Steel Guitar Builder

Bill, thanks for the pictures. I'm gonna take a close look at them and see how they compare to flippers design. May help me understand the workings more.

Paul

Russ, I forgot to mention that I will set it up in E9 tuning. I'm not sure what tuning was originally used, but judging from how the rods were placed when I first got the guitar, I do not think it was E9 or standard E9 anyway.

If I don't have to many cold ones, I may string Flipper tomorrow. I should post some before and after pictures of my head and we can see how much hair I pull out trying to tune her. LOL!

Paul

Paul,
If there is no binding in the rods, the string tension alone should be able to pull the fingers back to neutral, and you may find that you don't need those six springs.

However, if there is a bit of friction in the rods, or if the pedals are heavy, you may need to apply a minimum amount of tension to those springs (by adjusting the collars) to allow the fingers to return after a raise.

It looks like you are raising strings 4 and 8 on the left knee lever, and lowering string 4 on the right knee lever.
Don't forget that you will need to allow a bit of clearance on the raise collars of the 4th (and maybe the 8th) raise rods to allow the 4th string to drop a semitone.

Burt,

Thanks for the advise. I had some binding caused by one of the knee levers. The lever closest to the changer that was used to lower strings 4 and 8. It was pretty bad as even with the springs the pedals and other knee lever would bind and not return to the neutral position. I will have to make up a new lever assembly, but for now I am gonna set it up as 3X1. I removed the faulty lever and there is no binding now. Also, I realized one lever will have to will have to have a reverse action. As I push the knee lever in the direction of the changer it should pull the lowering changer fingers on strings 4 and 8. Did that make sense?

Here's a real newbie question! String 4 has 2 raises, a half tone, and a full tone. Would I adjust the collar for the half tone or use the pedal stop when tuning?

Paul

Paul, is this your copedent?
The photos do not show a lower on string-8.

Hi Dave, thanks for the interest. You are right, I didn't have the rod for the lowering of string 8 attached. I ended up removing that lever as it was binding in a major way. For now LKL is gonna be RKL. I hope you will see what I mean by the pictures I post. I had a setback last night as I was putting the legs on. The end plate closest to the changer got broken when the guitar was shipped. I had a friend weld it, but cast aluminum doesn't weld very well and it broke as I was twisting the leg on. I managed to repair it, but definitely will have to get a new set of end plates. Here are a few pictures so you can see were I'm at as of today.

Paul

Hey Folks,

I managed to get Flipper tuned up partially. I have the A&B pedal tuned using the pedal stops and barrels to adjust strings 10&5, 6&3 and it sounds pretty good. My E to A or third fret G to C is really good. No complaints, but I am tone deaf anyway.LOL! I found I had to bring the rods on string 5 &3 down to the lower holes closest to the pedals to get the extra pull on the strings. Same as you might do on a bell crank to get that extra amount of pull. When I tried to use the adjustments on the changer to fine tune the guitar I found it useless. I only used the raise adjustment. Due to the fact, in my way of thinking, if you pull or push on the changer to adjust, is this not the same as twisting the tuning peg? See the picture. Burt, any help is appreciated. if you could explain the picture in a little more detail I'd be happy. I must be missing something.

Paul

Paul,
If you are only raising the strings, the simplest way is to abandon the raise adjusting screws completely.

Set a stop for the pedal travel, then press the pedal and tune the string up to its highest pitch at the keyhead.

Release the pedal and tune the string to its open pitch using the lower tuning screw

On the 5th string, which is raised a tone by the A pedal and the C pedal, it might be advantageous to have an adjustable collar (like the Shobud barrel) instead of a fixed collar.

Likewise on the 4th string if you have a knee lever raising it a half-tone

Thank you Burt and Happy New Year,

I will follow your advise when I tune my C pedal and knee lever. I've been messing around for the past few days trying to figure out how to play Together Again using just the A&B pedals. I'm slowly getting it. The good news is the guitar is staying in tune.

Thanks again,

Paul