Overtuning (and Undertuning) an All-Pull Steel

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

You are wrong, John.
Using the hole further away from the changer axle, you will need more travel of the pedal for the same amount of pitch change. If you want more pitch change without changing the actual pedal movement (the start and/or stop points of the pedal) you will use a changer hole closer to the axle (closer to the top of the guitar) or use a bellcrank hole that is farther from the cross shaft.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I've been known to get turned around before.
But yes, that is true for both raises and lowers. Think of it as grabbing a socket wrench up the handle near the socket. It requires a lot more effort to turn it but it requires a lot less actual movement or your hand. Grab the wrench at the end of the handle and the leverage is much easier but your hand is going to swing a larger arc, moving a lot more in space. It is always a trade off between leverage advantage vs. economy of motion.

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Jon,
Thanks for the valuable info......I never gave the holes in the changer end of the steel any consideration when adjusting said steel, always the bell cranks.....A new way of looking at tuning now !!......Thanks again......Jim

Wayne Quinn · From: Cape Breton.NovaScotia

So changing the pull rods to another hole on the changer would give you a different feel on that pedal or knee lever .example . a little stiffer or a more smother relaxed feel. am I right or no.
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Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Absolutely. Another hole in the changer or the bell crank. But you are setting up a chain reaction of causes & effects. Other things will change too. As long as you are ready to deal with these results and have really thought it out, and are ready to change it back to where it was, if it doesn't work out, it is definitely one of the ways that you can customize a steel to suit your preferences.

Making a pedal easier/lighter feeling will result in its having a longer throw. Say you want a lighter B pedal and you change holes on the bell crank. Maybe now when you step on A & B, the B bottoms out too low and rolls your ankle the wrong way. So you change the pedal rod length. Now maybe the pedal is too high at rest. This sort of thing can be the unintended consequence of tinkering with the pull train.

Wayne Quinn · From: Cape Breton.NovaScotia

Thanks Jon for this post. I am going to book mark it for further reference Smile

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D10 Carter, SD10 Mullen .Nashville 400,. peavey 112 Boss DD3., RV5,

Brian Fox · From: Minnesota, USA

Thank you for this post. I am new to the hobby and recently purchased a little buddy ( I've read it is typically used for fire wood, lol). Any who. I have looked pretty closely at it and after tuning the strings and A and B pedal I can not get my C pedal to "pull" enough. It always seems a quarter step flat. Are you familiar with these guitars at all? The do not use the nylon thumb screws. I have an alin wrench used for pedal and lever adjustments. I tried moving the rod position up a hole (closest to the guitar). To try and gain more "pull" it did not seem to work. Compared to my A and B pedals they seem to have more movement and a "full stroke" so to speak. I have also adjusted the nut that controls the stop to its maximum position I believe. My question is the "at rest" position what should I typically need to look for on this? And is there anything else I can look at ? The tuning and pedal mechanisms look similar to the guitar pictured on page 1 of this thread.Again, I am new to the hobby, please disregard the improper nomenclature. Please help.
Sincerely ,
Out of tune C pedal.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Hey Brian. Good news/bad news. Bad news is that no, I know absolutely nothing about the Little Buddy. But the good news is that here is a manual:

http://steelguitar.com/manual/LittleBuddy_OwnersManual.pdf

....and some Forum discussion here:

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=201971&sid=2002c8e37e68b2360741546dab1a904f

Further Forum searching may give you more info.

I believe your Buddy is what's called a 'pull/release' mechanism and that's a different animal than the all-pull.

I am not sure if they are adjustable (or a factor) but note that bell-cranks are most efficient if their arc runs roughly from, say, 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock. When any part of their sweep is well outside of that wedge, a lot of the motion is wasted in an upward or downward direction instead of straight lateral pulling. If loosening and repositioning the bellcrank on its round cross shaft is doable (and if the shaft doesn't have a flat spot for the set screw to hit), you can gain some extra bit of leverage with optimal position.

If you need more advice, you should make your own post in the Pedal Steel section calling for Little Buddy help. For sure, there are people with the experience.

