The British Steelies Society

Welcome to the Carter U12 Flush. I’d decided on my next string change to flush all the mechanisms clean of years of accumulated oil & dirt using Naphtha in the form of lighter fluid. The guitar is approx. 20 years old and although still in good nick, could probably do with a good service.
I used Greg Cutshaws guide to lubricating with Teflon and took his advice on leaving the old strings on the guitar to allow easy movement of the mechanics, this proved to be very useful for both cleaning & lubrication purposes. It was also a good guide on where to clean, obviously it varies from guitar to guitar but the principles are the same.

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Lubricate/Lubricate.html

Below is the equipment used to carry out the flush.


I would recommend having a box of rubber gloves handy. I would also recommend having a couple of air dusters, these can be bought from Amazon, I usually buy batch of 5-6 as they are cheaper to buy, they’re always handy for other purposes.

The Teflon spray can be bought here,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006UCJ4Z4/r ... 1N0FTINM84

First of all I prepared the guitar around the changer using a couple of nappies to catch all the fluid as it passed through.

Next I flushed out the changer, I used a full can of lighter fuel for this and probably flushed the changer about 4-5 times. I could see the amount of residue thinning down as I did this, I also took off the covering over the tuning pegs and sprayed through the back using a hypodermic syringe filled with lighter fluid. I found using the syringe useful when doing more specific cleaning such as the cross shaft bushes.
I used the syringe to squirt fluid through the springs, which worked well.



Here’s a few pictures of the residue from the flush.

And this is the changer following the flush.

Next I flushed out the rest of the mechanics. I used a syringe to flush and a cloth to catch the residue, I worked the cloth up through the underside flushing the parts as I went. I filled up a plastic top with the lighter fluid and sucked it up into the syringe.





I also cleaned the rods where there was some physical contact between them near the changer, to allow me to put Teflon on them later. I also cleaned all points where the rods were attached to the pull bars, i.e. around the pull pins.

Here’s a few pictures after the clean.

OK Time to do the pedal rack. Again I used a syringe filled with lighter fuel to clean this out. As you can see from the photo, it was needing it!

Following this I did the lube on the whole guitar excluding the rollers as the strings were still on. I started with the changer and worked my way through the rest of the guitar. I used the syringe for the more exact locations but found that spraying from the can worked for a lot of situations such as the bushes and rods. Although I confess to giving the changer a mild spray from the can over the fingers underneath the changer as well as applying at specific points.
I found that it helped to let the Teflon fluid bubble off a bit before pulling into the syringe, the fluid tended to exit without pushing the syringe I think due to the evaporation effect within the syringe, but works fine if you’re careful.

Here’s a few pictures,



I more or less followed Gregs guide, but it becomes fairly obvious which parts need lubed. Here’s a few pictures following the lube. As mentioned previously I also lubed the rods, especially where they contacted near the changer and also in at the rod connections into the pull bars. I mainly just used the spray can to do this, along with the bushes, using a cloth underneath to catch any spill.

Fantastic! Great pictures and descriptions and some good tips in there, too. I'm going to wait for a fine (and warm-ish) day and get outside to do this. Time to go shopping at Amazon!!!
Thanks Geoff.

Next I removed the strings and cleaned and lubed the rollers. I had done this previously when I fitted the gauged rollers to try out the Teflon and found that the rollers were still pretty clean and free. I cleaned and lubed them anyway as seen below. You can see the gauged rollers quite clearly here, I’ve found them to be a big help, especially on the 12 string. Before I had them I had to put a lot more pressure on the strings due to the lower strings.



So just a case now of cleaning up the guitar and polishing the chrome, put on a new set of Live Stainless Steel strings and voila,



I’ve recorded a wee video to demo the “new” guitar which I’ve posted in the Pedal Steel section of the forum,

http://www.thebritishsteeliessociety.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6516

Needless to say I cannot take any responsibility for any damage done to anyone else’s guitar following this process. All I can say is it has worked for me and the guitar feels much better to play, and although it may be my imagination, it also sounds better, more even tone over the whole piece.

I hope this helps others, I'm not particularly mechanically minded, so if I can do it

So now I just need to learn how to play the ******* thing

Nick Bidmade wrote:Fantastic! Great pictures and descriptions and some good tips in there, too. I'm going to wait for a fine (and warm-ish) day and get outside to do this. Time to go shopping at Amazon!!!
Thanks Geoff.

No problem Nick, glad to share

Good idea to wait for the warmer weather, it's pretty messy. I would have waited but my strings were dead.

Hope it goes well for you when you get around to it