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Topic: Dekley |
Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 26 Aug 2010 2:28 pm |
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Quoting John Floyd:
http://dekleyforum.com/
http://dekley.com/
I Started These two Sites When I became a Dekley Owner because I was So impressed With the Dekley Construction. They are Great Guitars and Already Pre-Machined and Pre-Drilled For expansion. Jim Smith has been a Godsend as a Technical Advisor. The Dekley Forum is For Support among Dekley Owners and All we ask for membership is that you be a Dekley Owner and Provide Your Real name as a User Name.
We don't have a company to go to for support but we are not orphans, there is strength in numbers.
I came across a Closet Guitar last October absolutely like new and I'm in the process of swapping the E9th and C6th (in my case B6th) necks around and adding more pedals and Knee Levers to 8 & 8. Also Changing to a Modified Day Setup like Curly's.
I worked for Sho-Bud in 1974 for a short time and the Dekley Construction is light years ahead of Sho-Bud.
John,
I do believe they were ahead of ShoBud....in solidity anyway.
I have a D10 Dekley sitting here (not mine)
The owner took most of the C6 parts off and basically left the guitar as a SD10.
I played it before and after the parts removal and I believe that the tone changed for the worse.
I See how solidly they are built, with all aluminum in the frame work. The deck and necks..are they made out of some type of pressed board?
I wa ssurprised to see how the changer was mounted to the deck with what looks to be #10 machine screws about 3" long. First the deck is routed out and left with about a 1/4" thickness where the changer is mounted. The holes are dangerously close to the changer cut-out. These, what I considered to be weaknesses, are surprisingly sound, seeing that he guitar has 2-3 cents cabinet drop.
I always thought that a changer had to be mounted more secure than what I described, in order to help prevent cab. drop. It would stand to reason that once pedals get pulling on the changer, a less than solid mount is going to let that changer move, however slightly.
Maybe I am out in left field here?... because this guitar has minimal cabinet drop like I said.
These factors I wrote about..do they have very little to do with cabinet drop? If so, what are some factors on the Dekley that do?
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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John Floyd
From:
R.I.P.
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Posted 26 Aug 2010 2:57 pm
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Hopefully Jim Smith will see this and respond. He was there for most of the Dekley Era of Construction and has some of the most valuable insight into why and how the Guitars were constructed. He was the plant manager and supervisor from the very start and had tremendous input into the design.
Heres what one Dekley Owner Did to Reduce Cabinet Drop, Notice the 5th leg running From the pedal rack to the body.
This is Sam Gibson a Machinist and Machine Shop Owner who built a Lot of the Dekley Parts
I do know that anyone who changes pickups on a Dekley is wasting their time and money. If you Check the specs on Aftermarket pickups then the Dekley pickups are right in the ball park of all of the most popular add on pickups. |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 27 Aug 2010 11:30 am
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Personally, I never thought that cabinet drop was much of an issue because I tend to move the bar around a lot. I did think that the "open" end, on the changer end, was a problem, so I made an aluminum brace across the bottom back when I was using pedals and knees on this guitar. I have since taken the peds and knees off, filled in the C6 opening and added active/passive electronics. I use this guitar more than any of my other ones.
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Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 27 Aug 2010 12:51 pm
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The only "cabinet drop" I have to be concerned about with my Dekley D-10 is when I drop it on my foot...
Solid like a rock.
_________________
Lawyers are done: Emmons SD-10, 3 Dekleys including a D10, NV400, and lots of effects units to cover my clams... |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 27 Aug 2010 2:13 pm
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Ray, yes, like I said, the cab drop in a Dekley is very minimal.
I guess that some call it a problem no matter how little and when I build, I always have this issue in mind and like to come up with ideas to overcome it.
Kind of a bragging factor when you can say a guitar has close to zero.
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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Mac Knowles
From:
Almonte,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 27 Aug 2010 3:40 pm
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Can I brag just a wee bit....
Here's a couple of pictures of my latest 12 string keyless with the pull/release setup.
First pic is the E(4th string) with A&B pedals up
Second pic is with them down
There sure ain't much drop evident. Each marking is a cent.....I would guess it drops between 0 and .25
cents.
Nothing special about the construction of this guitar
just regular wood & aluminum & bolts/screws
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Lonnie Zsigray
From:
Saint Louis,Mich., USA
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Posted 28 Aug 2010 9:26 am drop
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What I did with my S10 is started tightening every single screw/set-screw on it,changed my ball joints on the pedals and made sure everything is lubed.Not drowned,just a layer of lube to do the job of reducing friction.Made a big difference especially when making chord inversions with the A and F.Love the change to SIT strings rather than Jags.They were always breaking on this guitar.
