm and possibly other areas in actual use. (There's also still plenty of clearance around the arm hole in the top plate in this position.)



Now, thinking about that pillow block, there's enough of a margin on that back edge that you could probably grind off at least a sixty-fourth of an inch, to try to get a little more travel out of it. But there would be another problem: the collet block is already reaching 1.41" deep below the top plate, and the body routes are only 1.375" deep (actually slightly less with the paint buildup in the route). This second picture shows where the arm sits while the collet block is bottomed out in the route, the tip of the arm is about an inch above the pickguard.



Now you could also grind the front edge of the collet block down by at least a sixteenth of an inch, probably more, but it would probably be pointless anyway. The only way you're actually going to get the collet block to bottom out in the body route is either if you're using super light strings, or if you haven't tensioned the spring at all. Even with 9-42 strings, if you tension the stock spring correctly to use the trem lock, the spring will bottom out first (just barely). And you can still flex the arm all the way down to the pickguard if you force it.

Of course we already knew that the spring bottoming out on itself was the real problem.

So I was thinking about springs, and I'm not sure if I've got this straight in my head, so correct me if I'm wrong. Rather than a higher spring rate, wouldn't it be more ideal to have a spring with longer travel and the same spring rate?

Try to follow me on this, when you're tightening the screw to tension the spring, that's just applying pre-load to balance out against the string tension, which is consuming a portion of the spring travel. Heavier strings are just going to require more pre-load to reach equilibrium, using up more of the spring's travel, but if we had enough total travel then it wouldn't cause a problem.

On the other hand, using a higher spring rate would mean the pre-load uses up a shorter portion of travel, but the higher spring rate is also going to make it harder to push the arm down, so you won't get as light of a touch on the arm as a lower spring rate. Does that make sense?

I said more ideal because that would be my preference to have a light touch, but maybe some people want it stiffer, or maybe the lightness wouldn't work out well in real use.

It's mostly a pointless argument anyway, because as far a I can conclude from my quest to locate better springs, the existing size constraints of the system makes higher spring rates the only viable option.

After testing several springs, I didn't find anything better than the Mastery spring, and I'd say it's not perfect either. After using some springs of known parameters, I'd revise my estimate of the Mastery spring to about 110lb/in. With 11-49 strings, the Mastery spring still needed to be preloaded by about 0.375" and it still bottomed out before the flexing the arm to the pickguard.

I think 11-49 strings need about 40 lbs of preload, where 9-42 needed maybe 25-30 lbs.

Here's some other notes I jotted down for myself:

• The maximum length of the spring while preloaded and in the locked position is about 0.9" (any longer than that would be hitting the bottom of the route).
• The ideal spring deflection from the lock position to bottoming out the collet block on the route would be somewhere between 0.25-0.29" (because it's pivoting, the spring/screw end up at an angle, it's not a great position to be in).
• Regarding leverage, the distance from the pivot to the string end is about 0.5" while the distance to the center of the spring is about 1.465" (so you've got a ratio of about 2.93:1 leverage).
• Going from the lock-abutted position until the collet block bottomed out, it appeared to actuate the string by about 0.06" length in the direction of string (measured in an un-tensioned state).
• In the lock-abutted position, the bottom edge of the collet block is about 1.08" below the top plate.

I probably forgot what else I wanted to say, but thanks for reading.

[TheCappy]

I ordered a few different springs from another place, though none of them worked out great. But I played around with this thing a bunch more and wanted to share some other information. This post is probably going to be a mess.

To start with, I was looking at the travel of this thing without any spring on it at all. When it's not under any tension, the pivot bottoms out with the arm practically parallel to the body plane (would be a good half-inch above the pickguard), as you can see in the first picture while it's partially screwed to a piece of scrap wood. At that point, the back edge of the pivot's pillow blocks (attached to the bottom plate) are hitting the top plate. Of course there's going to be flexing in the arm and possibly other areas in actual use. (There's also still plenty of clearance around the arm hole in the top plate in this position.)



Now, thinking about that pillow block, there's enough of a margin on that back edge that you could probably grind off at least a sixty-fourth of an inch, to try to get a little more travel out of it. But there would be another problem: the collet block is already reaching 1.41" deep below the top plate, and the body routes are only 1.375" deep (actually slightly less with the paint buildup in the route). This second picture shows where the arm sits while the collet block is bottomed out in the route, the tip of the arm is about an inch above the pickguard.



Now you could also grind the front edge of the collet block down by at least a sixteenth of an inch, probably more, but it would probably be pointless anyway. The only way you're actually going to get the collet block to bottom out in the body route is either if you're using super light strings, or if you haven't tensioned the spring at all. Even with 9-42 strings, if you tension the stock spring correctly to use the trem lock, the spring will bottom out first (just barely). And you can still flex the arm all the way down to the pickguard if you force it.

Of course we already knew that the spring bottoming out on itself was the real problem.

So I was thinking about springs, and I'm not sure if I've got this straight in my head, so correct me if I'm wrong. Rather than a higher spring rate, wouldn't it be more ideal to have a spring with longer travel and the same spring rate?

Try to follow me on this, when you're tightening the screw to tension the spring, that's just applying pre-load to balance out against the string tension, which is consuming a portion of the spring travel. Heavier strings are just going to require more pre-load to reach equilibrium, using up more of the spring's travel, but if we had enough total travel then it wouldn't cause a problem.

On the other hand, using a higher spring rate would mean the pre-load uses up a shorter portion of travel, but the higher spring rate is also going to make it harder to push the arm down, so you won't get as light of a touch on the arm as a lower spring rate. Does that make sense?

I said more ideal because that would be my preference to have a light touch, but maybe some people want it stiffer, or maybe the lightness wouldn't work out well in real use.

It's mostly a pointless argument anyway, because as far a I can conclude from my quest to locate better springs, the existing size constraints of the system makes higher spring rates the only viable option.

After testing several springs, I didn't find anything better than the Mastery spring, and I'd say it's not perfect either. After using some springs of known parameters, I'd revise my estimate of the Mastery spring to about 110lb/in. With 11-49 strings, the Mastery spring still needed to be preloaded by about 0.375" and it still bottomed out before the flexing the arm to the pickguard.

I think 11-49 strings need about 40 lbs of preload, where 9-42 needed maybe 25-30 lbs.

Here's some other notes I jotted down for myself:

• The maximum length of the spring while preloaded and in the locked position is about 0.9" (any longer than that would be hitting the bottom of the route).
• The ideal spring deflection from the lock position to bottoming out the collet block on the route would be somewhere between 0.25-0.29" (because it's pivoting, the spring/screw end up at an angle, it's not a great position to be in).
• Regarding leverage, the distance from the pivot to the string end is about 0.5" while the distance to the center of the spring is about 1.465" (so you've got a ratio of about 2.93:1 leverage).
• Going from the lock-abutted position until the collet block bottomed out, it appeared to actuate the string by about 0.06" length in the direction of string (measured in an un-tensioned state).
• In the lock-abutted position, the bottom edge of the collet block is about 1.08" below the top plate.

I probably forgot what else I wanted to say, but thanks for reading.

That is some testing, thank you for a detailed response. I finally gave up and sent it back to Musician's Friend. I’ll post a NGD soon on my used 2016 ‘58 Custom Shop JM.