The Steel Guitar Forum

A few months ago I received an old MSA S-12 in a trade. It's a "Classic" model with the wood body and all but it's only a double raise, double lower changer.

I've never worked on one of these in my life so I'd like to get a couple of tips if someone can help me out.

Here goes......... when you raise a string to two different pitchs, which one goes into the top hole on the changer the one with more travel or less travel?

When you lower a string to two different pitches, which hole does the one with the longest travel go into, the top or bottom hole?

I've just removed all of the rods from the guitar so I just have to move some bellcranks around and re-insert the pull rods in their proper spaces so I wanna try and get it right the first time.

Another question. My RKR is going to be my 4th and 8th string lowers and the RKL will be the raises for the same strings. Since I have two holes for both raises and lowers, which one should the rod go into.......

Any other setup tips you could give me would be greatly appreciated....Thanks in advance....JH in Va.

Here's some shots of the guitar...........

Jerry,

First off, I owe you many thanks considering that I'm currently using a fair amount of the copedant you posted on the Ext E9 thread (Ive reverted back to using my LKR to raise strings 2&9 C#>D). The fact that I put it on a '76 MSA Classic, makes me further indebted to helping you on this....

My RKR 4&8 E lowers are in the "center" positions of the changer, 4 is in the highest slot of the bellcrank, and 8 is in the 3rd highest slot.

RKL 4&8 E raises~ 4 is in the "center" position, and 8 is in the "outer". 4 is in the second bellcrank slot, and 8 is in the closest slot to the shaft. I also have string 12 going to C# on the "outer" changer position, 3rd bellcrank slot from the shaft....

Shoot me an email if you have any other questions....

-Mike

Hi Jerry this should help-

http://www.steelguitar.com/roddingS12.html

Thanks for the help guys, I'll try to get this thing up and running as it needs to be out there working and earning it's keep.........JH in Va.

This will give you a good reference for rod positions. Bill

http://www.steelguitar.com/rodding.html

and Dave O'Brien....

I owe YOU many thanks for selling me this MSA 2 years ago!!!!!! It's a great guitar, and I'll post some pics on your U-12 thread soon!

Mike - I musta been on a D-10 kick to let that one go! I'd love to see a pic again, your buddy,Dave

Just ran into another problem. I'm going to have two raises on my 5th string B and also a lower but since it's only a double raise and lower mechanism there's only two positions on the bell crank.

I wanted to make all the rods "straight pull" under the guitar but I've got a raise and a lower hooked up already and there's no room to add another raise rod without going beside the bellcrank into the next one. Would it be OK to make a bend of sorts to go around the bellcrank? If so, I guess I'll try that. This is taking much longer than I thought it would..........JH in VA.

Bends are good.