Keyless Tuner

[Eldon]

Many thanks to Larry for starting this Forum I see it as an excellent companion to the Steel Guitar Forum.

Here's a starter question folks. I'm looking for drawings with measurements for a keyless tuner for the pedal steel I'm building. I've scoured the STF (which has a fair number of photos as well as "freepatentsonline" and am still looking. Although it's part of the learning process I really don't want to make an extra set of some pieces like I ended up making for my changer (I haven't taken pics yet but will post when I do).

Thanks and warmest regards to all, Eldon

[Allan]

Eldon, I'll tell you how I do this kind of thing.
Firstly, do you use a CAD prog? I use AutoSketch ver,2. This prog lets me import what it calls 'slides'. So if I can find a reasonable straight on picture of the piece I want to copy I do a screen grab of that piece and import it. All I need at that point is a single dimension that I either know or can make a good guess at. I then re-size the 'slide' until that dimension is to scale and I am then able to scale off everything else and produce the drawing that I want.
For example, the first thing that I produced using this method was a copy of a Gibson solid bodied nylon strung guitar, the type that used to be used by Chet Atkins. It uses nylon strings and a piezo pickup under the bridge. The only dimension that I had was the scale length which I got from the Gibson website along with the picture of the guitar.
That example used a photograph as the 'slide' but I have done the same thing using the prior art grabbed from various patent applications.
Let me know if you need any more details about doing this - I don't know how well I have described the method.

Hope this helps, Allan.....

[Eldon]

Allan, I understand what you are saying, I did something similar with microsoft excel and my changer. I imported a picture "drew" lines and center points at the critical spots and then I just deleted my base picture leaving me with a line drawing.

Thanks! Eldon

[jesseleite]

Hi Eldon,

For something as simple as a keyhead, if you need it I would be willing to draw it up for you using my CAD software, then I could send you a simple PDF that you could print off. The only thing I DON'T know is the measurements. However, if you know what you want, send me a pencil sketch or photo with a few dimensions and I would be glad to draw it up nice for you.

Jesse

[Eldon]

Jesse, I appretiate the offer. I have a drawing program called CAdStd Lite. It draws in 2D. I'm fooling around with it as we speak. I've got an idea in mind that I'm going to try, when done I'll post and see what you guys think. I'm assuming we can attach PDF files to our messages, if not I'l take a picture.