The Steel Guitar Forum

Thanks John, Thats a real compliment.

I finished rough machining the two endplates. Had a few close calls along the way on the parts, caused by machining too late at night. Fortunately in the morning I saw that I didn't really go too far, just seeing crosseyed the night before. There's a little bit of secondary machining left on the plates not counting sanding & polishing.

Jack, Thanks for posting the pic. That's an interesting picture. I see (if I interpret correctly) that your E9 neck is the far neck and that the LKL lever is curously closer to the player as compared to the other knee levers.

The endplates...

The E9th neck as the "front" neck is the usual setup. Except for Ralph Mooney and a very few that copied him, the back neck was the E9th.

As you are building a single neck the knee levers will have to be placed accordingly. The placement of the knee levers on mine was the Franklin standard setup. Determination of where to place the levers probably came from his time at Sho-Bud and working with his Son and other Nashville steel guitarists such as Hal Rugg. It would probably be helpful if a picture of the underside of a Franklin S-12 were available.

Laying Out the cabinet

I inlayed the bridge brackets with a butress into the top (possibly overkill) so that there would be a positive stop to minimise cabinet drop. In order to avoid hand squaring up the recess I just milled the slots to avoid the square ends as all this will be not visible under the neck. I hate the blow out at the corner...grr...oh well. Now the whole world knows. BUT...everything is very tight it all has to be pressed into the recess.

Glueing the sides one at a time with several small aluminum dowels for indexing. You can see the inlayed logo on the front. One of the first things that came to mind. Everything is basically square and so I'll just call it "Box Car". I had to engrave it twice cause the first time was too shallow and I sanded through the black epoxy fill. I clamped firm but gentle to avoid embossing the clamp faces into the wood. (I always wince when I see clamping without clamping blocks)

Adjusting the thickness of the spacers for correct string spacing. I decided for .375" between strings at the bridge. That's still seems too narrow but 12 strings is pretty wide at the bridge.

On to the neck. I'm putting a recess into the top of the neck and will install a wooden or composite faux fretboard instead of a decal. I still don't know what I want to put on the fretboard for a pattern. I'm thinking about either a background train motif or a non matching pattern based on the banjo hearts and flowers pattern. If anyone has any suggestion, I'm all ears, but I can't promise anything.

I was able to get two pedals out of the peghead billet center recess.

I decided to make em in pairs. I knew there would be one or two rejects (and there are) and so I just made 10 in 5 pairs. Maybe I'll make a C6 neck later. The material I'm using for a spoil board here and in other pictures is called Trespa. It's a very hard durable phenolic mineral filled composite that they use to make bathroom partitions. It's great for milling work fixtures.

The shaft material for the bridge that I am using is linear rail shafting. It is tremendously hard and the only way to cut it is with something hard like diamond or grinding wheel. I mounted a dremel style grinder into a collet in the lathe and slowly ground my way in. The surface is beautiful almost mirror with a fine wheel followed by some fine grit silicon carbide paper and then polishing compound.

It's finally starting to take shape. I only have one more miner part to make which is the end cap behind the bridge. Everything left is fit and finish which is itself a big job. The area by the inlaid epoxy logo looks kinda dirty now with some rough sanding but will tidy up with finish work. I like the knot in the middle of the front side and may put a similar one on the middle of the fretboard. Unfortunately all of my pictures have been taken with my cell phone camera which is an early model. I'll see if I can upgrade the quality and sharpness of any future pictures that I do as I finish the project.

I'm impressed. I wonder what Mr. Franklin thinks of all your work (he should like it).

Very impressive Don! You might consider the fact that strong and stiff might not be equated with great sound properties. I replaced a changer axle w the hardest drill rod that I could and the guitar's sound went south so I went back to 303 and all was well again.

Jim,
Interesting about the 303 stainless. What was the diameter? The Franklin that I am copying as you know has a very large 5/8 shaft. In the business of making functional structures, the proof of the pudding is definitely in the eating. You can't argue with success. A friend tells me that a classic guitar he made was very disappointing when he first strung it up but it started blossoming overnight and very rapidly became outstanding. I do have a stainless axle and just may compare the two. I chose a chromed hardened axle for the surface properties as the chrome is very slippery and I expect that would minimize hysteresis on the changes. I am sure that elasticity is very important in the body just as it is in the strings. For those who are familiar with playing a saw, the key to the playability of the saw is a recurve by stressing the saw into an "S" shape. The saw may then be bowed with a violin bow. I'll bet that the pedal steels that play the best have an elasticity to the structure that is a better match to the needs of good response. I've thought a lot about it as I have made somewhere around 100 violins, but I confess that there's always room for improvement.

