cross rod question!

[louckswayne]

Hey Guys
My end plates are almost done for SD10. However they are 3/8" drop to the pad
area. Will i still have room for a normal cross rod setup using pillow blocks? I could
make the maple pc. for the pad area to 5/8" thk. to compensate for the 3/8 drop
but would prefer to keep it at 3/4" if possible!
Your advice/thoughts!
Thanks
Wayne
PS - I have about 5/8" to the top most hole in the changer finger!

[Pat Comeau]

Wayne ,

i use 1/4" step and i beleive alot of other builders use that also, sho-bud used a different pulling system then Emmons, rains mullen ect...and thats why they have a 3/4" step , the reason for having a 1/4" step is to have room for the cross shaft and knee levers and brackets ect... under the guitar, but you can do like Carter PSG and have it flush all the way underneeth, the step on top is not that important it could be 1/4", 1/2" or 3/4" ect..., it all comes down to have the cross shaft as low as possible and have enough room to mount ross shafts ,bellcranks and lever brackets ect..underneeth and that everything rotate freely .

Pat.

[louckswayne]

Wayne ,

i use 1/4" step and i beleive alot of other builders use that also, sho-bud used a different pulling system then Emmons, rains mullen ect...and thats why they have a 3/4" step , the reason for having a 1/4" step is to have room for the cross shaft and knee levers and brackets ect... under the guitar, but you can do like Carter PSG and have it flush all the way underneeth, the step on top is not that important it could be 1/4", 1/2" or 3/4" ect..., it all comes down to have the cross shaft as low as possible and have enough room to mount ross shafts ,bellcranks and lever brackets ect..underneeth and that everything rotate freely .

Pat.

Ok thanks Pat for your input! I always look forward to your posts!
Wayne

[richard37066]

Wayne -

Pat's last comment is the most important one. Ya just gotta make the room for the gadgetry! However, there's something else that one might consider and that is to increase the depth of the cabinet by a smidgen. The mechanics can then be dropped down by that same smidgen. Some might argue that there is a "standard" depth but, as Pat has pointed out, different guitars have different mechanisms thus I would dispute that notion. In the following link, Buzz Evans is playing a Mullen which looks suspiciously "fatter" than what one would consider normal. I know, looks can be very deceiving when attempting to determine a dimension from a picture or a video but my eye tells me that Buzz' Mullen is "fatter" than my GFI. For whatever that's worth. Total changer height will be the first determining factor - from the level of the strings down to the return springs. Could be that the Mullen mechanics require a deeper depth to the body.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYCAkNx6nFg

As to having the back area of the top planed down to 5/8" - why not? Beefy side plates into which the cross-shaft bearings are mounted provide most of the necessary strength in bending. You've gained 1/8" but have not sacrificed strength. As others have suggested here, you'll probably want to mount those side plates to the end plates anyway. As a further thought, you could even increase the length of the changer fingers by 1/8" or 3/16" and drop the holes down appropriately. Mechanically, you've gained a little mechanical advantage, but the throws are only increased by a minute amount. Not noticeable.

Some might cringe at this suggestion, but is there any good reason why the cross-shafts HAVE to go all the way across the body in an SD10, e.g., a "side plate" mounted vertically in the middle of the body? If you stopped them short of the step then your concern goes out of the window and you can make the step any dimension that you prefer. I'm probably going to end up with an SD12 and I can tell you that I have a stack of drawings that have red-pencil notations of why a particular idea wouldn't work. I've chosen the red-pencil route rather than wearing out a giant eraser since I will keep them for reference in order to keep my head on straight. Give a little here and take a little there. Sometimes frustrating - but necessary.

Forge ahead, my friend. You'll make it!

Richard

[louckswayne]

Richard
I dont really know why i made a 3/8" drop because most other builders
advice was to go with 1/4"! However that is what i have so ill just
continue on and find ways to work things out. That Mullens on u-tube
does look real thick! My changer is 3 raise/2 lower so the ht. of my
end plates is fine. As you have mentioned some psgs. have a rail at
guitar center for the cross rods. To me that would add a bit of strength
in the guitar center area and help to keep cabinet drop to a minimum!
What im talking about hear is 1/8" so im sure there are ways to make
it work out ok. Thanks very much for your insite with this!
Sincerely
Wayne

[Dave-M]

I know I am a beginner at building steels so may be sticking my neck out to be chopped, but is there a reason the bottom step cannot be filled in with another piece of wood to level out the underneath? Then the double mechanisms can all be on the same baseline.

