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Topic: Pull Release Advice |
Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 2:29 pm |
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I found out my Regson was a home made guitar from England from 1970.
My foot pedal travel is 3 1/2" smallest and 4 1/4" on 5th pedal. I am assuming this is a lot but since I have never played any other psg I have no way of knowing. My bell cranks are original with no adjustment. Anyway I was thinking that if I added some modern bell cranks to the cross rods I could move the pull rods out farther on the bell cranks to get same throw and hence less pedal travel....even though It will be harder to press down.
My cross rods are 1/4" square. Ideally the holes in new bell crank would be perp. to the cross rods.
Most ones I've seen pictures of holes are parallel to cross rod to accept rod "L". My rods have nuts on end so that's why. At a pinch I'm sure there is a way to use the common bell crank though. Where could I get a bell crank to fit my cross rod?
Also it seems my A pedal actually bottoms out on the floor. This seems a bit weird. It works but since I have no pedal stops? |
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Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 2:33 pm
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 3:02 pm
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A Pull-release will normally stop when the finger hits the body.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 3:13 pm
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| OK so I'll go back in and adjust so finger does that. |
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Jim Williams
From:
Meridian, Mississippi, USA - Home of Peavey!
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 7:01 pm
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Lane, would moving his pedal rods to that first hole help his travel a bit?
_________________
GFI SM10 3/4, 1937 Gibson EH-150, 2 - Rondo SX Lap Steels and a Guyatone 6 String C6. Peavey 400 and a Roland 40 Amps. Behringer Reverb Pedal. |
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Henry Matthews
From:
Texarkana, Ark USA
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 7:55 pm
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| Jim Williams wrote: |
| Lane, would moving his pedal rods to that first hole help his travel a bit? |
Will make pull shorter and a lot harder to push..
_________________
Henry Matthews
D-10 Magnum, 8 &5, dark rose color
D-10 1974 Emmons cut tail, fat back,rosewood, 8&5
Nashville 112 amp, Fishman Loudbox Performer amp, Hilton pedal, Goodrich pedal,BJS bar, Kyser picks, Live steel Strings. No effects, doodads or stomp boxes. |
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memphislim
From:
Austin, Texas
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 8:20 pm
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| You gotta do something though 3" is ridiculous. Most guitars are well under an inch in travel. You could start by moving the pedal rod closer to the crankshaft but that still won't be enough. Even longer bell cranks are probably not going to be enough. It sounds like the leverage in the changer fingers is way off. |
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Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 21 Apr 2014 9:10 pm
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Thanks all. btw, Good spot.....I'll try moving pedal rod over to 1st hole see if it makes much difference.
Also thanks for the info re 1" travel. Now it makes more sense how all those fancy quick changes sound so smooth. I feel like I'm wrestling with the pedals.
I'll get under the hood and get slide rule out to see what it would take for around 1" pedal travel. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 22 Apr 2014 3:44 am
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If the fingers have holes closer to the deck/axle, try that too.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 22 Apr 2014 3:39 pm
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Update
Firstly I made a mistake: the pedal travel was actually 2" and 3" worst case. So I moved pedal rods into hole closer to cross rod and lo and behold pedal travel is now about 1" or so. Also as per Lane I made the fingers stop their pull at the end stop on the changer.
Now I just have to re-adjust my playing because the force required to push down pedals is quite a bit more. 'A' pedal in particular is pretty stiff. Should the A and B pedals bottom out at the same height then?
Thanks all for helping newbie out. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 22 Apr 2014 6:30 pm
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They are usually set to bottom out together.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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memphislim
From:
Austin, Texas
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Posted 23 Apr 2014 4:06 am
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| Ideally, once the pulls are balanced, they should all travel the same distance and the raises should start and stop and the same time but the height of the pedals in relation to each other varies from player to player. I like my A pedal slightly higher than the B. C around same as B. The height varies dependant upon the angle of your foot and the slop in the pedal before a raise starts to happen. Your foot may touch one or the other pedal first so you adjust so both raises start at at the same time. If there's more slop in the A pedal for instance, then it needs to be higher than B so that the slop is taken up before your foot gets to the B and starts to raise strings. |
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Will Cowell
From:
Cambridgeshire, UK
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Posted 23 Apr 2014 5:09 am
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Nobody seems to have covered this, but the pedal leverage thing is often variable at the bottom of the pedal rods as well as the top. My old Marlen had three holes along the side of the pedal for the captive part of the joint to fix to. Further along the pedal gives greater movement of the rod for the same pedal movement. Addressing that certainly helped me to balance my pulls.
If the pedal doesn't have extra holes, there's not much work on drilling and tapping extra holes at, say, half inch spacing.
_________________
Williams 700 series keyless U12,
Sierra keyless U14, Eezzee-Slide & BJS bars
Moth-eaten old Marshall 150 combo
Roland Cube 80XL, Peterson Strobo+HD,
EarthQuaker Despatch Master for reverb / delay |
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Stephen Williams
From:
from Wales now in Berkeley,Ca, USA
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Posted 23 Apr 2014 5:01 pm
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Great advice all.
Working on pedal adjustment now. I have A slightly above B and bottoming out slightly higher. Even then I have to angle my foot (probably all wrong) to get the A pedal fully engaged when A + B. Nothing worse than B right on and A slightly flat.
I will think about drilling a hole in the pedal, a simple place to work.
I got to thinking about the leverage aspect of all this and came up with following........the work done by pedal system and rods to pull a given string is fixed. It is the force needed to pull string x distance it needs to pull it. This must equal the pedal force x distance it travels down. So I guess it's a trade off of ease of pedal force vs distance of pedal travel. In my case it was easy to push before but lot of distance and now harder but less distance and can do quicker on/offs. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 23 Apr 2014 7:49 pm
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Don't forget about adjusting the length of the pedal rods.
You could attach helper springs to the pullrods, but not so stiff that they overcome the string tension.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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