| Author |
Topic: Carter B pedal |
David Peirce
From:
Left Coast of Florida
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Posted 25 May 2014 4:00 pm |
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| I've been playing, and fiddling with undercarriages, a pretty long time, but cannot figure out why the G# to A pulls on a Carter are placed on two separate cross rods. The cross rod activated by the B pedal pulls the high G# and a second bell crank which pulls a third bell crank on an adjacent cross rod, which then pulls the lower G# on a fourth bell crank on that second cross rod. I'd love to know the reason Mr. Carter designed it that way. |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 25 May 2014 4:51 pm
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The purpose is to facilitate the synchronization of the pulls of an unwound 6th string which requires very little changer finger movement and the 3rd string which requires more, via 'gear-down' leverage of the additional bellcrank & cross shaft. It's a cool idea. But I admit that I don't quite understand the need--In addition to a Carter I have a Fessenden which does not have the extra hardware but has very acceptable synchronization of the 3 & 6 (with proper rodding choices).
Go figure. |
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David Peirce
From:
Left Coast of Florida
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Posted 25 May 2014 5:06 pm
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Thanks! So it's an elegant, if not totally necessary, engineering solution to a problem that sort of exists.  |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 25 May 2014 5:20 pm
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I do believe that is an accurate summary.
When I changed to a wound 6th string on the Carter it equalized the 3 & 6 considerably and I bypassed the extra hardware altogether. But as I said, on the Fess, the unwound 6, with well considered rodding, is all but perfectly sync'd with 3.
Maybe somebody can shed some light on why Bud & John went to the trouble. |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 25 May 2014 6:51 pm
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| are you sure that was done at the factory? sounds like a personal customization by some previous owner. |
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Jim Palenscar
From:
Oceanside, Calif, USA
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Posted 25 May 2014 9:34 pm
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| They are all done that way. I've not attempted to properly time them w/o the gear down and supposed that it wasn't able to be accomplished w/o it but guess I could try and see what shakes out. |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 26 May 2014 4:52 am
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After pondering this for a bit----the Carter has leverage that makes some moves that are difficult or impossible on some guitars relatively easy. It can lower a wound .022 a full step with a long but manageable lever throw. Some guitars cannot do this without a very long throw (my Fess). Other guitars just can't do it, period (my Bud).
So I wonder if Carter's enhanced leverage exaggerates the differential between an unwound 6 and the 3rd string so that the very short pull needed on 6 is more difficult to achieve (in sync with 3) without the gear down.
That could be an explanation for why Carter chose to use this. |
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Allen Peterson
From:
Katy, Texas
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Posted 26 May 2014 7:59 am
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Bobby Bowman did some work on my Carter. I later noticed he removed the extra hardware. I asked him why and he said it was not needed, since I use an unwound sixth string. I couldn't really notice any difference after he removed it.
Later I had Billy Phelps work on my Carter. I asked him to put the hardware back on. I still can't feel any difference. He said it needed to be there and had something to do with synchronization. He called is a "slave."
Allen Peterson
_________________
2008 D10 Rains Pedal Steel, 2000 D10 Carter Pedal Steel, BR-9 Lap Steel, Nashville 400, Nashville 112, '65 Fender Twin Re-issue, MB 200, Telonics Volume Pedal |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 26 May 2014 8:57 am
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| b0b wrote: |
| chris ivey wrote: |
| are you sure that was done at the factory? |
Yes. That's the stock configuration. |
Mine doesn't have it. And I have not noticed any timing issues.
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 26 May 2014 9:53 am
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i don't like extra rods, hardware, etc. my zum came with compensators and extra changes...i ordered it with everything i could think of. then i immediately took everything unnecessary off and set aside a nice little stash of extra parts for whatever
i might want to do in the future.
never missed the compensators cause the old zum is very true in it's basic form.
...so i'd probably take off that 'slave' hardware. |
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John Swain
From:
Winchester, Va
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Posted 26 May 2014 1:51 pm
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| Early Carters didn't have the step-down, I believe they started in '99. I think John said it was to accommodate as many string gauges as possible, keeping the raises parallel. |
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Bill Ferguson
From:
Milton, FL USA
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Posted 27 May 2014 3:03 am
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Since Bud Carter designed this, there IS a reason for it.
Bud is the genius when it comes to steel guitar design. |
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Will Cowell
From:
Cambridgeshire, UK
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Posted 27 May 2014 4:59 am
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Just my 2 cents:
When I was having problems with some cabinet drop on my Williams (unwound 6 went flat 12 cents with A pedal down) I was recommended to try a wound 6 instead.
Knowing I would need a lot more movement to achieve it, I had to move the pullrod from the no.2 hole (of 7) to the no.6 hole (from memory).
Result: greatly reduced cabinet drop - now inaudible - but the same range of pedal movement.
Moral: Some steels will allow it, others may not. But I'm glad I made the change. I'm lucky I didn't need the slave arrangement to achieve the necessary movement.
_________________
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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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 27 May 2014 7:45 am
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| John Swain wrote: |
| Early Carters didn't have the step-down, I believe they started in '99. I think John said it was to accommodate as many string gauges as possible, keeping the raises parallel. |
Mine is an early 99, and I believe I saw this step down setup on Bobby Black's Carter before that. It could also be that there wasn't a lot of room left under my guitar to put it in as I ordered it with 8 pedals and 10 knee levers. That's a tremendous amount of stuff under the hood. But again, I see no problems with timing or anything else. Precise timing of the 2 pulls is also not critical to me. I never play the 2 at the same time and raise them together.
Edited the number of pulls from 3 to 2. Bob knocked some sense into me. 
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 54 years and still counting.
Last edited by Richard Sinkler on 27 May 2014 5:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 27 May 2014 8:51 am
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Richard: this is the B pedal we're talking about, right? It only has 2 changes (strings 3 and 6). I think timing is fairly critical on the B pedal. If the changes don't start together, it's too easy to accidentally raise one string a little bit unintentionally by the weight of your foot on the pedal.
_________________
-𝕓𝕆𝕓- (admin) - Robert P. Lee - Recordings - Breathe - D6th - Video |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 27 May 2014 10:29 am
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Oops Bob. You're right. I wasn't going to drink any coffee today, but it looks like I need to. I'm still burned out from the weekend. Had a gig in Ceres Saturday night and din't get home until after 3am. Then had to be in Manteca by 10am for what turned out to be a 6 to 7 hour rehearsal. Vegging yesterday didn't completely re-charge me. 
| Quote: |
| If the changes don't start together, it's too easy to accidentally raise one string a little bit unintentionally by the weight of your foot on the pedal. |
I don't notice this happening. But I never let my foot hit the pedals until I want them to.
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 27 May 2014 1:14 pm
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I ordered my Carter 10/98. It has the slave mechanism. It is an SD-12 Uni and the B pedal pulls 3, 6 and 10.
re: Bill Ferguson's comment, I couldn't agree more. My previous post was based on the premise that there must be a reason. Bud & John didn't do frivolous stuff and I would not waste time with a premise that it was there for no good reason. Carters are lightweight guitars that do not have extra parts just for the hell of it.
Although purely speculative, I like my theory about Carter's strong leverage and I'll hold to it until I hear a better idea. |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 27 May 2014 1:37 pm
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hey richard...are you playing at the lovely 'nashville west' in ceres?
i've done several of those this last year. |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 27 May 2014 5:55 pm
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Chris... It's called Sweet Lu's now. A hot, but small, jumping club. As you know, there isn't much to do down there. Who were you playing with?
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
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