The Steel Guitar Forum

Dick Chapple Sr wrote:Gino:
Well we're done baby-sitting our grandson, now I have to go bowl in 45 minutes.
I'll get home around 830PM and get those positions etc for you, hopefully you're still up. I am a very late night person so I'll get those to you tonight.
Dick
sorry about the delays.

No worries Dick. I'm a night owl as well, so Ill probably still be up.

Okay Gino hope this helps:
Pedal travel...A = 5/8"; B = 1"; C = 7/8"..this is Emmons not Day.
RKR rods...string 2 is bottom hole on bell crank, center hole on changer. string 9 is next to bottom on bell crank and center on changer. RKR also handles 3rd string on C6th neck and is next to bottom on bell crank and center hole on changer.
I was surprised to see the difference in my pedal travels.
Funny I can't really tell there is that much difference when I press them down with my feet.
My pedals push down really easy.
Dick

Thanks Dick. My pedals are setup to have the same travel. This does result in the B and C pedals feeling heavier than the A pedal though.

Well I'm getting a little frustrated. Can't get the RKR lever correct. The stop at D takes almost now travel to get to, is not at all defined, and then it takes a bunch of travel to get to C#. The pull rod is also too tight, which seems to be a common theme on the guitar. Six of the seventeen pull rods have no slack and feel quite tight. Starting to think it might be money well spent to send this to someone that can get everything as it should be.

Wished I knew how to help Gino.
Perhaps there is someone close by so you wouldn't have to ship. What takes me days to do probably someone who does this kind of thing all the time would probably have it up and purring in very short time.
Probably be worth it, then once you got it back you could take pictures of everything, jot down measurements etc anything that would allow you to keep it in shape.
I have tons to learn, I have one knee lever on my Fessenden that is out of whack, I need to take a decent block of time, throw the A.D.D. aside, concentrate on it and adjust it correctly once and for all. It is pushing and pulling a ton of stuff, is hard to actuate, and is affecting the return of a neighboring string.
anyway, there must be a qualified person nearby to setup your guitar.
Keep me posted.
Dick

I forgot to mention that I can feel the stop at D on string 2 before continuing to C#.

Dick Chapple Sr wrote:I forgot to mention that I can feel the stop at D on string 2 before continuing to C#.

I wish I new exactly what creates that stop at D. My knee levers all have more side to side slop in them than I would like, so I went out today and got some thin nylon washers to shim them. RKR is one of the sloppiest, so I'll get a better look at it when I pull it out to put the shims in.

The tight pull rods are bumming me out, don't know why they are like that, but that's where the are when the raises and lowers are tuned. It would seem if I set the pull rods that are tight lower in the bell crank, the increased travel would allow the rod to have more slack. Not really knowing what I'm doing, I'm reluctant to start changing things.

As I'm thinking about this, the solution to the tight pull rods may be to set the stops to allow more travel. I'll have to chart out which rods are tight and see if they are all on the same cross shaft or not. If some rods on a given cross shaft are too tight, but others on the same shaft have play, then the stop may not be the right fix. Hate it when I don't know what to do!

Sounds like you're as bad as I am, you keep doing, pretty soon you will know how, of course it might be an all nighter if you lose track of time like I do.

Dick Chapple Sr wrote:Sounds like you're as bad as I am, you keep doing, pretty soon you will know how, of course it might be an all nighter if you lose track of time like I do.

Soooo, I think I have this figured out, well, the tight pull rods anyway. As an experiment, I moved one of the tight rods to a lower position in the bell crank so there would be more throw on the rod. When I tuned that change, the free play in the rod is now perfect.

Still frustrated by the RKR lever though, no significant stop at the lower to D. Curious Dick, do your knee levers flop around like there is too much side to side play? Meaning play in the direction perpendicular to the travel of the lever?