Dennis Montgomery · From: Western Washington

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

That's great, Dennis!

William Holloman · From: Florida, USA

Thanks so much Jon. This is what i've been needing. I love a smoother pedal feel, even though the throw is longer. I had to completely disassemble my '82 D-10 Sho Bud and sand, polish, EVERYTHING. Made notes of rod vs hole placement, but upon reassemble, my notes disappeared !! Been struggling ever since. Is there a "rule of thumb" for placements before I tackle this again ? IE) pedals A & B. I want level pedals whether up or down. (sorry for the long post) Thanks, BILL

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Bill -- it's such a good question but it gets complicated.

It becomes like a 4 dimensional game of chess with the 4 dimensions being:

-- customizing the length of the pedal/lever movement
-- customizing the feel (stiffness) of the pedal/lever movement
-- customizing the timing of the stop/start of the pull (for instance getting strings 3 & 6 to move in unison on E9)
-- customizing the up and down alignment of the pedals

An adjustment to any one of these items will have an affect on all the others.

To aim to adjust every one of these items to your liking is possible (within reason) but it is certainly advanced level work. You will be going back and forth, compromising, possibly settling for something less than you were shooting for in one of these areas, getting the pedal levels to your liking but not liking the timing of the pulls and either saying 'good enough' or going back in and trying again. Years ago I set out to shorten some throws. For a while I liked the results but then I got tired of the stiffer feel. And the unison pulls were not great. It took around a year of tinkering every once in a while, slowly deciding to "go in again" several times until I made the right choices and made some compromises.

Rule of thumb? If you were asking for a rule of thumb about bell crank slots or changer holes for general setup I would say you want to find a rodding chart for several makes of steels to get a general idea--they are available. But from the standpoint of pedal position....you got me there. The only way I know of to work on pedal position (not just adjusting the length of the pedal rod ---actually getting the pedals to have the same amount of movement, up and down) is to add or remove movement from one pedal according to the need to match the other. Which will definitely affect the pull and require bell crank changes. I predict that at some point you will have to choose which of the 4 factors are most important to you and compromise a bit on one or two of them.

That's an awful lot of talking but unfortunately there are no really good answers in this post. Just general concept. Sorry!

William Holloman · From: Florida, USA

Thanks for the reply Jon. As others have said, I was unaware that opposite holes in changer vs b.crank would give a longer throw. (school of leverage) Maybe that's why I can't get strings 3 & 6 in time. As it is now, 3 comes in WAY before 6. I'll keep trying. Thank you, BILL

Terry Sneed · From: Arkansas,

man alive, it takes a good mind to
figure out how to build one of these
contraptions! It's all I can do to figure
out how to tune the darn thing!
Thanks Jon for the info on over and
under tuning.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Thank you for the comment, Terry.

My primary mission -- something that I feel I was only partially successful at -- was to make a presentation that was useful to someone who didn't have much interest in mechanical concepts but had the need to troubleshoot their own steel guitar. Some people's brains are wired for this, other people, not so much. I hope that I managed to hold the interest of someone who tends to cross their eyes and say 'nope--this ain't happening'. I know that feeling.

Alan Muir · From: Colorado, USA

Your post helped me a lot. Thank you.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Thanks, Alan. I love to hear that.

FRANK MARIANO · From: PENSACOLA FL

Helped a bunch thanks Jon
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Zum,Mullen,Sterio Steel,Little Walter, Fox Vintage,Beard,Fender Lap

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Excellent, Frank. Thanks for posting that.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

The forum has more than enough stickies and (imo) it does not need more. So I will post this here and hope it will be seen. With regards to 6th string tuning problems that occur after a string change when everything was ok before:

Before you buy and change strings for the first time, take note of whether the 6th string is wound or plain and be sure to replace it with the same.

Matt Pleasant · From: Tennessee, USA

Third time I've read and used the info in this post. Thank you!! A real time and headache saver.
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Oh what a boring old world it would be
If everyone thought and acted like me.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

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