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Author
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Topic: Getting rid of cabinet drop
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Ricky Davis
Moderator From: Spring, Texas USA
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posted 29 June 2002 01:02 AM
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Hey Larry I'm not sure I understand what your saying?? If you tune the B's to C# how come what happens????
Here is more info....
When you push a pedal that is activating the finger to pull(raise)...then the finger is pulling down on the axle; therefore it lets tension off the strings around it...ie.4th string;6th string....when "A" pedal is pushed.....now both A and B pushed will let even more tension off the 4th string(it not being activated with anything)and there you have strings going "flat".
When you lower a string.....you are letting tension off that particular string/finger and therefore letting tension off the axle...and so strings around that function will go sharp.
You can reduce some of these happenings with your already bad axle'd steel.
Use an .018 for your "B" string...and use a .022 wound for your "G#" 6th string. If you just have to have that G# lower a whole tone.....Move that function to lower your 7th string a whole tone(same movement but up two frets with "b" pedal down); then put a 6th string lower a 1/2 tone on another knee lever....and you can still get your pedals down movement to the b7th chord.
Make sure all your pedals and knee levers stop on a firm stop(a screw mounted on bracket into the wood or metal piece)and the knee or pedal has to hit that stop at the time of proper pitch...so there is no extra movement when engaged harder than a normal movement.....and therefore it won't pull extra hard on the axle eventhough the tone has been reached(oh and mashing harder is not bending/bowing the cabinet..ah...ha...it's just pulling or letting off more tension on the axle...duh).
Also if you can replace the axle with a titainium bar stock....this would be the hardest metal and if you got it chromed this would be the ultimate....(hey Jim...chrome that carbide pal).
Also put springs on the knee levers that are raising...so that the knee lever goes and comes back with better action than just depending on the string to bring it back. And make sure the pedals that are raising strings....have good tight springs on them..."well tight enough that don't bother your action".....but the stops on all these must be solid.
Ok there is more....but that's all for now.....oh and I know two builders that are building pedal steels that don't have any of these current problems.......but that's my secret......ah.....ha....but I do hope this helps and clears some things up.....oh and I do have a Double Masters Degree in Engineering....for those that didn't know   .
Ricky |
Marco Schouten
Member From: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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posted 29 June 2002 01:35 AM
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On my Sho-Bud I get the 6th string on E9 drops more when I press the 5th pedal (C6).
So in case of this guitar I think the body is flexing. An easy way to test this is to press your thumb in front of the neck, near the 12th fret and put some pressure on it. Look at the meter, it tells a lot. This way you can test a single neck as well.
I conclude that ther are 2 problems that alone or combined cause the problem: the cabinet flexing and the changer axle flexing.------------------
Steelin' Greetings
Marco Schouten
Sho-Bud Pro III Custom |
Jim Smith
Member From: Plano, TX, USA
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posted 29 June 2002 05:14 AM
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Ricky, Larry's test is to check the 6th string drop by raising the B's-C# with the A pedal, then compare that to the drop caused by raising the B's-C# with the tuning keys instead. |
Jim Smith
Member From: Plano, TX, USA
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posted 29 June 2002 05:25 AM
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I'm heading to Gene Field's shop today and hope to compare detuning between one of his GFI's and my Dekley. I'll let you know my findings.------------------
Jim Smith jimsmith94@attbi.com
-=Dekley D-12 10&12=-
-=Fessenden Ext. E9/U-13 8&8=-
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Larry Bell
Member From: Englewood, Florida
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posted 29 June 2002 07:39 AM
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Ricky,
The F# to G# does not replace G# to F# for me. I have both and use them differently. For example, I like to have three strings, starting with 8, that are 1/2 tone apart for chromatic stuff, like you'd play on on the first four strings of E9. So I lower the 7th to F and lower the 6th to F# and have E, F, and F# together. I don't know any other way to do this. I've been using the G# to F# pull for 27 years and it's difficult for me to give it up. Furthermore, I have to raise G# to A#, which can be done on a pedal, but it's pushing a wound .022 pretty hard to raise and lower a whole step -- a lot of pedal travel. A plain one does it like a champ -- but the larger string core (022 vs 012 or something on the 22W) makes it much more susceptible to temp changes and cabinet/axle/string tension detuning. I don't feel that a wound sixth is an option for me. It would be an easy solution.------------------
Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro |
Jim Smith
Member From: Plano, TX, USA
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posted 29 June 2002 12:23 PM
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I'm back from Gene Fields shop, but we didn't get a chance to compare our guitars side by side. He's a busy man and still says that my guitar had drop back in '85 that was comparable to MCI's. He says his guitars have drop too, despite people posting that GFI's don't. He measures about 4 cents drop when he tests. He showed me his changer and roller nut housings that are aluminum extrusions with the shaft holes extruded in the raw stock. He mills slots for the changer fingers and nut rollers, reams the holes, and uses 3/8" drill rod for his changer shaft and 1/8" (I think) shaft for the rollers. He sees no deflection in either, and says support between the fingers, when done right, does work. |
Ricky Davis
Moderator From: Spring, Texas USA
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posted 29 June 2002 01:40 PM
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Larry I have to agree that the F# to G# does not replace the G# to F#. That's why in my previous post I said F# "lower" a whole tone.....so that's F# to E on the 7th string. Then if you have a G#(6th)lower a half tone on another lever...you would still have your half tone chromatic moves your used to.....but have to think about it differently........but hey; I can dig....something you've been doing for that long(can't teach an old dog new tricks thing--been there done that)....that's why I change a couple of my knee levers around and function differently about every 2 weeks on my Sho~bud....so I can continually think about what's going on under there and what they are doing; instead of by memorization and/or automatic movements.....but that's just me and what I need to do to progress....and it is "NOT" neccessary.
Also I understand now what you(Larry) was saying about the "A" pedal raise to C# and comparing to raise to C# via tuning peg(thanks Jim).
The string is still sitting on the finger that is held by the axle......so indeed if you put any pressure on the axle ie. pedal engaugement or string enguagement....that will cause the tension on the axle and cause ajoining strings to go flat depending on how much. The ideas I gave above are to reduce that tension or un-tension.....and will not completely remove the problem.
However brings me to Marco.
Yes indeed if you pull or push on the guitar.....there will be movement. But we don't pull and push on the guitar when we play. We activate mechanical movements to move strings. If the mechanical parts are set up to "Not" pull on the guitar....then you would not have the problem you described. As I explained above about the stops; if they are not set up properly.....then yes you will be pulling on the guitar.....but if a pull is stopped before it pulls down on the body where the leverage is......this will reduce or eliminate that....depending on the engineering of how it was set up in the first place.
Jim......Awesome relays about Gene's designs thank you. When I lived in Mansfield....I went over to Gene's house a few times to chat(I was always trying to get his parts to help my Emmons out at the time; which he does NOT like to do..ha)......He is another Genious builder and engineer.....and everything he has built and mechanically designed have been flawless.
At this point I'm sure everyones asking("hey ricky why don't you build a pedal steel"......YEAH SURE THEY ARE.....ah....ha).....but I'm more interested in Golf Club and Golf Course design.......So There!!!!
I'm sorry if I come off like talking down to folks......but if you don't have it by now.....you won't any more questions you can e-mail me.....as I can't post on this subject anymore......it's taking too much Golf time now......ah.....ha
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Ricky Davis 
My Homepage
Rebel™ and Ricky's Audio Clips
www.mightyfinemusic.com
Email Ricky: sshawaiian@aol.com |
Gene Fields
Member From: Arlington, Texas, USA
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posted 03 July 2002 08:13 AM
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It's a little late to join in on the detuning issue, but better late than never. In my opinion, there is more than one factor involved, body drop being one of them. I used to believe in total rigidity with heavy thick bodies (Fender). This is fine for a western swing sound but today's Nashville sound requires resonance in the body. Without resonance the tone changes. Based on this, I don't believe a perfect body for no detuning would be a perfect body for tone. I do believe we should get as close as we can without sacrificing tone.
