Uni to Ext E9 Conversion

[Danny Mitchell]

Good grief, Geoff
I tried following the charts and ended up in Amersham, on the Metropolitan Line.
Looks like I'm rodlexic as well as tablexic.

I'm sure there'll be a happy ending, having seen your handiwork, and I look forward to hearing the finished article. Oh, and if you need any bits of polystyrene stuck on with gaffa, Dan's yer man

[Donny Johnston]

Hi Geoff, rodlexic as well as tablexic. I'm with Danny on this one, I have been following this journey with great interest, when I opened the rodding charts all I could see was stripey wallpaper, that's got to be some sort of lexic has it not. I am in the process of swapping over the knee levers on the Blanton. Right to left and left to right, that's as much of a rodding chart as I can manage. I cant wait to hear some of the soonds you can pull out of that machine when your finished, between yourself and Calum there has to be some sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright brain circling around somewhere. I remain a studious observer. Stay safe. Donny

[Jif]

Yeah, I know what you mean, I was trying to get to Kings Cross but ended up at LKR Central.

Must admit, it was doing my head in when I was putting these together, hopefully it'll make the convertion more straightforward. I've done some buckshee rodding on it already when I revamped my zero pedal, it was originally a Franklin pedal but I couldn't find a real use for it so changed it. It was only 3 rods so was fairly easy to do, the changes I'm doing now are a bit more involved so decided I needed some sort of blue print to follow. More experienced guys like Bob can probably do stuff like this off the top of their head.

Really looking forward to getting started, just ordered some additional rod, so once that comes I'll get into it. I'm leaving the stuff I don't need to change as is, so that it'll keep it a bit simpler.

Good to hear you are both well, maybe once this vaccine is on the go Gartcosh can get going again sometime next year. Anyway this and other stuff has been keeping me from getting bored. I've just revamped my double bass, the tailpiece gut snapped and the sudden release of tension sent the tailpiece flying through the air, the noise it made was something to scare your kids. So I took the opportunity to do some fairly major maintenance on it, it's singing sweet now.

[Jif]

Minor update on this, I'd forgotten that the substitution of a D at string 9, it was a B on the Uni setup, would not work with the B6 change I retained for pedal 6. So I've added an extra change on pedal 6 to lower the D to C# which will work with this change. I tried this out raising my current string 9, B to C# and it works fine, string 5 raises to C# in any case so it's just an octave down on string 9. The change works well either in conjunction with lowering the E's or on it's own, so gives me two options on this pedal.

First thing I'm going to do is a changer flush to clean out all the gunk, so it's time to locate the disposable nappies, (some of you may remember the thread I posted on this, the nappy being an essential tool for this job ).

Once that is done, I'll change the bottom strings to reflect the new set up, I'm going to retain the old strings that are on it until I've done the rodding then put on a new custom set I ordered from Live Steel strings. This means I have to move current strings 9-11 down a notch and put a D string into position 9.

I've just ordered a Bill Lawrence 712 pickup to give me another option, (thanks for the suggestion Ken, I listened to Mickey Adams pup comparison on a Legend and the 710 sounded really sweet), I already have a Tonealigner and a Wallace Truetone. As many will know it is possible to easily swap out pickups on the new MSA's as they slide in and out of the pickup holder/mount. I just ordered the bare pickup from Wilde pickups and will make the MSA mount myself, I've had a look at how they've made these and don't think it'll be hard to replicate. I was originally going to use fibreboard for the mount as they use it but I'm now thinking of making the mount from a piece of maple and routing out the necessary chambers etc. So another job to keep busy with.

So here is what I reckon is going to be the final copedent and rodding chart I will be working from with the additional change/rod on pedal 6, for anyone interested in the detail. (There's bound to be one in addition to Calum)

[Jif]

Well, I started this yesterday, I was going to do a daily update, but I'd rather spend the time getting on with it. So I'll put up a day to day update retrospectively, probably once I get it mostly finished.

