Replacing Fender "knife edge" pivots.

[Tony Russell Davis]

I have stripped down my Fender Artist D-10 for maintenance and find one pivot blade badly worn in three places, the other worn a bit less. For those not familiar with the thing I'll explain. And, by the way, these Fenders are the ones with the ShoBud undercarriage.
The fingers do not pivot on a rod. The fulcrum is a knife-edge and the fingers have a ">" shape that sits on the knife-edge. This results in almost no friction. The "blade" is some alloy or aluminium (too light and too worn to be steel) and 3.5in x 1in x 1/10th in thick. I don't think the thickness is critical; 2.5mm or even 3mm (with the edge filed a bit sharper at the edge) would do.
Does anyone have any ideas what material I need to search for? I'm not familiar with aluminium grades. I even considered 3mm brass
Any thoughts would be helpful, from a PSG tech. or a metal workers angle.
One other thought occurred to me, I wondered if the Fender 800 or 2000 used the same knife - it would be logical that an existing part would be used in the new model.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Here's a picture - note the wear on the right one.

[mick hearn]

Hi Tony. Don't know if it is any help but when you watch videos on steel guitar construction they seem to mention aircraft grade aluminium (or aluminum as they say over the pond). Apparently it's a lot stronger than the regular stuff. Looks like its available on fleabay as 60-- series.

[slimbo]

There is a hard wearing but light metal called Durilliam I think was used in the building of Spitfires but don't know if it's still available.

[Zebedee]

If you use hard-wearing material, you run the risk of ruining the changer fingers.

It's easier to change the plate than change the fingers, so don't use exotic aluminium, use something bog-standard

Having said that, I've never seen one of these steels, so could be talking piffle

[Ken Byng]

Hi Tony
Your guitar is over 40 years old. Replacing the old aluminium blades with the same grade material would give the guitar another 40 years. I always felt that the Fender/Sho~Bud Artist changer gave a really smooth pedal action. (Thank you Gene Fields). A small engineering company could knock a load of those blades for not a lot of money and you would get a very straight knife edge too. Cheers, Ken.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Thanks to all for the input. The blades are definitely ali or a non magnetic alloy.
Richard - you've hit it right on about the hardness issue, wearing the fingers was my worry from the start. For your info (I know you like this sort of thing) here's a pic of the parts that pivot on them. Much the same as a SB scissor action without the rod.
Ken thanks for that suggestion, I'll keep that as a backstop.
My latest wheeze (if I can't sort it soon) is to turn the worn one over, re-drill the holes and put it back in using the sharpened opposite edge as the pivot.

[bob adams]

If you draw a blank Tony I can make these for you in 3mm alloy.
The grade if critical would be 6062 (commercial extrusion spec)
I've used it for many parts over the years and it has never given me any issues.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Brilliant. Never mind drawing any blank Bob, you would be my first choice! I just thought you would be too busy PM the address and I'll send you one for a template

[bob adams]

PM sent.