Sho-Bud and the Mystery of the strange extra pull rod

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I'm working on someone's 6139 with two-hole swivel pullers that was WAY out of adjustment. Both holes of the 9th string bellcrank are engaged on the 9th string, with rods both raising and lowering. 2nd string is also being lowered on this lever.

There is a missing lever -- the hardware for it is on the steel -- cross shaft, brackets, pullers.....but no lever, no rods. The position of those phantom pullers does not indicate some sort of split tuning on 9.

When I took delivery on this steel, the lever was lowering 2 & 9 approx a full step. I attributed this to everything being overtuned and/or loose (lever stops were not locked down). So I don't know if this was setup to lower full or half steps. My only (half-baked) theory is that a full step lower on 2 was too much movement for the 9th string without a lot of slop/slack and the raise was added to keep thngs tight. But I'm not really buying it.
I'm humbly opening myself up to the possibility that I'm missing the obvious. But I'm stumped.
Any other thoughts?

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

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Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Well....you sum up my long post in two sentences.

Like I said, I'm not really buying this theory but.....if you were lowering the 2nd string D#>C# and lowering 9 D>C#, would the amount of movement for the 2nd string require you to back off the nylon tuner on 9 so much that it had a ton of slack? Then you could take up that slack with the added raise rod?

Is the missing 4th lever somehow involved in this? Is there some sort of a feeler stop concept that I'm not understanding?

I don't know!

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

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Peter Freiberger · From: California, USA

Perhaps in order to get the 2nd string half stop to a good D and full lower to C# exact the 9th string lowers a bit too far and the 9th string raise is to pull it back up a little.

I have this arrangement on my 9th string. On the same lever I'm also raising the 7th string to G and G# and also have an extra rod pulling the 7th string back down to a G# I like at full raise.

A bit complex but it works great on an all pull instrument like my EMCI.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

That's a very interesting angle, Peter. Sounds plausible. For some reason I have always struggled with the concept of the string 2 & 9 feeler stop. I have never had this on any of my steels (I play 12 string Uni so...no 9th string D) and I've never quite wrapped my brain around it.

This guitar was so out of whack that I cannot tell if there is or was a feeler for the 2nd string at the D.
In the interest of simplicity and solid mechanics, I
have set this guitar up with a simple 2nd string D and I've backed off the tuning nut on the 9th string raise rod so that it is now out of play.

Ian Worley · From: Sacramento, CA

The second rod trick can be really useful on one of these old beasts, and particularly on the earlier 1/1 changer where leverage options are even more limited than your 2/1. It provides a means to fine-tune the timing of disparate length pulls, absent all the leverage options available on a more modern guitar with multi-hole bell cranks and changer, etc.

For example, the length of the B pedal pulls on strings 3 and 6 are very different. On an old 1 or 2 raise Bud, string 3 must typically start pulling well before 6 engages so they they will both end at the correct A note. If you set the raise pull on 6 to start together with the pull on 3, an extra lowering rod that engages toward the end of the pull provides a tunable means to compensate so that they both end at the correct pitch. In this case the compensating rod is a lower, the opposite of what you have, but it's the same principal, just applied in reverse.

On the lower, as Peter suggests, the length of the string 2 pull from D to C# (after the half-stop where 9 engages) is longer than the same pull on string 9, so the extra raise rod provides a tunable compensator to correct the over-pull on 9.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I'm slowly seeing it. And it actually makes my guess somewhat in the ballpark as far as the disparate pulls causing/requiring extremely excessive amounts of slack.
Now that I understand this better, I'll await the owner's decision on whether he wants the D on the 2nd string (not needing the extra rod on 9) or full step lower to C# in which case I now know how to fine tune 9. Neat. I love learning a new trick.

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