Forrest vs George - the truss rod debate

I have read Forrest White's book on the Fender Story and George Fullerton's book on the G&L story. Both authors describe their very different version of what occurred with the infamous 'straight truss rods' that CLF supplied to Musicman. Truss rods are installed with a curve to allow for adjustment. Naturally, a straight truss rod cannot be adjusted.

Of course, history shows this incident caused a massive number of Musicman guitars to be returned as faulty and was a major contributor to Musicman's demise. G&L was formed as a result. Forrest claims Leo told him the straight truss rods was George's idea. George makes no mention of it in his book. Does anyone know what really happened?

Last edited by jacksonmoon on Sun Dec 25, 2011 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

from the info i gathered from people invlolved back then, musicman's demise was earine ball's doing actually. he was the distributor and essentially stopped orders to force leo into bankrupcy. i boycott earnie ball to this day. cfl had already started g&l behing musicman's and earnie ball's back, and leo moved that forward. clf was supplying musicman during this time, not sure if something wasn't done intentionally.

from the info i gathered from people invlolved back then, musicman's demise was earine ball's doing actually. he was the distributor and essentially stopped orders to force leo into bankrupcy. i boycott earnie ball to this day. cfl had already started g&l behing musicman's and earnie ball's back, and leo moved that forward. clf was supplying musicman during this time, not sure if something wasn't done intentionally.

CLF was to be paid for every accepted instrument which lead me to believe there was no incentive at all to financially starve CLF by providing Music man with an inferior product. The 'Early Years' section of the Wikipedia entry on Music Man provides a nice compendium of different inputs. And there might be some truth in every one of them.

- Jos

from the info i gathered from people invlolved back then, musicman's demise was earine ball's doing actually. he was the distributor and essentially stopped orders to force leo into bankrupcy.

The largest volume of returns were from Japan and Europe. Full shipping containers were returned at one stage mainly due to the nonadjustable necks and in some cases, cracking finishes. I have seen faxes and letters directly targeting these issues.

The question is, why would CLF place straight truss rods in any guitar? Leo, George or someone high in the chain at CLF must have approved of their use. Seeing we'll never get Leo, Forrest and George in the same room we're never going to get the real answer.

My personal opinion from a manufacturing background is that George or Leo or both of them made the decision to change the truss rods and knew of the consequences. Remember, Tom Walker had already upset the arrangement by wanting Leo and George out and they refused to sell to Walker. Something happened at the Impasse otherwise Musicman would have cemented its place in history as a major player rather than its untimely demise, and G&L may never have existed.

[quote="louis cyfer" i boycott earnie ball to this day. [/quote]

I boycott earnie ball because I think they make crummy products. I have very dry hands, and strings tend to last me a long time.....unless they are earnie ball strings. I like the brand that G&L uses, always have, so that's what I use.

[quote="louis cyfer" i boycott earnie ball to this day.

I boycott earnie ball because I think they make crummy products. I have very dry hands, and strings tend to last me a long time.....unless they are earnie ball strings. I like the brand that G&L uses, always have, so that's what I use.[/quote]
what brand is that?

This part of the Leo Fender story was always confusing me. In this book http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Sound-Cent ... 514&sr=1-1, I read, as far as I understood right, Leo Fender was the owner of MusicMan and he lost 1.5 Million Dollar, when it went down.

i boycott earnie ball to this day.

I boycott earnie ball because I think they make crummy products. I have very dry hands, and strings tend to last me a long time.....unless they are earnie ball strings. I like the brand that G&L uses, always have, so that's what I use.

what brand is that?

D'Addario

Craig's Knowledge Base posting:
http://guitarsbyleo.com/FORUM/viewtopic.php?p=24#p24

This part of the Leo Fender story was always confusing me. In this book http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Sound-Cent ... 514&sr=1-1, I read, as far as I understood right, Leo Fender was the owner of MusicMan and he lost 1.5 Million Dollar, when it went down.

Leo was an owner of Music Man, not the sole owner. It's my understanding that White and Walker went to Leo looking for advice when they were starting up the company that became known as Music Man circa 1973. Leo liked what they were doing so not only did he give advice but he gave them funding as a "silent partner" since he was still prohibited from owning an instrument company by his agreement on selling Fender to CBS. When that expired circa 1975 he "came out" as the third partner.

