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Topic: Knee Lever Adjustments on Carter Starter |
Jim Williams
From:
Meridian, Mississippi, USA - Home of Peavey!
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Posted 18 Mar 2014 10:24 am |
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Hi, I came across a very good deal on a Carter Starter the other day and since I have never owned / seen one of these before I had a couple of questions. First off let me say that I am aware of the limitations of this guitar so I'm not expecting it to perform like a pro guitar. I got it at a price that made it a very low risk proposition.
The guitar seems to function fairly well but I noticed some adjustment issues, mainly on the knee levers.
The hex adjusters had apparently over time gotten adjusted so far in that the levers were angled in badly toward each other on left and right side with hardly enough room for your knee go fit between them. There is no lever position adjustments on these, by the way. I knew by looking at photos of them on the net that that knee lever spacing was not normal.
I've corrected this problem and re-tuned the levers but I notice there seems to be quite a difference in the amount of travel required to engage the levers. (I believe this was also the case before I made the adjustments.)
The LKL lever which raises the E's has extremely short travel, which I like. the other levers have much more travel, probably as much as 3 inches on one of them.
Since this is a used guitar I don't know what might have been done underneath in the past as far as which holes the rods are in, and have not experimented with that yet but plan to work on it some more tonight. I did move the rod down on one of the right knee levers to reduce binding of the rod when activated. I also need to extend the levers just a bit as I am pretty short legged.
I've never seen or played one of these before...is the long travel on these levers normal?
If somebody has one it might be helpful and would be appreciated to know what the factory settings on the levers was originally as far as which holes the rods mounted to as a default.
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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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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2014 10:45 am Re: Knee Lever Adjustments on Carter Starter
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| Jim Williams wrote: |
I've corrected this problem and re-tuned the levers but I notice there seems to be quite a difference in the amount of travel required to engage the levers. (I believe this was also the case before I made the adjustments.)
The LKL lever which raises the E's has extremely short travel, which I like. the other levers have much more travel, probably as much as 3 inches on one of them.
I've never seen or played one of these before...is the long travel on these levers normal?
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Jim, what you are experiencing with the longer travel on 3 of the 4 levers is pretty normal. It's not necessarily an indication of somebody tinkering with it because it probably came from the factory that way.
If you don't like that much travel and want to shorten it, you can try moving the pull rods down to the hole on the pull bar closest to the crossbar. Then adjust the travel screw for the offending lever to be a short as possible while still effecting the pitch change.
Also, if you're newbie and having trouble reaching the knee levers, keep in mind that steelers tend to sit on a tall seat or chair -- sometimes a bit higher than a standard chair. If you have an adjustable seat of some kind, try raising it an inch or two to see if that helps you reach the levers. |
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Jim Williams
From:
Meridian, Mississippi, USA - Home of Peavey!
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Posted 18 Mar 2014 11:02 am
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Thanks Tucker, Yes I do need a higher seat. I have a stool that I use that is higher than a standard chair, but the knees are still too low. I've tried a higher one but it puts me in a position that my knees are angling down quite a bit and is not very comfortable. I may pick up an adjustable keyboard bench and try that to see if I can find a sweet spot or compromise height. This is about my third attempt at learning the pedal steel, and to be honest I think one of the main stumbling blocks for me has been the comfort (or lack of it) issue.
I found a rodding chart for the Starter on the forum here and plan to check it tonight and make sure nobody has seriously monkeyed with anything and also lube a couple of places that knee rods seem to have a good bit of friction.
There is a lot of friction in particular on the RKL lever over one of the cross bars. There is actually a slot in the cross bar...I don't know if this is by design or wear. I kind of doubt wear because the guitar looks to be in fairly new condition otherwise. I would also think the rod would wear before the cross bar would.
One other thing I notice is that the springs on this guitar are very noisy when some of them are activated. I would like to find a way to quieten that down a bit. I know it is a cheap guitar but I have watched the demo video that Bobbe Seymour did several years ago and didn't hear all the spring squeaking I'm hearing on this one.
_________________
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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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2014 11:24 am
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| Jim Williams wrote: |
| There is a lot of friction in particular on the RKL lever over one of the cross bars. There is actually a slot in the cross bar...I don't know if this is by design or wear. |
Is "RKL" a typo? Because that lever on the Starter lowers the 5th string. That's the least-used change on a 3x4 guitar for most players, so it's surprising that a new-looking guitar would have wear there. Also, that pull rod should be in a hole on the pull bar that puts it like an inch above the cross bar....
If you stick with steel, you might want to look at someday upgrading to a guitar set up with shorter legs and pedal-rods. That Starter is fine for now but it doesn't have any knee lever angle adjustment options, so it might not be as comfortable as a Pro-level guitar. |
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Jim Williams
From:
Meridian, Mississippi, USA - Home of Peavey!
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Posted 18 Mar 2014 11:50 am
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Tucker, I'm not looking at the guitar at the moment, and am working on my (old and not so functional) memory from about 1:30 a.m. this morning, but I think that is the lever. It could be that somebody has moved the rod, or it may be the other right lever.
In any case the rod is short, probably 7 inches or so and if looking at the guitar setting on its legs in playing position the rod runs UNDER the cross bar and binds considerably.
It is possible that it is in the wrong place and may indeed need to run in a much different path. I do know that I had to make a rather large adjustment to get the knee levers back to a more normal downward angle than being very much angled in toward each other, so it may very well have been messed with underneath at some point.
By the way when I speak of the angle of the knee levers, normally I would expect the levers to hang down sort of like this:
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These were more like this:
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with maybe only about 4 - 5 inches between the levers...pretty narrow for most folks knees 
The way I have it now, they are fairly vertical with the LKL angling in slightly, and have enough room between for the knees to fit without unintentionally engaging a lever partially.
I plan to put it up in a comfortable position when I get home and check each rod against the rodding chart I downloaded here.
_________________
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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Jim Williams
From:
Meridian, Mississippi, USA - Home of Peavey!
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Posted 19 Mar 2014 8:02 am
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I just spoke with Al Brisco at Steel Guitars of Canada...he gave me some useful information and I ordered the DVD that came with the guitar and some strings. I figured out a couple of things last night that also are going to help get this thing back to factory specs.
_________________
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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