Knee lever problem Legrande II

Steve Stallings · Post by **Steve Stallings** » 18 Sep 2002 8:17 am

After one month of trying to use a regular Emmons tuning, I've gone back to my old "Shobud type". I am raising my E's with LKL and lowering my E's with RKL. I am raising the fist string a whole step with LKR and also dropping my 6th string with this same lever. This is how the guitar was set up prior to me switching knees. When I switched back last night, I can't seem to get enough travel on the LKR to move either the 1st or 6th strings enough. I would guess that I worked on this for close to two hours last night before finally attempting to pull out what remaining hair I have. The LKR on this guitar uses a pivoting mechanism on one crossrod with a little linkage rod going to another crossrod which actually has the pulling rods on it. This worked FINE one month ago when I changed the knees around. The only thing I remember moving when I did this was the little linkage bar up a couple of holes in the 14 hole bellcrank. I tried multiple locations with the bellcrank holes, but can't seem to find the right combination.
This mechanism does not appear to have a knee travel adjustment. What is going on here?

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 18 Sep 2002 11:05 am

Steve,
Try the top hole at the changer and the bottom or close to the bottom hole in the bellcrank for the 1st string raise. The 6th string should come down pretty easy. I had a Legrande II and it got it there for me. I'd work my way back up the bellcrank if you can to make it feel better. I used the RKL to raise my 1st string and had to move the white plastic stop over a notch. You may need more travel at the knee lever itself too.

Steve Stallings · Post by **Steve Stallings** » 20 Sep 2002 6:18 am

I am now done working on this guitar. I have spent the last two evenings with it.

This guitar was originally 8x10 with a Day setup and the Franklin pedal.

Here is what I did:

This guitar had an extra pull rod on each crossrod at the closest hole to the crossrod. Near as I could figure, these accomplished nothing very useful and my other D10 Emmons did not have them.

I started by taking these off. Then I removed the two extra knees on the Left knee, still leaving me three knees on the left. I took off the Franklin changes which were so stiff as to be unuseable in spite of being hooked up as far from the crossrod as possible.

I then removed all rods from the E9 side. Using the rodding theory from the Carter site, I completely rerodded the E9 side. This took a little experimenting with leverages because you can actually make the guitar pedals "too easy" to press down.

I then oiled all moving parts and cleaned her up.

Results: Ok, now I have it set up 8x8 with five knees working on both the E9 neck and on the C6 neck. (There is a vertical LKV for the C6). The guitar is perhaps five lbs lighter and plays perfectly. I guess my next project with her is to dive in to the compensator unit, which I didn't touch. The guitar has split tuning available on any string but I'm only using one of them on the 6th string at the moment. Maybe, I'll experiment with that

One thing is for sure, this really is a learning experience.

Ricky Davis · Post by **Ricky Davis** » 20 Sep 2002 8:41 am

Good going Steve....I know that deal pal...sometime you just have to start at square "A" and go from there.
But hey.....you now know THAT guitar better than anybody.....and you will never have a problem you can't fix now my friend.
Ricky

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 20 Sep 2002 3:59 pm

Franklin changes which were so stiff as to be unuseable in spite of
being hooked up as far from the crossrod as possible.

That was your problem.They should have been as close to the cross bar as possible.I would just adjust the drop return comps and not remove them.

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 20 Sep 2002 4:11 pm

You're so right on that one Bobby. You set me straight on that one and it worked fine after that. I was thinking the same thing when I read his post.