Ernie http://www.hereintown.net/~shobud75/stock.htm

Timing involves the whole sequence of:
Pedal rod pulling on it's cross shaft crank to cause cross shaft rotation.
Cross Shaft rotating the pull rod bell cranks.
Pull rod Bell Cranks pulling on Pull Rods
Pull Rod nuts (at the other end) contacting & engaging fingers and pulling the fingers back.

You've probably got a pull rod nut out of it's opitimal position at the end of the pull rod to contact the finger on either 5 or 10. Maybe the two are contacting their fingers out of sync. (see if one of the nuts is sloppy and away from the finger when all pedals are off) Could be as easy as syncronizing the nuts, or maybe changing the bell crank hole for pull rod on string 5 or 10.

(Took me a while to figure this out with my Dekley several years ago).

But then again, I can't play like most of you anyway...

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And thanks, Ray -- I ran home at lunch, backed off the nylon nuts, reset them to more equal position on the finger, and that helped a lot.

I went the other way. My Bud had 5 position bellcranks and, against my better judgment, I let Coop put the traditional Sho-Bud 2 hole pullers on my guitar when he rebuilt it. My 12 string tuning includes three B's to C# and three G#'s to A and he timed them out pretty close -- certainly close enough for me. I didn't think it was possible, but it feels just fine.

I agreee that the 14 hole pullers are overkill but that is a beautiful guitar Leon has built and I sure admire his work. If you're really picky about getting the timing perfect, it's one solution.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

Leon

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Lee, from South Texas
Down On The Rio Grande

Mullen U-12, Evans FET-500, Fender Steel King

Basic principle of matching the pulls is to make sure they start at the same time, and then adjusting the relative amount of pull "displacement" (via the crank hole position) so they both hit pitch when the pedal bottoms.

I think the displacement on the wound strings are related to the gauge of the core wire vs. the gauge of the plain (non-wound) string you are comparing to.
I think the relative

[This message was edited by Tom Gorr on 10 December 2005 at 10:19 PM.]

quote:

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Just where do you draw the line between perfection and overkill?

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I don't. I try not to obsess about anything. All I'm trying to do is help those who may be new at this learn where to concentrate their efforts to get the best return. I'd never tell Buddy or Lloyd what to use, they know what works for them. On the other hand, you don't see either one of them posting here on the Forum telling everyone else what they should or should not use! I'll never be a Buddy or a Lloyd, but like them, I've been doing this long enough to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Look at it this way, we've got players here constantly saying "tube amps are the only way to get a good sound". And yet probably 90% of the professionals out there use solid-state amps. We've got players here constantly saying "nothing sounds as good as a push-pull". And yet probably 90% of the professional players out there are using something else. We've got players here saying such-and-such is the best pickup, pedal, or amp, etc.. And yet probably 90% of the players out there don't use these. Now, we've got players here saying you need 14-hole bell cranks so you can get the timing perfect. If I'm not mistaken, the majority of guitars in use don't have 14-hole bell cranks, and most of the players that don't have them seem to be doing just fine.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

I don't have a problem with anyone wanting or using anything. It's when they start telling others that need such-and-such to sound good that I usually step in and say..."Wait a minute, 90% of the players out there seem to do just fine without that "thing" you're talking about."

Donny and I are on the same page here. A guitar that pulls and returns accurately with good feel is all I NEED. Part of that is avoiding a 'hitch' in the pull where one string has begun pulling and another kicks in. I hate that too and will adjust it myself until it's acceptable. I still feel that 14 positions on a bellcrank is overkill but that's just my opinion. I can tell in 5 seconds after playing a guitar whether it is set up properly and all I know is that many of those that feel great to me DON'T have 14 position bellcranks. To me, that means they aren't necessary -- FOR ME.

Please don't take this the wrong way -- I know you are a master craftsman and respect your work greatly. Merry Christmas.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 11 December 2005 at 01:59 PM.]