snog, marry, avoid?

[jonnyadkin]

What do you make of this? Here's what I know...made by Hall Manufacturing, Dorset; all the fittings are imperial, so that dates it at around 1970. The body is unusual, being 16ga steel; there are some nice engineering touches, Schaller machine heads...other than that, it's an enigma. I bought it 2 years ago as a rusted basket case (see photo), and refurbished it. I asked Gerry Hogan about it; he had met the designer/engineer way back, but suggested I scrap it and buy a 'proper steel'.
I've set it up the way I found it, but the pedal linkages are wrong - pedal 1 does what pedal 2 should, and vice versa. The right hand knee lever has a spring return, but the rest of it has me baffled. I'd like an Emmons set-up, but apart from getting the pedals sorted, I'm lost. Does anyone have any ideas? Is the world my oyster, or my lobster?
Try as I might, I can't get inside the designer's head, particularly the knee lever set up. I can't see how lowering strings can be achieved with what you see in the photos. Any info/input will be greatly appreciated.
Maybe Gerry Hogan was right!
with kind regards
Jonny Adkin

[email protected]

[jonnyadkin]

My Apologies, forgot these...

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

I would say mostley Gerry was right about it but!, you have put so much work into it and made it look so clean and pretty it would be a crime to pee on your fireworks..... we all know Richard Burton could make it work but is it honestly worth the time and effort??? You have done the best thing possible coming on here to ask, lots of helpful people and you will get your answer. My best advice put on Ebay it will make a fortune! put the cash towards a proper instrument.....

[simon_f3]

Hi Jonny,
Firstly, it looks like you have done a fantastic job of restoring this guitar!
It looks not entirely dissimilar to my Denley D8 in terms of the [quite simple] pedal and knee lever operation. I had to do a bit of imaginative metalwork on mine to get it to play as an Emmons setup (it has 6 pedals and 1 knee lever), and so far I have the E9 neck set up with pedals 1-3 (CBA from left to right), and the knee lever dropping the Es by a semitone. I haven't thought about pedals 4-6 yet!
At first glance at your photos it looks like the changer on string 8 just needs to have some preload from the knee lever rod, matched against string tension, so that dropping the preload on the knee lever (i.e. by activating it) will allow the changer to rotate under string tension until it hits the stop. It looks like the RKL knee lever should raise the 4th string, whereas RKR should lower it. But it's a bit hard to see - is there any chance you could make a short video showing what happens at the changer end when the various pedals and knee levers are operated please? Or describe what SHOULD be happening on each string when pedals/knee levers are operated? Most importantly, do any strings need to be pulled by the pedal and also pushed by a knee lever?
Sorry for all the questions - I can't play that well but I'm fascinated by the mechanics behind PSGs so keen to throw my oar in! All those years at university must be worth something
Cheers,
Sid

[Willie Gamble]

Scaredycat, but seriously Sid, I look upon listing your gear as a menu for opportunistic thieves.

Asleep at the steel

[jonnyadkin]

Morning, chaps - many thanks for your interest and compliments; John - I'm still at the stage of wondering whether I've gilded the lily, or just polished a turd! However, Ebay remains my 'get out of jail free' card, but I'm still plagued by the thought that I may get a tune out of the thing. I still haven't understood what the maker had in mind; was he a steelie believing he'd found the perfect set-up? Or just a well-meaning but misguided engineer who'd seen a steel and thought 'I can do better than that...'
So, I decided to start from scratch, removing all the rods, springs and assorted gizzards; starting with the pedals, I'll set those up a la Emmons - A pedal raising strings 5 & 10 by a tone, B pedal raising strings 3 & 6 by a semitone. Then, pick a lever - any lever - and get that to lower strings 4 & 8 (the E's) by a semitone.
Now we're getting somewhere.
There is provision for lowering and raising the same string, but I'm not there yet; I'm hoping by the time all the above is working as planned, the rest might fall into place...the Eureka moment.
Simon - I'm very much in the same boat as you; I'm fascinated by the engineering side of things, but I've a way to go on the playing side. Enthusiastic would be the word...
I had a brief but torrid flirtation with a Maverick in the 80's, but the time wasn't right; neither was I. Being a guitarist, I built a lot of B benders on telecasters and les pauls - and played them. ( In the belief that if you don't blow your own trumpet, nobody else will blow it for you, they were 'rather good.' ) I've still got two. In my 'getting on a bit' years, I bought a dobro which I enjoy playing, so you can see I've been skirting around the steel thing, and it's time to dip my toe in the water.
Regrettably, having disembowelled the steel, I can't make a video, but by the end of the week I should have some progress worth sharing.
Any questions? (yes, millions...)
with kind regards,
Jonny