Hit a few foibles on strings 1&2 which took a while but got that sorted out, the rest should be a bit more straight forward, fingers crossed

[Ken Byng]

Hi Geoff
I would imagine that a number of us MSA owners would like to see some nice close up pics of your efforts with regard to making bases for inter-changeable pickups. I've got a spare pair of original chrome surround 705 pickups that would make an ideal option. If it's not too big a job, I'd have a go (using fibreboard).

[Jif]

Hi Geoff
I would imagine that a number of us MSA owners would like to see some nice close up pics of your efforts with regard to making bases for inter-changeable pickups. I've got a spare pair of original chrome surround 705 pickups that would make an ideal option. If it's not too big a job, I'd have a go (using fibreboard).

It's next on my list Ken, once I've finished the conversion.

The tricky bit is the spring loaded contact pins, I have found suitable equivalents for the contact pins, still to order the springs but I have seen some that will do the job. Mine will work slightly different to the way MSA have done it but the end result will be the same.

I'll put up some drawings with measurements and photos once I get around to it

[Jif]

Well, it's certainly a learning experience

I got all the rods in position last week, since then I have been trying it out and am continuing to make changes and adjustments. I had suspected that I already had most of the changes that I had assigned to pedal 5, this is the pedal which lowers the G#'s to G to give the minor, i.e. on open, no bar - E minor. I was already mostly doing this on a split with the B pedal and LKR, the exception being the low G# now on string 11. So to simplify things I removed pedal 5 and will put an additional rod on LKR to lower the low G# a tone, in conjunction with the semi-tone raise on the B pedal the resulting note is G, so the result is exactly the same notes as I was getting from P5.

I left the space between P4 and P6 which makes it easier to hit P4 and P6 without getting snarled on P5.

P0 sounds brilliant, combining this with the A pedal and the F raise offers many possibilities. It's really just an expansion of the AF combination. P0 takes string 12 down to C#, tuning the P0 / F lever split so the F has no effect when P0 is depressed maintains C# as the root. P0 in combination with the A pedal gives a C# minor, when you bring in the F lever it gives a C# major on the higher strings maintaining the C# as the root on string 12. P0 on it's own is almost DADGAD a like.

Just a few things to do then it's a case of tuning in the action on the pedals and levers to give the best action. I removed the E to F# raise on string 8 on pedal C, I didn't really see the point of it as F# is already there on string 7, instead I lowered string 12 to D on the C pedal, a suggestion from Calum, this works nice, I haven't explored this change much so far. I also changed the F# to G# raise on string 7 on P4 to a F# to E lower on string 7 on P4. This is the same as I originally did on this change combination when I had it on P0, I thought I'd try it as a raise rather than a lower but I prefer the lower. Might try doing something with the D on this pedal to give the the whole major chord across all 12 strings as I originally had when it was set up Universal.

Once I'm finished I'll give a more detailed account of the work and what it involved

[Danny Mitchell]

That sounds like a great job you're doing there, Geoff.
I'd like to request a wee Xmas tune, once you're up and running, if I may. Given the fact you've removed pedal 5, could I ask for 'All I Want For Christmas, Is My Two Front Teeth'.

[Jif]

Yeah, I think that toon is a wee bit too complicated for me Danny, though I'm still thinking of attempting a version called - All I want for Christmas is not to see rods every time I close my eyes

Honestly, I'm thinking of changing my name by deed pole to Rod Fitter, my new band - Rod Fitter & The Cranks

Still it'll all be worth it once it's finished. I realise that a lot of what I'm posting will be goblegook to many reading it, even to those who are far more experienced than me at this sort of thing, because if you're not actually doing it yourself it's hard to visualise what the results will be. I have to admit it wasn't until I had completed all the rodding and tried it out that I realised how the changes worked in practice and what I would actually use when playing. Which is why I have changed some of the original plan.

I will do a video demo once I'm finished which will probably be in the New Year, which should show how these changes work in practice. I'm putting it all up here so others may get something from my experience. I'm certainly learning a lot about my steel and how it works, it's a bit of a black art getting the feel right but the end result will hopefully justify the amount of work being done.

I'm really missing not being able to play the damn thing though and I'm resisting the urge to rush it.