Carter Starter F Lever Question

Brooker Buckingham · Post by **Brooker Buckingham** » 18 Jun 2003 12:26 pm

I'd appreciate some direction on a minor problem I'm having with the F Lever on my Carter Starter.

I've been playing the Starter for about 10 months now, and over the past two months I've began regularly experimenting with using the knee levers.

I've recently discovered two issues with my F Lever.

1) It's angled quite far inwards, making it uncomfortable to work with.
2) When tuning my fourth and eighth strings with the F Lever activated (my tuning chart says to depress the A Pedal when tuning the F Lever), I can tune the fourth string just fine, but the eighth string is quite flat.

I'm assuming I have a travel issue. I can't seem to deduce what I need to do from watching the video on the carter starter website and reading the instructions on the steelguitarinfo.com site.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Michael Frede · Post by **Michael Frede** » 18 Jun 2003 1:54 pm

Carter Starter knee levers use one of the screws that hold the crossbar bracket to the cabinet as a 'stop'.Counter clockwise on this screw will move where the lever stops inward or closer to your knee.Start with the tuning nuts on 4 & 8 backed way off and the rods plenty loose.Now adjust where you want the lever where to stop it's leftward movement with the screw.Then tune the raise nuts.There should be enough slack in the rods to accomplish this-used to have a CS.If you still can't figure it out,call John Fabian at Carter.

Brooker Buckingham · Post by **Brooker Buckingham** » 18 Jun 2003 2:10 pm

Thanks Michael. After much patient tweaking, it turned out the stop screw was the issue. Things sound MUCH better now.

Bobbe Seymour · Post by **Bobbe Seymour** » 18 Jun 2003 4:54 pm

Now you know why it's called the "F" lever!

Just kidding Bud,

Rich Young · Post by **Rich Young** » 18 Jun 2003 5:09 pm

I, too, have a Carter Starter, which is actually a pretty nice instrument. However, I have had problems with the F lever. I did replace the screw with one with a flat head - I went to the HW store and got one same length, threads, exact except for the head. That helped it, but still have a problem with it being stable. I've tweeked with it a bunch, but it still goes out of tune a lot. All the other pedals/knees work really well, I don't know why I am having problem with this one.

This is my second one, the first one I got from Musicians friend, was obviously used. It was ok except for - the F lever. I sent it back and got this one.

I'm going to play with it some more this weekend and probably have to give them a call.

Other than this one thing, I think it's a real good deal. It really does sound and play pretty good for a steel that is - what? - 1/2 - 1/3 the price of a regular one. A lot easier to sell to the wife!

[This message was edited by Rich Young on 18 June 2003 at 06:11 PM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 18 Jun 2003 10:04 pm

Yeah, I can't get my wife to buy any of my guitars.

------------------
<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6),
Roland Handsonic, Line 6 Variax

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 19 Jun 2003 1:35 am

Buy em' ? heck I'm still trying to get my wife to carry them !

She would never buy one from me , she knows I wouldn't give her a good deal !

I told her, you bid on EBAY like the rest of them..

tp