[simon_f3]

Hi Jonny,
By some bizarre coincidence I also used to own a Maverick (early 2000s) but never really got on that well with it, so I went back to non-pedal steel. However, I've been playing a B-bender Telecaster for the last 5 years or so and I love it - I use the bender quite sparingly but it does add a bit more colour to what can be played. Plus every now and them you can see people thinking, "How is he doing that?!!!"
Anyway, re. the raise and lower on the same string, I set up my Denley's E9 neck as per the standard, but missing the bottom 2 strings (B and D). But as there were enough pedals, I played around with a few of the rods so that I have the Emmons C B A (from left to right), and then RKL drops the E's by a semitone.
The interesting part was on string 4, where the pedal rod connects to the changer at an upper position (closer to the centre of rotation), and the knee lever rod connects to the same changer at the lower position. The changers all have two pins, presumably for whole tone or half tone movements, based on a given length of rod travel... I could really do with some adjustment on the crank of the C pedal, as I've had to leave a bit of slack and there is only just enough room to get 2 semitones of raise, and one semitone of lower. But it does the job for now... Ebay beckons for the Denley though, as soon as I've saved a bit more cash for a more modern beast

[jonnyadkin]

'morning, Simon - I endorse your first paragraph entirely; that's the key to b benders...use them sparingly, I too enjoy the 'how's he doing that?' Tee-hee!
My progress is, er, slow; the bell cranks for the pedals have adjusters for how much raise you want, but, there's no backstop, apart from the changer levers. So, I've figured out how to do it, but my obsession with 'gotta look right' means that the drilling & tapping took 30 minutes, but the cosmetic issue of priming, base coat and lacquer spraying took more like 5 days. Patience is not only a virtue, but compulsory...
Your issues and comments are very useful, and have opened several new windows worth exploring which I'd overlooked; my changers have two holes, as have the bell cranks. Interesting.
Am I downhearted? Nah, not a bit; I love it. It all started with the b bender - the brief was to make one that played and stayed in tune, didn't break strings, and looked the business. I think I did that; I once had a gig in Dubai, a real slog; 4 hours a night, 6 nights a week, 3 months. In all, we stayed out there for a year, and never broke a string or had tuning issues. I'm not bragging - it just shows that it can be done, and if it can be done with one string, then I should be able to do it with the steel.
Well, that's the theory! I'm encouraged by Leonardo da Vinci; he thought up a lot more wackier devices than this. I mean, look at that helicopter thingy of his!
Although I concede that there's no record of a test-flight...

Always a pleasure to hear from you.
with kind regards,
Jonny

[simon_f3]

Hi again Jonny, after some deliberation and a rather large helping of tenacity (it's in my DNA, I've learned to just accept it...) I think I now understand the design intent of your steel guitar.
It looks like the pedals will work exactly as A and B normally would, ie raising both G#s to As, and both Bs to C#s. That should be simple enough with the setup as per the photos. The knee kevers are much more exciting though! I think RKR should drop the Es to D#s, but RKL looks like it should raise the higher E to F. You could probably get that to work on both E strings if you could be bothered - either way this would give you the Db major chord with open strings (Bs raised to Dbs with pedal, Es raised to Fs with knee lever). I can't do that on mine. Yet...!
I should point out that I know less than nothing about steel guitars, but I would suggest getting the RKR working to lower the Es first - a bit of preload on the rod should pull the changer away from the stop against string tension, then operating the lever will allow string tension to pull the changer until it hits the stop.
Whereabouts are you based, BTW?
Cheers, Sid

[simon_f3]

And just found this, which explains the pull-release mechanism so much better than I can...

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=254337