The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi, I just bought and older MSA, early 70's I've been told. Some of the pedals and knee levers were changed when I got it and I wanted to change it, guess I should have left it alone. I was wondering if anyone might have any info on how to route the rods and things like that, mainly how to set it back up I guess. Do you start with the raises or the lowers first or does it make a difference. Thought it would be a lot easier than it seems to be. It has 5 pedals and 4 knee levers, I though that I might be able to get it set up to the standard Emmons setup and then lower the 5th & 6th string with the 4th & 5th pedals but I'm having a lot of trouble routing the rods to make it right...Any help I can get with this would be greatly appreciated...Thanks in advance...Jeff

Hi Jeff. While there are many ways to go about this, I generally start with the raises 1st and from the keyhead end 1st. Generally the Emmons configuration of the C pedal warrants a higher position on the bell crank and if those are used 1st it makes it more difficult to work with the rods underneath them. Glad to help out anytime. If you want to give me a buzz- the number at the shop is 760-754-2120.

Thanks Jim, I have a feeling that before this is done I may be getting in touch with you and thanks for the offer....I appreciate it very much...Jeff

Jeff, I'm not sure where Ft. Covington is located in NY, but Bob Carlucci is from NY also and he may be able to give you a hand. Bob is located in Candor, NY. You can reach him via the forum.

Good luck, I have a 74 MSA Classic that Bobby Bowman rebuilt for me and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Great Guitars.

Carter Has A Place Showin How To Rod A Steel On Their Web Sit. SONNY.

Hi Jeff, I`m still in the prosess of re-roding mine(MSA classic 5pdl-4knee).I think I`m trough with the rodding,still waiting for some new strings to try it out.The CARTER web site is a great place to look ( look under" The steel guitar information resource") and the SIERRA site is another one. Search the forum`s archives. One past post that helped me was "STEEL GUITAR RODDING CHART". At the carter site they have a rodding chart they use for a D10 & S10 that helped me rod mine. I tried to do it just like they did it, just a couple of places I had to take a guess cause they had more raises then me. I decided on pedal 0 lower the G#`s to G,then EMONS A B C pedals, then the FRANKLIN pedal (lower 5,6 and 10) I had to order more bellcranks and rods and other stuff from LINKON STEEL GUITAR. If you need some hard to find parts for youre guitar,they can help you out. Hope this helped.

Heres the top and bottom of a '74 Classic D10 I finished re-building a few weeks ago. I added four knee levers to the four that were on it originally, and ended up with 39 pulls, so the rods got a little congested. It will do everything my modern steels will do, and plays and sounds great. It looks like it just came off the show room floor. It is heavy, but I'm currently building a set of split cases for it with rollers on the big case. I'll post pics of them when I'm finished. I'm trying something I haven't seen done before, I want to make sure it works before I mention it.

I made all of the knee lever angles adjustable with thumb screws, similar to my Legend and Millennium. I'm planning to add adjustable return springs in the future which should make it play even better.

Well Jeff. you are a long way from me... about 245 miles...You are WAY up there!!... If you ever want to take the drive, I can have your MSA up and running in no time..I have owned 6 of them since the 70's and still have a beauty right here. I can set it up to play nicely in a few hours unless there is some major wear or damage problem with the changer or something, which is very doubtful on an MSA. They are bulletproof... If I can help out contact me... bob...
bullet_bob@lycos.com

I used the following sequence.

1. I install all of the cross-rods and the hardware on the cross-rods (loosely) on the cross rods (making sure that all of the plastic bushings are in-place).
2. Install the rods which are closest to the deck first (raises). BTW: the rods closest to the deck are the rods on the bottom when the guitar is upside down and being re-rodded.
The rods farthest from the deck get installed last.
I tighten the hardware to the cross-rods whenever I install the first rod on to a given puller.

Darvin, you're an inspiration.

Here's mine:


One day I'll have money and time to make it look like yours.

Nice guitar Ricky, it looks nice against that white background. Down here in central Texas, we see very little of that stuff, thank God.

I love this Classic, I haven't even played my Legend or Millennium since I finished this one, not that it's better, but it just plays and sounds different.

Ricky,

Sending you some sunshine from SOCAL !

definitely looks like a cool place to practice !