newbie question: PSG options for short people?

[Chris Morrison]

Hi,
I'm just starting out, and find that my left knee doesn't quite reach the knee levers on a friend's Carter Starter (mine is on the way Does it make sense to make extenders for the left knee levers, or should I make a shorter set of (guitar) legs and use a lower seat?

As for forearm angle, should they be horizonal to slightly angled down towards the strings?

Thanks! Chris

[richard burton]

If you sit too low, movement of the left foot becomes restricted.

Set the seat height first, before you start setting the height of the steel. You don't even need your steel to be there !!

You need to be able to keep your left heel on the floor, and comfortably raise the front of your left foot.
The lower that you sit, this movement becomes progressively more difficult.

Once seat height has been established, set the height of the steel so that the top of your right leg just clears the back apron of the steel, making sure that your right foot is on the volume pedal, and that your body centreline is in line with the seventeenth fret.

Make extenders for the left leg knee levers if necessary. I'm short, and had to extend the levers on my steel

[David Doggett]

Richard's suggestions are good. In general when sitting, your thighs should be parallel to the floor. Also, your forearms should be parallel to the floor so your wrists don't have to bend. Bear in mind that if you shorten the legs you will probably also have to shorten the pedal rods. Even with the height of the seat and guitar adjusted properly, for some short people the A and B pedals may be too far to the left. This is less a problem with keyless tuners. Also, it is possible to order new guitars or alter used ones to move the pedals and levers over to the right.

[Tamara James]

Serious Subject.

Let me see if I got this right...instead of the usual advice of buying a set of shorter legs/rods, we are going to use longer knee levers? I have not read this solution before, or if I have, I didn't register it in my mind.

Sounds like a good plan. If a person was to want to lengthen the levers could that be done while adding those "paddles"? just make the paddle longer than the lever? Is this more cost effective then shorter legs/rod sets? Would the extra length effect the adjustability of the lever?
How would it effect the re-sell value in the future?

I'm still working on getting this not being tall enough for my steel under control. I guess I'm over thinking it, but they are still good questions.

[John Bechtel]

However, you might want to consider this possibility too! The longer you extend your KL's you also will be increasing your KL Travel-distance to make the change! I am not a short person, but; my 8-pedal PSG starts with P-1 in the #2-position, leaving position #1 empty and it is more comfortable for even me! My KL's are mounted in their normal positions.

[Calvin Walley]

i had extentions added to my carter starter and it worked but it had the problems mentions , it does indeed increase the travel to the point that my foot would almost come off the pedals (LKR) the next student guitar i bought was a Zum stage one , the levers were a bit longer (or the guitar was shorter ) but it was much better , but still wasn't the best fit for me , after i bought my Mullen i took it to mullen and got them to move the pedals over one pedal space, aaaaah perfect fit
i am a firm believer that the better the guitar fit's the person playing it the easier it is to play

[Calvin Walley]

one other thing
Bob Simmons is currently building me a new guitar and we talked about this very thing . the knee levers on his guitars are 9 inches long and he adjusts the travel on them
i think he told me his has about 1 inch of travel which is great for us with short legs

[Dave Horch]

What if you've lowered the legs as low as they will go? How or who could cut them down another inch? thx, -dh

[Donny Hinson]

If you are very short, your best option is to have the legs and rods shortened. A lot of beginner or student steels don't have fully adjustable legs, which is a big point against them. I'm also amazed that no steel manufacturer (that I know of, anyway) has come up with a way to lower the steel without cutting things off. Come on guys, it's not rocket science! If you can lower the legs an inch or two, there should also be the same type of adjustment on the pedal rods. I wouldn't expect this on a "starter" model, but I most certainly do expect this sort of thing on a steel that sells for 4 grand or more.

Oh yeah, and an adjustable (sliding) pickup mount.

And, a place built into the steel to put you picks, tuning-wrench, and bar. PVC and metal dingus-things stuck to the legs are about as impressive as a clip-on tie.

[Chris Morrison]

Hi,
Thanks for all your ideas! Hearing that others had similar problems, and hearing how others have adjusted settings encouraged me to tear into my Starter, which arrived Saturday. In an experimental frame of mind, I got it adjusted to where it seems to suit my height (5' 5"). Of course, I've now been playing steel for all of two days, so I'm not exactly an expert

FWIW, this week I'll post some photos of the following tweaks:

Extending the left knees was easy, by clamping 6" long pieces of hardwood to the "angle-iron" knee levers with small 'C' clamps. The "angle-iron" lever makes this really simple. Ty-raps might also work. I didn't add paddles, but I don't see why not -- I saw a picture of some online on a Starter for sale. If you can make 'em out of hardwood and thin hardwood plywood, they might work fine, if clamped in. Ty-raps might not work well though.

The left knees were also too far to the left for my short legs to comfortably reach the pedals, as David noted. There's a solution -- the original lever angles are set by the levers resting on the cross-rods, so by clamping little hardwood shims between lever and cross-rod with _tiny_ modelmaker's 'C' clamps, it's possible to shift 'em a good inch to the right (LKL) or left (LKR). Result: the pair are more to the right, lining my leg up with the pedals, _and_ closer together. Maybe a little too close together -- I may thin down the LKR shim.

The right knee lengths are OK because the volume pedal raises my knee. They seemed far apart though, so another clamped shim moved RKR closer to RKL

LKR travel seemed enormous compared to the others. It has three tuners on the endplate, one of which is the stop "tuner". It's half the length of all the other tuners, and I don't see why -- with a 3/8" spacer added, the stop happens with less travel, and the two actual tuners can be adjusted to give correct E-Eb lowers with plenty of threads still engaged. Travel is now about 1-3/4". So far so good; Carter probably has a good reason for their setup, and I may find out the hard way what it is!

