The Steel Guitar Forum

A complete novice question :

I am back to practicing after a several month hiatus and I am reminded again why I got frustrated enough to walk away in the first place. I was never in tune.

How in the heck do I tune the pedals correctly on this instrument? I own 3 books that discuss tuning the instrument and none of them have been helpful in covering this topic.

I own a Carter Starter that I bought used but it did not come with a device to turn those hex headed rods. Don't I need to be able to adjust those? Everything is at least a half step sharp with the pedals down. I contacted the people at Carter about this about a year ago and honestly it should not have been as hard to get information out of them as it was. I abandoned the process and don't intend to deal with them in any capacity again.

If this piece of equipment is what I am missing, will any 3rd party device work?

Charles, you need a tuning wrench for those hex nuts that tune the pedals and levers. Click Here

Hi Charles, don't give up just yet!
You do need to tune the hex heads on the end of the guitar to tune the pedals and knee levers.
There is a nifty tool for this by "George L" and your best bet and quickest way to get one would be to call Scotty at http://www.scottysmusic.com or
Bobbe at http://www.steelguitar.net.
Or most any other steel guitar shop listed on the links page of the forum. The tuning tool only costs a couple of bucks and will have you in tune and playing in no time.

Charles,you HAVE to have that tool to adjust the pulls,Awhile back a guy that had bought a new Starter called me over to help him tune it,He could'nt find the little hex tool,I think he either lost it or threw it away when he was unpacking the guitar,anyway he had a lot of tools and we found a hex driver that would work.DYKBC.

Thank y'all so much for the input! I knew I was missing something important. I will order one of these a.s.a.p.

If I had neighbors they'd be happy too.

A 3/16" hex wrench should work. Any ratchet set would have one. Just be gentle with anything that doesn't fit perfctly - stripping those would pose a real problem.

A 3/16" nutdriver from the local auto parts store will get you thru until the "official" tool arrives

Charles,

Where in Texas do you live?

I play around Dallas and Denison and would be glad to stop by and help you get going.