Good morning Gino.
I have no side play in my RKR. My RKR hangs in a bracket mounted to the underneath. It is a squared off U bracket that the lever hangs in. Are the sides of the bracket on yours maybe bent out on each side so there is a bunch of slop. Or is the pin or bolt that holds the lever in the bracket too small causing the lever's side slop? Maybe the bracket holes, lever hole, and pin or bolt that holds them together are worn or mishapend from continual use.
sure hope all my blathering trying to describe is clear enough.
dick

Dick Chapple Sr wrote:Good morning Gino.
I have no side play in my RKR. My RKR hangs in a bracket mounted to the underneath. It is a squared off U bracket that the lever hangs in. Are the sides of the bracket on yours maybe bent out on each side so there is a bunch of slop. Or is the pin or bolt that holds the lever in the bracket too small causing the lever's side slop? Maybe the bracket holes, lever hole, and pin or bolt that holds them together are worn or mishapend from continual use.
sure hope all my blathering trying to describe is clear enough.
dick

Hi Dick, my levers are mounted the same way yours are, and the brackets the levers mount in seem in fine shape, nothing bent. Looks like it's just a matter of the slot in the mount is wider than the lever allowing some side to motion. I'm not too worried about that, just a matter of some nylon shims to snug things up.

Tonight I'll go after a couple more of the tight rods, before you know it, it will be all ship shape. The one issue I think will be the toughest to resolve will the intermediate stop on the RKR lever. One step at a time.

Hi Gino:
How are you doing with your Remmy?

I am going to try to do some very careful cosmetics to mine.
My two Remington logos were removed by another person but I was very fortunate to get two replacements coming from from Herb Remmington.
The wood on mine has been slathered with some kind of clear coat, looks like a varnish or something, the front is okay, but the top is awful, it was so poorly applied, so I will try to clean it up without damaging anything or the finish.

Have you gots your mechanical parts all set up the way you want now?
Dick

Oh, by the way, what year do you think yours is? What is your serial number?
Mine is 90797. Herb thought it may be about a 1985 model, he said the serial number did not have a date built into it. I was guessing it may be a July 1997 build but not so.

Dick

Hello Dick;

Sorry for the terribly late reply, life has been chaos around here lately and I'm just getting back to having some time to play.

Yes, everything is sorted out and functioning correctly. I've spent some time going through the undercarriage and replacing all of the Phillips head stop screws with allen heads and installing nylon acorn nuts on them to quite the stops down. I do have a couple of changes I still plan to add, and one more compensator I would like ti install as well.

I've also started on a new pedal board due to the pedals on mine being set 5/8" too far to the left, so the rods are out of plum. Moving the pedals over will also help with the relationship between the pedals and LKL and LKR levers improving the playability. This relationship was pointed out to me by a local instructor I had look at the guitar. Along with the pedal board, I also plan to rebuild the pedal bracket hinges. They're a little sloppy for me, and thus noisy, so I'm going to machine new axles and install some better fitting Delrin bushings to tighten things up.

I know what you mean about the finish, mine looks like the finish was applied with a broom, but I've accepted it for what it is, and have come to like the funky well used vintage vibe it creates.

I've installed a Telonics pickup in the guitar that I got from Jim Palenscar at Steel Guitars of North County and the guitar now is incredible. Killer tone through my Milkman Pedal Steel Mini. Talking with Dave at Telonics, I've learned that the pickup I have is probably a $1000 dollar pickup. They were custom, and they only made three of them. Of the other two, one is owned by Jim himself, who I think asked for them to be made, and the other one is in the hands of Greg Leisz, one of my all time favorite players.

I'm always looking at other guitars, but I just don't want to part with the Remmy, so I'll have to add to the collection:)

I live in Houston and I've visited Herb in his shop, which is his garage conversion, quite a few times. I ordered a Sustain Master back in 1999 and Herb never was able to finish it. He had a cabinet maker, who finished my cabinet, and a guy who made the undercarriage parts. The undercarriage man got cancer while building my guitar and never recovered and Herb then quit building the pedal guitars. I got a refund and bought a Carter. I also know Bobby Bowman did a lot of assemble work for Herb, but he didn't build them.
Herb still plays one of his Sustain Masters in an SD10 tuned to A6.