None of the above seems to affect the raises and lowers. However, these 'C' clamps do keep the levers from folding into the body. Ty-raps, if they work, would probably solve that. Won't be an issue for a while yet They are completely un-doable, so if I ever sell the guitar, it can be truly put back into original setup just by undoing all those clamps! (and that spacer).

So far I haven't shortened the legs -- it seems less necessary now that I'm using a higher seat as Richard suggested. If I do, I'll try making a set, because these don't adjust, and I want the originals unaltered for possible resale.
They're solid aluminum rod, could be easily made from scrapyard rod stock if I had a machine shop. I don't. I think it's still doable by hand, but far less easily. Carter used 1/2"-13 allen setscrews for the threaded stud that screws into the body. They're screwed halfway into the leg ends, and probably LocTite'd in place... hard part would be getting them correctly centered and aligned by hand. Adjustable feet would be easier: use the original feet and thread holes in the leg ends (1/2"-13 again)

Once again, thanks for all your input! If learning to play is half as much fun as all this tweaking, I'm gonna have a blast

-Chris

[Calvin Walley]

wonder if any of the steel builder's are reading any of this

[Chris Bauer]

I'm not terribly short (5-10) but it was a total revelation for me to sit behind a one inch lowered guitar last year for the first time. It was like stepping into a tailored suit (Er, as a matter of expression since I've never actually owned a tailored suit....). I could reach and play things waaaaay more comfortably than ever before. I can't believe it never occurred to me before to get my guitars lowered but it certainly made a difference in my comfort and my playing.

[L. A. Wunder]

Chris M.,

I'm 4'11, and I extended the levers on both my steels (an old Sho-Bud, and an Emmons )by putting a firm piece of plastic/rubber tubing over them. The tubing can be pulled down to extend the lever while playing, then pushed back up to allow the levers to fold under the guitar. It's a quick, inexpensive fix, that requires no tools or mechanical knowlege to install.

[Tony Glassman]

Donny.

Sierras used to have adjustable front legs.

When i worked there, they didn't use mike stand legs. The leg was made of 2 parts. An insert which fit into the leg and was height adjustable with set screws. The pedal-rack attached to studs on the lower insert, which did not but up against the end of the main leg. So, within limits, the front leg height was adjustable, and if that didn't do the trick you could buy different length inserts, which took only a few minutes to install. Sorry for the poor quality photo, it was the only one I could find on-line.

Also the pedal rods had the typical slide fasteners at both ends (no hooks) so the pedals rods had twice as much length adjustment. They could be further shortened by cutting off an end an re-threading it.

[Roual Ranes]

Both of mine have been altered to be 1 & 1/2 " shorter than normal. I still find it a little hard to use klv so use it as little as possible.
' course, I am just a wannbe.

[Chris Morrison]

Here are photos of the mods I did:

Extending the left knees was easy, by clamping 6" long pieces of hardwood to the "angle-iron" knee levers with small 'C' clamps; I used 1" 'C' clamps. The "angle-iron" lever makes this really simple. Ty-raps might also work. I didn't add paddles, but I don't see why not -- I saw a picture of some online on a Starter for sale. If you can make 'em out of hardwood and thin hardwood plywood, they might work fine, if clamped in. Ty-raps might not work well though.



The left knees were also too far to the left for my short legs to comfortably reach the pedals, as David noted. There's a solution -- the original lever angles are set by the levers resting on the cross-rods, so by clamping little hardwood shims between lever and cross-rod with _tiny_ modelmaker's 'C' clamps, it's possible to shift 'em a good inch to the right (LKL) or left (LKR). Result: the pair are more to the right, lining my leg up with the pedals, _and_ closer together. Maybe a little too close together -- I may thin down the LKR shim.

LKL shim:


LKR shim (hard to see b/c it's small and the clamp is in the way):


RKR shim (I did this too. The tape on the clamp handle is to keep it from fouling the pull rods):



The right knee lengths are OK because the volume pedal raises my knee. They seemed far apart though, so another clamped shim moved RKR closer to RKL

LKR travel seemed enormous compared to the others. It has three tuners on the endplate, one of which is the stop "tuner". It's half the length of all the other tuners, and I don't see why -- with a 3/8" spacer added, the stop happens with less travel, and the two actual tuners can be adjusted to give correct E-Eb lowers with plenty of threads still engaged. Travel is now about 1-3/4". So far so good; Carter probably has a good reason for their setup, and I may find out the hard way what it is!

The spacer (dull brass color) on the stop "tuner". Note that the lever in this picture is RKR:


None of the above seems to affect the raises and lowers. However, these 'C' clamps do keep the levers from folding into the body. Ty-raps, if they work, would probably solve that. Won't be an issue for a while yet They are completely un-doable, so if I ever sell the guitar, it can be truly put back into original setup just by undoing all those clamps! (and that spacer).

So far I haven't shortened the legs -- it seems less necessary now that I'm using a higher seat as Richard suggested. If I do, I'll try making a set, because these don't adjust, and I want the originals unaltered for possible resale.

They're not solid aluminum rod -- they're heavy-wall tubing, with 7/16" inside diameter. This is just about perfect hole size for tapping 1/2"-13 threads. Since the hole is already "drilled", the tapping should come out aligned with the leg, making tapping without a machine shop quite practical IF you're willing to cut the Carter legs. I'm still mulling that over.

New legs could be easily made from scrapyard rod stock if I had a machine shop. I don't. I think it's still doable by hand, but far less easily. Carter used 1/2"-13 allen setscrews for the threaded stud that screws into the body. They're screwed halfway into the leg ends, and probably LocTite'd in place... For adjustable feet, use the original feet and thread holes in the leg ends (1/2"-13 again)


-Chris