The Steel Guitar Forum

This was a fine old guitar, but it had a LOT of playing time on it.

I'm curious to know if this issue was ever resolved.

It might be that the 4th string changer is gummed up and not being allowed to pivot and could be dragging the lowering finger with the raise. I would suggest observe the changer fingers and see if only the raise finger is moving away from the stop. If both are moving forward I would remove the string and the lower return spring and manually move the raise finger while holding the lowering finger back and see if it works freely, if not, you might be able to try to free it up either by cleaning or perhaps just with oil and work it back and forth until it is freed up. You should consider all the other suggestions but if they fail it would not hurt to try this one.
Jerry

Hey guys sorry didn't mean to seem like I was ditching the thread I have just had some personal things going on the past few weeks and couldn't get back to the bmi I will try seeing if the spring still might need to be shortened some and go from there will also trying some light oil on the changer.all the metal spacers that go between the tuning but and finger are still in place.will be sure to let everyone know how this comes out.will try to get back to it tomorrow and post the results.thanks again for all the suggestions.chris

One more thing- I've had those spacers freeze up on the pull rods and that can cause some headaches trying to figure it out- solved by removing them and cleaning~

Glad you checked in, Chris.
There's lots of good info here. Most of us could nail it down pretty quickly if we had the guitar here in front of us. Hands-on, diagnosis is rarely terribly elusive. It is more often than not something fundamental and fairly easy to remedy.