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Topic: E9 3rd string issues |
Peter Harris
From:
South Australia, Australia
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Posted 18 Feb 2011 1:53 am |
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I'll start with an apology for posting in this 'spot-on-the-dial' because the question is not strictly about a pedal steel...however it seemed to me to be the most logical place to begin. 
As a couple of people here know, I am involved in the building of a much-modified Fender Telecaster which (among other things) includes a multi-lever Bigsby Palm Pedal unit...this (6-string) instrument uses strings 2 to 7 inclusive of a standard E9 tuning, and in my case has as it's 2nd string the equivalent of a PSG 3rd..confused yet?
My problem is that (over the standard Telecaster 25 1/2 inch scale length), I am trying to get a Jagwire 010 up to G#, with a subsequent (Palm Pedal) raise to A.
Initial forays into this happily put paid to the 010's as (a) the tension was significant, and (b) the action of the locking posts of the Grover tuners I am using had a great time chopping the string..I talked to Grovers themselves about this and they recommended that I dump the locking tuners in favour of standard ones...I have since re-engineered the tuner in question so that the locking mechanism on this one is now isolated and it works like a standard one....that sort-of helped when I re-strung the beast with a locally-obtained 009 (standard guitar) string.
...at least I seemed to be breaking less of them..!!
I am still concerned about the apparent trouble I am having getting even a 009 string up to that sort of pitch, and I wonder if anybody far more knowledgeable has any comment / ideas / experience (?)...
In case you are wondering what all this mad modication does...custom Bigsby 5-lever Palm Pedal, Wilkinson roller bridge, LSR roller nut, roller string trees, locking tuners, raised action, played-with-a-slide.....it kind of gets me close to a stand-up version of a PSG...
...and I didn't even talk about the inbuilt Roland synthesiser pickup yet.... 
I guess the synopsis of my question is...how much is scale length defeating me here, and what can I do about string gauges when the thinnest Jagwire is 009, and .......
Yes, I KNOW it's not a PSG, but......... 
Regards from Down Here,
Peter |
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Ryan Barwin
From:
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Posted 18 Feb 2011 6:11 am
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Sounds like an interesting project...
I think the issue is the string length behind the nut...even though it's a 25.5" scale, you're pulling an extra 3 inches or so. Most pedal steels with a 25.5" scale length (e.g. Sierra, Excel, etc.) are keyless, so there's no additional length to pull behind the nut. And even on keyhead guitars, there's not much distance from the nut to the third tuning machine.
The simplest solution would be to tune down to D9. Or you could stay with E9 and shorten the string length behind the nut...
You could use a locking nut, so you tune the open string, lock the nut, and then the palm pedal is only pulling the string between the nut and the bridge...several inches less string to pull.
I don't know how the palm pedals work...if you tune the pull at the bridge, then the locking nut would work, but if you tune the open string at the bridge and the pull with the tuner (like a push-pull or pull-release changer), then it's not gonna work.
If that's the case, another solution to shorten the length behind the nut would be to put a left handed neck on it, so that string would be on the second closest tuner rather than the fifth.
Hope that helps.
By the way...what's the open tuning and pedal setup?
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www.pedalsteel.ca |
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richard burton
From:
Britain
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Posted 18 Feb 2011 6:30 am
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Two solutions spring to mind, one easy, and the other radical.
The easy way is to detune to C9.
The radical way is to shorten the scale length by moving the bridge towards the nut by about 1 1/2", removing the frets, filling the redundant fret slots, and then painting on a new fretboard with the frets marked out to suit the new scale length.
This is of course assuming that you are only going to play the guitar as a fretless instrument. |
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