During my time at Fender R&D, we spent a large portion of our time troubleshooting for the production line as well as the service center. A Fender 2000 was sent from our service center with a detuning problem. This was my first encounter with this problem. After close inspection I found a lot of extra screws through the frame and into the body. The original assembly had 4 screws per body, two at each end. The cable type bell cranks were attached to the frame, not the body. This allowed all of the pedal and foot pressure to be applied to the frame without affecting the body. After removing the extra screws, the problem went away. As Leo Fender always overbuilt for strength, I believe he encountered the problem and solved it by using only four screws.
A truss rod system was tried by Red Rhodes in '86 with unsatisfactory results. The truss rod will counterbalance the strings but when a pedal is pressed, the system is unbalanced again. The truss rod helped a little but not enough to make it worthwhile.
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Jim Smith
Member From: Plano, TX, USA
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posted 03 July 2002 08:56 AM
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quote:
today's Nashville sound requires resonance in the body. Without resonance the tone changes. Based on this, I don't believe a perfect body for no detuning would be a perfect body for tone. I do believe we should get as close as we can without sacrificing tone.
Well said! There you have it, the gospel according to Gene.  (Similar comments have also been made by Paul Franklin Sr. and Jerry Fessenden. )------------------
Jim Smith jimsmith94@attbi.com
-=Dekley D-12 10&12=-
-=Fessenden Ext. E9/U-13 8&8=-
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Dan Dowd
Member From: Paducah,KY
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posted 03 July 2002 06:29 PM
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I have been following this topic with great interest as it has stumped me. I have built a few guitars during my many years years on the planet and although I don't subscribe to the cabinet drop therory as Larry Bell described his results tunning the B to C# and operating the cross shafts with a wrench which both methods resulted in the 6th string drop.
I have this week performed another test which was done while changing strings. First let me say I play a 12 string. I have 2 12 string steels. One has a 24" scale and is on a single frame. The other has a 24 1/4" and is on a double frame. Both guitars have the same drop aprox 9-10 cents,on the 6th string.
I removed the 1st string and the 6th string raised +10 cents. I tuned it back down to G# with the needle centered. Pressed the A pedal and the 6th dropped 10 cents. I then removed the 2nd string and the 6th raised +15 cents. Tunned it back down to center the needle and pressed the A pedal and The 6th bropped 2 cents. I removed the 3rd string and the 6th raised +18 cents. Following the proceedure again centering the needle, pressed the A pedal with a drop of 2 cents. Same thing again with the 4th string removed and there was no drop on the 6th string with the A pedal. This test leads me to think the problem is with the changer axel or the tuner. The tuners on both guitars are keyless. However I am thinking more in the area where the body has a large hole cut in it to allow the changer mechanism go thru and reducing the strength on the cabinet in this area. That may also lead to a double neck detuning when the c neck pedals are activated. Well I wanted to add my 2 cents worth to the topic and perhaps some smart person will someday fing the cause. I don't think the Emmons crowbar solves the problem, it covers it up. |
Ricky Davis
Moderator From: Spring, Texas USA
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posted 03 July 2002 11:42 PM
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Just got my new Fulawka(pictures on mightyfinemusic.com very soon).....after I set this "Blue Darlin" up; that was the first think I checked.
A&B pedals down the 4th string E note dropped 1 cent.
A pedal down the 6th string dropped 0 cent.
As a matter of fact.....there is 0 drop on everything else I tried.
So there you go.....a modern pedal steel made out of all Birdseye Maple......with no cabinet;axle;cross-shaft;tuning keys;roller......DROP....at all; and no counter force either.....just pure genious design.
Oh and Ed said the 1 cent drop(which nobody can hear even on a good day)will go away after the guitar has been played and tweeked on; in a short time......
This Guitar sounds(oooh and I hate saying this)similar but better than my ShoBud Pro II.
I am one happy camper......and as soon as I get used to the pedals and knee levers(they are narrower than me bud..ha....)I will play a gig or two with her....but you will see it live at the Grand Ole Opry...on the 3rd of Aug. and you can hear her on the 2nd and 3rd of Aug..on the Grand Ole Opry radio.
Have fun.
Ricky
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