Sho~Bud Rack & Barrel Orientation / Poll

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Greetings Sho~Bud fans,

I am experimenting with two rack and barrel Sho~Buds to see which orientation of the racks seems to hold the pedals and knee levers tuning most stable.

Guitar A has the racks facing the more common way with closed end up against the barrels, OR guitar B which has the racks facing the opposite open end up against the barrels.




Guitar A








Guitar B





Please vote if you have a opinion on this matter, Thanks!



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Here is one of the two old Bud's (Guitar B) that I just rebuilt and am using for the "experiment"


Sho~Bud Professional that was previously stripped of C6th neck. I bought it for parts and wound up having enough parts left to rebuild it and make a functional 3 pedal 4 knee lever SD-10

I considered replacing the inlay as it has some roughed up spots, but decided to leave the original as-is.

Original factory pickup with coil tap still in good working shape, sounds like a Sho~Bud.

I played around with the finish and it worked out to be the cherry sunburst that you see.


Before








Now -






And here is Guitar A






Thanks for checking it out.

[Dave Hopping]

Looks pretty nice! Are you thinking about a pad?

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Looks pretty nice! Are you thinking about a pad?

Thanks Dave! Yes a black bad with western tolex. Tommy Huff is cutting the plywood patterns and he is going to send them to Leigh in Nashville to do the covering.

They will be shaped like this, it's Tommy's design -

[Ian Worley]

According to the original patent drawings the open side of the racks should face away from the changer, but you rarely see one set up this way, so...

0 Open end facing barrel
0 Opposite end facing barrel
X Either way works fine

[Ron Pruter]

I worked at S/B back in the early 70's (in the woodshop and buffing lacquer). I've owned three. I built my first one, traded for my second, and a dear friend gave me his Professional for my third one. I think they started out open end to barrel and went to closed end. I highly recommend closed end to barrel. Ron

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Thanks Ian for the drawings, didn't know such info was readily available.

Thanks Ron for the real world experience you shared, invaluable!

I seem to personally be leaning toward the open end as the surface area that the wire tip has to catch is much greater, and less of a chance of a wire tip getting caught up against the flat of the rack.

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Hoping for some input from any Sho~Bud folks who have worked on and played rack and barrel guitars, and “tamed the beast”

[Michael Yahl]

Mike, you are correct in placing the face of the adjuster barrel to the open side of the rack.
This was the original design intent per the patent drawings. I have a close relationship with David Jackson and have discussed this with him before.
Also, from an engineering standpoint it makes more sense to have the open side to the barrel as it gives 8 points of contact for the spring tit to contact and is a more solid contact being that they are straight surfaces. I also recommend to my customers, when they ask, to flip the racks to that position if they are pulling rods for any reason.
Placing the face of the barrel to the closed side of the rack is where most of the complaints arise about tuning difficulties with this system. As the spring tit rotates around on the flat side, it only has 4 points of possible contact and those are not ideal. Due to the bending/forming process of the rack, this leaves formed radii at the bend points. Many of the OEM barrels had varying lengths of the spring tit protruding. The shorter the protrusion the worse the tuning problems as is imperative that the tit have a solid catch point to come up against in order for the forward end of the barrel to stop and rotate as the rod is rotated to tune the string. With the solid side of the rack against the face of the barrel the spring tit is trying to catch on a radiused corner and more often than not simply pushes away and continues to rotate negating the purpose of the adjustment.
Yes, the closed face of the rack makes the rack sit pretty as the open side often has 2 different levels and causes the rack to sit askew, none the less, that is the correct way to set them up.

The information that I have is that Sho~Bud employed musicians when they came in off the road. As there were no written work/assembly instructions, as we have in the industry today, at some point, someone assembled a guitar with the racks in the wrong orientation. Much assembly was monkey see, monkey do and so from then on they were assembled incorrectly. That is also part of the reason that 3 PRO II guitars could be assembled at the same time side by side, by 3 different people and not 2 of them were exactly the same. Hence my mantra "there are no rules with a Sho~Bud".

Michael

[Mike DiAlesandro]

Michael- thanks much for the detailed explanation and your knowledge on this subject. I have been working on a fair amount of these rack and barrel Sho~Buds and it is nice to know the correct/better way to set them up.

Also, thanks for the quality parts you provide to the steel guitar community!

Mike D