Design and build of a Franklin style 12 string.

[Don McKinley]

The instrument is now ready for the smoke test and play-ability adjustments. I wish now that I had mitered the body so that the joint was right on the corner. That would have looked a lot nicer. I'll remake one or two parts as time goes by. I'll add another stop for the vertical knee lever. I may add a curly maple overlay onto the pedal bar. It isn't polished or deburred yet but it works fine. I notice now that I have it all strung up that the helper springs pull a bow into the small area where they attach. I didn't notice that the Franklin had this peculiarity. I think it's because mine is machined and the Franklin is cast with castings being stiffer than the plate material that I used for machining mine. I may have a boss welded on inside and work it back down and re-polish. Functionally it's just fine but it does bother me just a little. I can just see somebody walking up to me at a gig if I ever get that good. "Hey Don, I notice that your end casting has about a .007 inch bow there where the helper springs attach." Me "OK that does it. I'm tired of people telling me about that. We can just step outside and you can just weld me a boss on there. Let's go pal. You bring your rig? We can settle this right now."

I am now playing the steel. It's real fun. I've done some adjustments. I need a few more springs to lighten the load here and there on the mechanics. I'm real happy with the Steeltronics single coil Z12 pickup. It's nice and quiet and sounds real good. My wife wanted to get me an amp for my birthday and so asked a pedal steel friend for recommendation for something not excessively expensive cause I thing that would just be overkill for me at this point without any reference. He made a recommendation of a used Peavey Amp or something like that. Well she was out driving on an unrelated expedition up in the hills and, I kid you not, somebody was throwing away a Peavey amp a nice microphone stand and a brand new Manhassett music stand in a pile of garbage taken out of what looked like a house flip remodel. What are the chances? Right when I get this thing done? She asks me "Do you want me to get you an amp?" I say nah, I'm not going to be playing anywhere I'll just plug it into these little whippy computer speakers while I learn. The amp sounds real nice.

What I think happened is that God had someone put out all that stuff in case a new pedal steel guitar player wife would happen to drive by listening to Hebrew on tape cd's. When she comes pulling up home with all this stuff. It nearly knocked my hat in the creek. I got to thinking about that over night and so I says to her "Honey I says, why don't we just drive back up there (it was way out of the way in the hills) and check out those garbage bags and see if there is any boxes of cash or anything else." So we got in the car real early Sunday and drove back up there. Well when we got up there I just started feeling so self conscious and embarrassed about going out dumpster diving on a Sunday morning in a nice neighborhood that I couldn't bring myself to even just toss those nice clean bags in the back of the car and sneak back home and check them out here with nobody looking. The bags were the thick ones and were brand new high mill bags with not a wrinkle on them and you could tell that there were boxes inside them and not full of banana peels or something. I'm such a coward. I could be rich today. Who knows what riches and jewels and boxes of cash and extra PSG strings, picks, and volume pedals and such were in that pile of bags. There might have even been a winning lottery ticket there.

Oh well, back to adjusting this PSG. This post is almost done. I just have one or two questions about adjustments for the next and hopefully last installment.

[Don McKinley]

I purchased a set of beautiful legs from http://steelguitarparts.net

They are an apparently standard size from outside collet surface to shoulder at the start of the thread at 23-1/4" They seem long for my instrument and my size. I am 5'-10".

The top of the PSG end castings lie at 29-5/16 off the floor. The legs seem about 2" too tall. I am not an experienced player and so can't quite judge yet what would be the best height. It's no problem for me to shorten the legs, but I'd hate to make em too short.

From the picture you can see that the vertical knee lever seems to indicate a need to lose around 2" on the height of the guitar to be comfortable. Does that look right to anyone that has a little experience? How about the height of the chair is that too high or low. Should the players upper leg be level while playing. I'll have to re-bend the pedal rods which is no problem they started real long and I have already trimmed and bent them to length once. I don't want to cut off and re-thread the rods cause they're real nice rolled threads which I really like.

This has been a real fun project. I'll probably post any questions that I can't find answers to on separate postings. This post may close out this thread unless anyone has any answers for me or questions or a request for any other picture that I took while building this one. I don't think I'll build any others. I'll have my hands full trying to learn how to play this beast. Oh yeh, I might need to lose a few pounds. That chair is looking a little wobbly.

[Jim Palenscar]

Much easier to get a chair about 1 1/2" taller and see how it goes. Ergonomically, it is good to have your forearms parallel to the floor.

[Bobby D. Jones]

I am about 5' 91/2" tall. And I admit I like to play in heeled boots. My seat is about 19 inches tall.
I agree with Jim Palenscar a 1 1/2" higher seat, Would be the cheapest, easiest and quickest way to get you in a better position. With forearms level when playing.
Pretty guitar, Happy Steelin.

[Ross Shafer]

yeehaw, great job Don!

[Jack Stoner]

From the GFI site:
"Standard height is 26 1/4” from the floor to the bottom of the back rail that the knee must fit under."

That is common for most guitars. My Franklin and GFI were identical 26 1/4".