Another Marlen question

[K Maul]

I am trying to put a Marlen single 12 back into extended E9 tuning and I don’t have too much reference to go by. When I got it all the rods were removed. Can someone show me some pictures going into detail about exactly how the rods with springs are attached that tune the E open notes after the raises and lowers have been set? The ones with the nylon tuners. I have some of it set up but I don’t know if I’ve done it correctly. Now I have to try and set the Es for the raises and lowers. In this first picture, what purpose does this cross shaft serve? It is not attached to any pedal or knee lever. What rods should be going through it and how should they be attached? Thanks for any help anyone can give. Just a couple shots of the Es illustrating what I should do would really be great.

[Ned McIntosh]

Your E open-note tuning and lower-mechanism will be on one rod per string. The open-note will tune with the nylon hex-nut on the threaded end of the rod at the end-plate, the lower will tune using the stop-screws in top of the end-plate.

The rod will run full-length, from under the keyhead to the end-plate. At the keyhead it will attach to a bracket with a tension-spring, thus (as you can see, I used quite a few tension-springs on my E9th neck):-

Using the nylon hex-nut, you will tune the open-note against the tension of the spring. The changer-finger must have sufficient space to come to rest against the lowering stop-screw when the lower is engaged, so when you set it up initially, put it roughly in the middle of the total travel of the changer-finger (you may need to adjust it during setup).

Two bellcranks, operated by your E-lower knee-lever, will achieve the lower. At those bellcranks you will need to fit a stop-collar on each rod, and the stop-collar must have a small tab on it which fits between the two sides of the bellcrank.
This is vital, as it stops the whole rod rotating when you use the tuning-nuts...the tuning-nuts must advance and retreat along the thread to increase or decrease tension to tune the open-note. If the rod itself rotates, the open-note just won't tune at all! (I see in one of your pictures such a tabbed stop-collar at the very bottom, slightly left of centre.)
The following picture shows the stop-collars, with tabs, positioned on the rods at the lowering bellcranks.


Once you have the two rods installed, with the tabbed stop-collars at the E-lower bellcranks and the tuning-nuts on the threaded end, tune the open-note initially using the tuning-keys until it is tuned. Stretch the string a few times until the note stays true.
Then activate the E-lowering knee-lever. You should see the bottom of the changer-finger move backwards until it stops against the set-screw, and the note will lower. Now screw the stop-screw in (or out) until the lowered note is true. Then release the E-lower and see if the open-note has returned true.
If the open-note is not returning true, re-tune it, and repeat tuning the lower until both notes are true and return true.

You may have to adjust the spring-tension on the rod to achieve this. You may also have to move the tabbed stop-collars back and forth slightly until the tabs stay inside the bellcranks throughout the lowering and returning-to-open cycle. The tabs must not fall out of the bellcranks at any stage for the reasons stated earlier.

Getting the balance between string-tension and spring-tension is at the heart of setting up and tuning a pull-release Marlen. It can be tedious, but it can be done. Without that balance being achieved, you can't tune the steel.
Several adjustments of the various components may be required, in particular the lowering-rod stop-collars so the tabs stay inside the bellcranks.
Remember to use the same gauge of strings all the time, and stretch them a few times before attempting to tune. Once a pull-release Marlen is set up, they are remarkably stable.

One final complication. When you rig your E-raising mechanism (the last step in setting up the E-strings), the raise rod must have enough slack in it for the changer-finger to move all the way back to achieve the lower that you have just set up without it coming up against the raise-rod stop-collar.
As your raises are on a pedal, this means the pedal-travel for a pull-release steel is always a little longer than for an all-pull. Very much the same as a push-pull.

Here is a photo of my E9th neck E-lowering system fully-installed. I had to reverse the movement of the lowering bellcranks via a (stiffer) rod from the top of the knee-lever bellcrank to the bottom of the lowering bellcranks. I also added a return-spring mechanism mid-way along the cabinet to help the knee-lever to come back to battery (photos below).

and here's the spring-system I used to help the knee-lever return fully (unactivated):-

and activated:-


I'd also make the point we work on our steels when they are upside-down, either in the case or on the workbench. But when we play them they are right-side up, and gravity may make the rods hang slightly differently compared to when it was upside-down and you were working on it. That alone can make a slight difference in a system such as pull-release! Final tuning must alwaye be done when the steel is in the playing position.

Once you have it set up, then go ahead and install the E-raise rods for each string. Once your steel is all done, it should look something like this (of course,it will be not as wide, as you have a single-neck):-

[K Maul]

Ned, thanks very very much! This will get where I want to be.
Two questions remain: where can I get those stop collars? What do you think is the purpose of that shaft and bell cranks that I showed that have no connection to a pedal or knee lever?

[Ned McIntosh]

Re the little tabbed stop-collars; I turned these up on a Unimat 3 model-makers lathe (I rebuilt the undercarriage on a 1972 Marlen D10 several years ago).
I see one very similar stop-collar in the bottom of one of your photos, so you have one already, and may have more. If not, a hobbyist might turn you up half a dozen for a challenge, or maybe some beers or whatever is "barterable".
The extra cross-shaft and bellcranks has me puzzled. Offhand I can't think of anything except perhaps an exotic knee-lever which was never installed.

A quick word on raising the Es, if I may?

When it comes to raising the Es, string 4 has the most complex part of the setup. It needs three separate rods:-

i) the tension-rod, which tunes the open-note and the lowered note via the E to E flat knee-lever,
ii) a second rod, which tunes the E to F raise via the knee-lever,
iii) a 3rd rod, which tunes the E to F# from pedal 3.

The photo below shows the endplate with string 4 as 4th from the right. This is a 4-hole pull-release changer, same as yours. Later Marlens had a 6-hole changer. These photos will give you a good idea of which hole to mount which rod.

The blue circle is around the nut which tunes the E to F raise on the knee-lever.

The upper of the two white tuning-nuts(circled, below) tunes the open E, so this is the tension-rod with the spring at the keyhead end.
It also tunes the E to E flat lower at the stop-screw (in the endplate, directly above the tuning-nuts):-


Lastly, the bottom rod (with the stop-collar on it) tunes the E to F# raise on pedal 3. This raise is tuned at the keyhead, as are almost all raises on a pull-release steel.

Hope this is useful.