_________________
If I hear it,I'm gonna try to steel it |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 28 Aug 2010 10:43 am
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Lonnie, keeping all the moving parts lubed is a good idea. All the parts have to work in unison. If one part drags more than the others well, there you have the start of a problem.
On my home built, I have used both brands of strings you mentioned. I find absolutely no difference in string breakage, which in fact is so good that it's not worth mentioning.
Mac, that is astounding! But then you build top of the line stuff with nothing left to chance.
Say, when you did that test as pictured, did you apply normal playing pressure to the pedals? It makes a difference.
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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Jim Smith
From:
Midlothian, TX, USA
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Posted 28 Aug 2010 10:44 am
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| John Floyd wrote: |
Hopefully Jim Smith will see this and respond. He was there for most of the Dekley Era of Construction and has some of the most valuable insight into why and how the Guitars were constructed. He was the plant manager and supervisor from the very start and had tremendous input into the design.
Heres what one Dekley Owner Did to Reduce Cabinet Drop, Notice the 5th leg running From the pedal rack to the body.
This is Sam Gibson a Machinist and Machine Shop Owner who built a Lot of the Dekley Parts
I do know that anyone who changes pickups on a Dekley is wasting their time and money. If you Check the specs on Aftermarket pickups then the Dekley pickups are right in the ball park of all of the most popular add on pickups. |
Thanks, John.  For those that haven't noticed, that picture is Sam playing his Fessenden.  I've known Sam for a long time, and from what I remember, he put one of those braces on his MSA, his Dekley, and his Fessenden. He was playing a Fender when we first met, and I "think" he didn't have one on that guitar, because he said it had no cabinet drop at all.
I think the Dekley's minimum (or lack of) cabinet drop is due to the aluminum frame and the inline pedal and knee lever stops on the SlimLine models. We thought the rigid Pakkawood tops contributed too, but experiments with maple tops showed no difference. Maple was cheaper, easier to machine, and sounded the same, so we switched.
We stayed with the Pakkawood necks though, as experiments with maple and aluminum did show significant differences in tone and expansion/contraction with temperature changes.
John is correct about the pickups. While I was working at EMCI, I strapped my Dekley to their milling machine, and enlarged the pickup holes so I could install the Barcus Berry pickups that they were using at the time.
Later I switched to Lawrence 712s and wasn't able to tell enough difference in any of them to justify the hassle of enlarging the pickup cavities. I still have my original pickups and may end up putting them back in, just to have the guitar all original again. 
_________________
Jim Smith
-=Dekley D-12 10&12=- |
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Mac Knowles
From:
Almonte,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 28 Aug 2010 10:55 am
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Bent....yes it was normal playing pressure. I was sitting down actually playing the thing. I took about half dozen pics actually and they were all pretty much the same. This is the guitar that started out as the weird one with the weird changer stuff that I was working on in the spring. I hope to build another one like it sometime down the road. Maybe this one will work better since I learned a bit experimenting with it the first time around. Thanks, talk to you later
Mac |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Lonnie Zsigray
From:
Saint Louis,Mich., USA
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Posted 29 Aug 2010 8:17 am dekley/strings
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Bent,I have always used Jags on all my other steels and they performed perfectly with not enough problems to even mention.But on this particular Dekley I have studio recorded with it quite a few times and the SIT strings have a very audible difference in tone and I have only broken one "3rd" since I started using them.I was going through 3's and 5's like crazy on the Jags.I've had the guitar looked at for mechanical problems such as burrs but none could be found.I'm not saying anything bad about Jagwire here,just that my guitar doesn't work well with them.The Dekley is a unique beasty and when it's working,man it's sweet.
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If I hear it,I'm gonna try to steel it |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 29 Aug 2010 10:28 am
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Lonnie, can't find anything to argue with there. One thing we can agree upon: Strings of today are much better than strings of yesterday. I remember that from back in the 70's with my D10 MSA Classic.
Dekley is unique indeed. Like I alluded to earlier, I was surprised at the loss of tone when the D10 got stripped of its C6th parts.
_________________
BenRom Pedal Steel Guitars
https://www.facebook.com/groups/212050572323614/ |
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richard burton
From:
Britain
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Posted 29 Aug 2010 12:12 pm
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Bent,
It's quite possible that when the C6 neck was stripped out, the guy went through the E9 neck with a fine toothcomb, and tightened up every screw that he came across.
That will kill the tone stone dead  |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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