[louckswayne]

Dave
I am also a new builder, but you need all the depth you can get for cross rods, so
the pull rods can be as close as possible horizontily to the top hole in the
changer fingers! By putting in more wood to make all the same level you would
not be able to acheive this!
Wayne

[Pat Comeau]

I know I am a beginner at building steels so may be sticking my neck out to be chopped, but is there a reason the bottom step cannot be filled in with another piece of wood to level out the underneath? Then the double mechanisms can all be on the same baseline.

Hi Dave,

that's a good question ,

i guess it all comes down to how low you can mount the changer to have it ligned up with the bellcranks as straight as possible ect... and don't forget the endplates might have to be fit to the rest.

if you make a 3 raise and 2 lower changer that measures around 5" long or so, by having the string height 1" 1/2 from the top plate that leaves you with 3" 1/2 endplates heights which is the normal for alot of builders, i've used 3" endplates with a 2 raise 2 lower changer and a 1/4" step and all my pull rods are almost 100% aligne straight to the changer holes, i don't think it makes a big difference if you don't have the pull rods 100% straight, one problem i see with level out the underneath on the changer side is the that you'll have a thicker top plate than 3/4" and that would affect the tone and if you'd try to level out the back side then you'll have a top plate that is only 1/2" thick if you have a 1/4" step and it doesn't leave you too much thickness for the screws to hold everything tight in my opinion , but again Carter steels have a flush underneath and it would be nice to know how they worked it out cause i've never had the chance to have a real look at them:) .

Pat

[richard37066]

Dave -

I, too, can be called a beginner. When I first started to design my yet-to-be-built PSG, I sorta lucked out when intuition told me that my changer had to be designed first and that all else would have to follow. Since my changer is of the "knife-edge" variety and patterned from the Fender PS210 PSG, it sits lower in the instrument than most others with the strings rising some 7° toward a roller bridge. After temporarily fixing the location of the roller bridge I then plotted the string height and neck thickness. This gave me the location of the top of the top plate. Working down from there to the lower return springs gave me a rough approximation of the depth of the body. When the thickness of the top is then subtracted, I new how much volume I had in the body cavity in which to shoe-horn the mechanicals. Turns out that I had plenty of room to work with. However, If I filled in the area under the neck with a piece of lumber so as to make the entire surface flat, it tended to cramp things up just a bit. In spite of my penchant for things precision, I still prefer plenty of "wiggle-room" so I went back to the changer design, lengthened the fingers by 1/4", dropped the holes accordingly and even added another raise finger hole. In so doing I was able to place the crosshafts and bellcranks such that the the pullrods ended up being darned near horizontal instead of pointing toward the sky or into the dirt. Just noticed Wayne's comment concerning this. He's spot on! The theory is great but, as Pat pointed out, few pullrods will end up being perfectly horizontal anyway. It's a compromise.

The long and short of it is that one has to juggle the position of things in order to arrive at an optimum configuration for the mechanicals. If that means changing the design of the changer or the depth of the body or the height of the strings or whatever in order to achieve a truly workable design then so be it. As it turns out, I am able to run my crossrods the full width of the cabinet. This is not a concession to "traditional" or "accepted" design since I mount my knee levers to crossrods - with their attendant bellcranks - in order to directly effect a change. Further, I have designed a simple linkage which will reverse the action of, for example, the LKR - once again, mounted on the crossrod/bellcrank assembly. In so doing, I need a fixed pivot point for part of the linkages. This is to be found on the rear side plate. I could have inserted a stiff "spine" in the center of the guitar to which the crossrods would be fixed but decided against it in favor of the "openness" of the full-width configuration.

My cabinet will be slightly taller than most but, as Pat pointed out earlier, it is dictated by the dimensions of the mechanicals. I've endured some heartaches and frustration during the designing process but the end result is something which will work in good fashion.

Although you call yourself a beginner, I suspect that, when you stick your nose into this whole thing, that you'll catch up to me in one helluva big hurry!

As I'm fond of saying ---------Ain't it fun?

Richard

[Georg]

I obviously can't contribute much to how to make space for crossrods under a traditional stepped top-plate, since I never have and never will build a PSG that way.

If there is a problem with lack of space under the pad area, I would simply remove wood only where the problems appear. Such problems are not lessened by filling in under the neck where all bellcranks are mounted and lowering the crossrods, as that will just make the top-plate unnecessary chunky.

If there isn't enough space under the pad area, why not route openings in it so levers get space and can be fastened/adjusted from the top? A pad will cover such openings and dampen tone-contributions in that area anyway, so, seriously, taking out a pound of wood above both knees will not hurt.


I will mention that my (original state) Dekley D10 has a flat, very thin, top-plate with stepped necks, and plenty of space for crossrods and mechanics underneath. Neither the raised E9 nor the lower C6 neck lack anything in tone or stability, and a one-piece, even, top-plate does IMO have tonal and mechanical advantages no matter what it and the frame is made of.