Using a wound on the 6th string???

Mark Greenway · From: Lake Kiowa, Texas

There was a good discussion about using a .012 on the 3rd string, which led me to this question.

If I change over to a wound instead of a plain on my 6th string, will I have to make any adjustments to the guitar to make it pull correctly? If so, what do you have to do to make that change on a push pull and a Rains?

Thanks a lot

Emmett Roch · From: Texas Hill Country

When I lived in Spain, I couldn't always get a P22, so I started using a W18, which for some reason was plentiful there. I barely had to tweak my GFI, though the pedal was a little softer.
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On Earth, as it is in Texas

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

If you drop to F#, it poses a challenge, but you can do it.
See http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=241881
BTW you can delete the duplicate by clicking on the bomb icon before someone replies
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2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

Hey Mark, any wound string will require a lot more travel than a plain string for both raising and lowering. Part of the reason wound strings are more stable tuning wise is because it takes a lot of movement to change the pitch a little bit.

Keeping the pull lengths matching will require adjusting the linkage on both guitars. Not all guitars can even lower a .22W from G#-F#.
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Jim Smith
-=Dekley D-12 10&12=-

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I second Jim's experience. With rerodding (moving the rod to a bell crank hole farther away from the cross shaft), a Carter does the G#>F# lower easily but with a longish throw, a Fessenden does it with a very long throw and a Sho-Bud Pro1 cannot do it. Had to settle for a half step lower.
I believe I rerodded the B pedal raise as well, to keep the 6th string sync'd with the 3rd string.

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

I wonder if a Sho-Bud could do it with a gear-up slave shaft? Might need to ditch the helper spring, though
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2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I've only ever dealt with the opposite---Carter uses a gear-down slave for a plain 6. My Bud S-12 is loaded with 3P + 6K and I don't see myself trying to shoe-horn another shaft in there unless something more exciting inspires me--another pedal would maybe move me---(in other words I've learned to do without the full step lower on this guitar).

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

Put .022W on my GFI Ultra 18 months ago, with no particular problems. Plenty of space in a GFI S10 with pad, and the warmer tone of a wound 6th suits a GFI just fine IMO.

Used the bellcrank hole furthest from the shaft for full G# to F# lower, and adjusted lever-stop slightly for the longer throw of a wound string.
As I have full-tone lower on both 6th and 3d string on the GFI, with half-tone split with the B pedal and no "split screw" at the changer, both strings lowers got split-rods for finetuning of the F#.

Have had wound 6th string on my fav. Dekley for decades, and the Dekley I bought 2 years ago immediately got re-rodded for wound 6th lowered G# to F# along with 3d string. Similar rodding as on the GFI, with split-rods.

Only difference is that my fav. Dekley with its "extended E Major" tuning has 3 G# string raised and lowered in unison - a .042W one octave below 6th string, which required more fiddling with pull-rods in bellcrank and changer holes to get them balanced.

Since a Dekley has round bellcrank shafts I put "gear-down" bellcranks on shafts already in use for the "octave lower strings" pulls - bellcranks rotating freely on the shafts of neighboring pedals/levers.

While rodding up the "gear-down" I did of course figure out that a "gear-down" arrangement becomes a "gear-up" arrangement when pull-rods are reordered on the extra bellcrank, so whether to gear down pull for one string or gear up for another is just a matter of what is most convenient, space-efficient, and provides the preferred pedal/lever action/throw in each case.

On PSGs with square shafts extra bellcranks and shafts are of course needed (or specially made "freewheeling bellcranks" with "square-to-round" inserts that can go on exting shafts without interfering), but other than that "gear-down" OR "gear-up" is just a question of rodding the "gear" right.

Peter den Hartogh · From: Cape Town, South Africa

Ricky Davis mentioned that you can synchronise 3 and 6 perfectly on a Sho-Bud Rack and Barrel.
It will also allow you to drop string 6 one whole tone.
All you do use a .024w on 6 and remove the helper spring on 3.

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