He had a falling out with Walker and White and was essentially letting them buy him out over time. He started G&L at about that same time after he agreed to the buy-out. Leo lost money because of they hadn't completed the buy-out before they went under. I'm also sure that some of his loss was related to how the CLF contract to produce the MM instruments was terminated.

Interesting points in this thread that I hadn't heard before - I hadn't heard that Ernie Ball was trying to starve them out by cutting orders. I hadn't heard that they were the MM distributor. Sterling Ball tends to position it as EB came in and bought the company from the bankruptcy court because he had worked briefly for MM and the Ball family had a relationship with the Walker family.

This part of the Leo Fender story was always confusing me. In this book http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Sound-Cent ... 514&sr=1-1, I read, as far as I understood right, Leo Fender was the owner of MusicMan and he lost 1.5 Million Dollar, when it went down.

Leo was an owner of Music Man, not the sole owner. It's my understanding that White and Walker went to Leo looking for advice when they were starting up the company that became known as Music Man circa 1973. Leo liked what they were doing so not only did he give advice but he gave them funding as a "silent partner" since he was still prohibited from owning an instrument company by his agreement on selling Fender to CBS. When that expired circa 1975 he "came out" as the third partner.

He had a falling out with Walker and White and was essentially letting them buy him out over time. He started G&L at about that same time after he agreed to the buy-out. Leo lost money because of they hadn't completed the buy-out before they went under. I'm also sure that some of his loss was related to how the CLF contract to produce the MM instruments was terminated.

Interesting points in this thread that I hadn't heard before - I hadn't heard that Ernie Ball was trying to starve them out by cutting orders. I hadn't heard that they were the MM distributor. Sterling Ball tends to position it as EB came in and bought the company from the bankruptcy court because he had worked briefly for MM and the Ball family had a relationship with the Walker family.

i heard that from a guy that was involved in this back then, i consider him a very trustworthy source. of course people can be wrong, but i have never heard him make careless claims about things.

This part of the Leo Fender story was always confusing me. In this book http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Sound-Cent ... 514&sr=1-1, I read, as far as I understood right, Leo Fender was the owner of MusicMan and he lost 1.5 Million Dollar, when it went down.

Leo was an owner of Music Man, not the sole owner. It's my understanding that White and Walker went to Leo looking for advice when they were starting up the company that became known as Music Man circa 1973. Leo liked what they were doing so not only did he give advice but he gave them funding as a "silent partner" since he was still prohibited from owning an instrument company by his agreement on selling Fender to CBS. When that expired circa 1975 he "came out" as the third partner.

He had a falling out with Walker and White and was essentially letting them buy him out over time. He started G&L at about that same time after he agreed to the buy-out. Leo lost money because of they hadn't completed the buy-out before they went under. I'm also sure that some of his loss was related to how the CLF contract to produce the MM instruments was terminated.

Interesting points in this thread that I hadn't heard before - I hadn't heard that Ernie Ball was trying to starve them out by cutting orders. I hadn't heard that they were the MM distributor. Sterling Ball tends to position it as EB came in and bought the company from the bankruptcy court because he had worked briefly for MM and the Ball family had a relationship with the Walker family.

i heard that from a guy that was involved in this back then, i consider him a very trustworthy source. of course people can be wrong, but i have never heard him make careless claims about things.

Sorry if it came off that I was doubting your story; I just thought it would be interesting to share that EBMM spins the story that they picked up the pieces but never mention that they were a cause of the collapse of the firm.

[quote="Interesting points in this thread that I hadn't heard before - I hadn't heard that Ernie Ball was trying to starve them out by cutting orders. I hadn't heard that they were the MM distributor. Sterling Ball tends to position it as EB came in and bought the company from the bankruptcy court because he had worked briefly for MM and the Ball family had a relationship with the Walker family.[/quote]

Actually, it wasn't Ernie Ball that cut its orders.

Here's a brief rundown what happened. Leo and George (Fullerton) manufactured the guitars at CLF (Clarence Leo Fender Inc.). Leo, who didn't want to work with George again relented after Forrest (White) mediated the two back to a working relationship. CLF, accepted orders from MusicMan, much like Fender Sales sent orders to the factory in the old days. Musicman produced exceptional amplifiers at their own facility, overseen by Forrest. Forrest's intentions were good, in that he ran a military style operation however people were different in the 70's than they were in the 50's and early 60's. The staff didn't like Forrest's authoritarian style and neither did Tom (Walker). Leo had 100% share of the factory and 50% in Music Man. Forrest and Tom had an equal share of the remaining 50% (25% each). I am not sure how George fitted into the financial arrangement.

