Fender Silverface Front Panel

[jy67]

Hello,

Working on a 1975 Fender Super Reverb, and the faceplate seems to be different than other Fenders I have worked on; all the holes except for the normal channel inputs and the speed potentiometer for the tremolo are "oversized".

About the same size as the washer that should have been there, but wasn't installed on any of the pots except for the normal sized holes.

The outer ring of the lamp barley covers the punchout.

Was this a change that was made at some point, (and why???) in production or an aftermarket part?

[dogburn]

I looked at some used examples on Reverb and eBay, and this seems to be pretty common (new ones have uniform small holes). One possibility is that it was about the assembly process, as this allowed for a lot of the pots to be installed and fastened down in the step before the faceplate was put on. Alternatively, it lets you replace the faceplate a lot quicker - maybe Fender was finding it too much of a pain to have to remove every nut and washer in the process, or maybe silver faceplates showed scratches too easily and that amp owners or amp techs were replacing them often and complained to Fender.