The British Steelies Society

Hi,

Today I acquired this Fessenden Universal 12. It seems to be a very nice guitar, and sounds great, but it's set up in "Day" and the levers are also set up the opposite way to what I'm used to.

How easy/difficult is it to change to "Emmons"? The pull rods all just hook into the bell cranks, which I imagine is convenient. And pedals 4-7 can stay as they are for now.

Zak

Thanks John. I think I'll have a go at changing the pedals tomorrow anyway, and see how it goes. They seem easier than the levers.

Make a note of the holes in the bell cranks and the changer fingers that each pull goes through and to before you take them out. Then slide the cranks along the A pedal (no. 3 in 'Day') cross rod until pedal A cranks are where C's are. Then do the opposite with the cranks on C. Then all you need to do is pop the appropriate length pull rods in, using the holes you noted back in step 1.

Thanks Tony. I'm making progress using the method you've written. Do you know what hex key size is needed for bell cranks? I've searched online and it seems like the answer may be 7/64s (Which I don't have), but fortunately, there are extra cranks already in place under the guitar, so I only have to actually move one (I hope...)

I'm guessing that the knee levers are set so the E's are on the right knee & you are used to having them on your left knee? This was the case with the 2 Uni's I've owned. As you probably know the E lower puts the guitar into B6 mode and having this change on RKR makes it easier to get your left foot over to P4 to P7. If you have this change on LKR it will make it awkward to use your left foot on the B6 pedals.

Just something to consider.

Zac, I'm not familiar with Fessy sizes but American guitars use imperial sizes. Get a set of imperial hex keys and you'll cover all bases. Maybe a fiver ir so.

Thanks guys. I picked up some hex keys today and the work is all done. Changed the ABC pedals round, and also swapped the E levers around. Fortunately for me, the E levers were on the left, so all I had to do was swap the rods.

Geoff, I can certainly see why it would be better to have the E lowers on the RKR, but since I learnt on regular Emmons guitars, I think it would have been too much of a different feel for me to get used to. (It was abit awkward to play the B6 pedals at first, with the LKR held down, but I think this may have been down to a couple of odd rod positions set by a previous user, which made some of the pedals feel unbalanced. I spent quite a lot of time changing the rod positions in the bellcranks thoughout the guitar to match my Mullen, and now all pedals and levers move smoothly and with little effort).

Hi Zak, totally get where you're coming from. My first Pro steel was a Uni, so I've always had the E's on the right leg, I know it would take a long time to adjust to having them on the left. When I did the Uni to Ext E9 conversion I changed some of the pedal & lever changes & of course added the D on string 9, this all took a bit to get used to but I'm getting used to it now, reprogramming the muscle memory takes time!

However, I reckon it would have been a lot longer to get used to had I swapped the E's to the left knee, especially the E raise as it is by far the most used lever for me. Great that you have adapted to having the E's on the left and it is not giving you any probs with the B6 pedals.

Nice looking steel, bet it sounds good, looking forward to seeing & hearing you play it

Thanks Geoff! I was just having a read of your Extended E9 thread. Looks like a lot of work haha... I actually went to buy the Fess with the intention of converting it to Ext E9, as I'd also seen that Rick Schmidt video explaining his copedent, but when I sat down at the guitar and tried it, the uni pedals just made sense to me, so I think I'll probably keep it as is, although I do miss the having the D on the 9th string.