I don't recall the specific guitar but it was probably 5/8" or 9/16". It is interesting to me that it is the sum total of the guitar that produces the tone and that everything seems to matter and the weaker and thinner materials(obviously thick enough to support their function)seem to have an edge or some of the thicker stronger materials as far as sound transmission and character to my ear. Let's compare an Emmons all pull vs. an older MSA. Two drastically different guitars- the Emmons quite obviously the lighter of the 2 w thinner and weaker components and way different tonal characteristics. Concerning the hysteresis I might view the problem a bit differently- primarily due to the relative lack of hysteresis in keyless guitars when compared to keyed guitars. Quite obviously there are some of each that are exceptions in either direction however my thoughts on the problem focus on the rollers as a point of friction to the string that is not distributed equally particularly when the string returns to pitch after a lower. In my mind's eye I see the presence of a roller creating drag on the string- essentially grabbing the string so that when it is attempting to come back to pitch originating at the changer the roller stops the distribution of the tension evenly from somewhat less than 30# (+/-) to roughly 30# creating a disparity in the tensions greater than before lowered tension on the string between the changer and the roller to somewhat less than that between the roller and the tuner. It is also interesting to me is that guitars with that smaller diameter roller shafts such as 1/16" seem to have less hysteresis than those w larger roller shafts. Perhaps this observation is due to less contact between the roller and the shaft- not sure but makes sense to me.

Don McKinley wrote:I was able to get two pedals out of the peghead billet center recess.

You're doing a killer job on this, kudos! I'm enjoying seeing your progress. I especially like that you're harvesting two pedals from the center of your keyhead. Metal miser magic!

He is a smart cookie

Don, just harking back to your post on the bellcranks you built --- they look identical to the Franklin ones, and if they fit the Franklin crossrods you could be a man in high demand !!

I for one need some extra bellcranks for my D10 Franklin, and so do a few others - since they are as scarce as rocking horse doo dah, you could have a little income on the side providing spare parts for Franklin guitars since Paul Snr is retired...
Please lets us know if you would be interested in custom orders of Franklin bellcranks, once you have finished your project ..

This is amazing.

One of the times I "talked" (listened) to Mr Franklin he had his reasons for using the size changer axle. Its been at least 30 years ago and all I remember is that his time at Sho-Bud had some bearing on it.

Actually in my talks with Mr Franklin everything in the guitar was done for specific reasons.

An example, the (axle) holes in the changer fingers were machined rather than drilled as machining produced a smoother hole.

I am in awe with your project, which seems very precise and high quality.

However, I have one main concern:
It was my BELIEVE that Franklins have all (machined) CAST aluminum necks, key heads, end-plates(?)

I would suggest that that CAST aluminum vs. billet aluminum have fundamentally DIFFERENT sound characteristics. Since Franklins are cosmetically in the Emmons-Zum "Family" (which many other brands have taken up with various results), I asume you are after the Franklin TONE. Changing the materials in as important parts may prove detrimental to your quest or promising an unpredictable result.


... J-D.

I, for one am curious as to Mr. McKinley's background/profile that he would have the ability and equipment to accomplish all of this,,,machinist?, steel guitar player?,,engineer?,,savant?,,,

Whatever it is he certainly has my highest praise and congratulations!!!

J D Sauser wrote:I am in awe with your project, which seems very precise and high quality.

However, I have one main concern:
It was my BELIEVE that Franklins have all (machined) CAST aluminum necks, key heads, end-plates(?)

I would suggest that that CAST aluminum vs. billet aluminum have fundamentally DIFFERENT sound characteristics. Since Franklins are cosmetically in the Emmons-Zum "Family" (which many other brands have taken up with various results), I asume you are after the Franklin TONE. Changing the materials in as important parts may prove detrimental to your quest or promising an unpredictable result.


... J-D.

The cast vs machined parts was my comment early on. I don't think it will sound like a Franklin. However the sound may still be great. I still give him kudos for the project. My friend Martin (Mike) Weenik's steels had machined end plates and keyheads and they sounded (and played) great.

Man, this is a HUGE project. Glad you are staying after it. Thanks for the updates and pics. As a Franklin owner, I am real excited about what you are doing.

On your planning for the fret board, Making a temporary board out of Plexiglass may be a way to go and you can experiment a little.
When I built a steel guitar about 1970 I used Plexiglass and spray paint. leave holes and pictures or drawings could be laid under the plexiglass.
These fret boards have lived through me playing and 3 kids in the house too.

I put 6 small screws to attach with, Double sided tape would work well too. If you want to get wild route out the neck and put LED lights under the fret board.