Walker badgered Leo to get Forrest to sell him 2 shares so Walker would be the major share holder over Forrest to which Leo did and Forrest reluctantly agreed to. Walker then moved to have Forrest out of the decision making and being on the premises, which eventually led to fisticuffs in Walker's office one day when Forrest stormed in and let Tom have it.

In the meantime, Musicman were returning guitars to CLF claiming problems with intonation, buzzing, cracked finishes and importantly, necks that couldn't be adjusted. Container loads of MM guitars were returned due to the neck/truss rod issue. This cost MM a small fortune! CLF claimed there was nothing wrong however when a neck was cut open it was revealed the truss rod was straight. You don't have to be a guitar tech to now you cannot straighten a straight truss rod. This was a very serious development with obvious ramifications.

According to Forrest, Leo said it was George's (Fullerton) idea to change spec to a straight truss rod by why would George, or indeed anyone at CLF intentionally sabotage their own guitars?. We all know there was a lot of spite between Forrest and George and it was Forrest's belief that George intentionally changed the truss rods in those necks. The decision, whoever made it, signaled the demise of MusicMan.

This resulted in a stalemate between the factory and MM - the exporter. MM claimed there was a huge backlog and couldn't order more stock from CLF until the Truss rod and other issues were resolved. CLF believed MM were trying to starve them out of existence.

The reality is more likely to be that Leo and George had enough of the upstarts at MM telling them how to make guitars and decided to go out on their own. Why not? They had and owned the factory and knew how to make guitars. MM still had their excellent amps but without a good line of guitars to compliment the amps they soon fell under the weight of debt and eventually through Tom's negotiations, Ernie Ball bought the company, taking Tom Walker (but not Forrest) as a senior administrator.

Leo and George went on the success (again) with G&L, Ernie Ball grew with MM under its banner and Forrest unfortunately was left out of the Fender story from this point, a situation that deeply hurt him given his loyalty to Leo.

Cheers, Jackson Moon.

thank you

I know this topic is ancient, but it comes up on internet searches, so I figured it may be best to add what I know here.

Grover Jackson picked up Music Man around 1979. He was just getting Charvel MFG up and running as a real manufacturing facility (during Wayne Charvel's ownership they outsourced everything). Initially all the wood was supplied to them by Music Man, but over time that stock was used up and they had to begin making the stuff in house. By 1981, Music Man basses were made 100% in Charvel MFG.

Forrest talks about figuring out the straight necks, which led to them finding another source for Music Man production. In looking at Music Man's production logs, which include repair lists, it is obvious this neck issue not only goes back to 1977, but Music Man sales actually got involved with fixing necks. There is an order from Tom Walker to send over a work bench to the sales office, then there are orders for necks in bulk through out the year. The instruments that CLF Research fixed had neck issues, but often had other issues as well, like paint problems or pickup problems.

By the end of 77 CLF Research was repairing a significant amount of instruments a week. This was on top of neck issues the sales office was replacing. Most weeks they were fixing half as many instruments as they were making. Anyway, knowing Charvel MFG got involved in late 78-early 79, and seeing with my own eyes the issues going back to 1977, the issue went on for years before Music Man figured it out, or they patiently dealt with the situation before looking elsewhere.

I also see some finished body orders by Music man sales, which hints they may have fixed some of those issues as well. But no where near the quantity as necks.

And because it is important, I see no evidence they actually repaired anything. More often than not they simply swapped flawed components for new. There are even examples of a new body and new neck being used in a "repair".

CLF Research was paid upon completion of the instruments. The repairs made after that were not paid for. Employees received a small pay, but could earn good money on bonuses. Returned instruments did not qualify for their bonuses. So if you worked at CLF Research. you were hoping to knock out XX amount of instruments a day. The last thing you wanted to deal with was spending that time fixing instruments that did not go toward your weeks bonus. It is obvious that this system led to further problems with employees not spending much time on addressing the issues. Some instruments went back 5 or 6 times for repair.

EDIT- I would also like to mention that it appears most of the production logs went through George Fullerton. Many handwritten notes regarding repairs, replacement neck batches, and most general production management items were not only written by George, but orders were issued to the employees on the floor by him. So if anyone knew the ins and outs of CLF Research's manufacturing side, it was George. So if rods were indeed going in straight, he not only knew about it, he knew WHY it was being done.