The Steel Guitar Forum

Henry Matthews wrote:Bob, that's really not that big a deal but the way you talk about everything shifted to right, you are probably going to need longer rods to make E9th work. Everything else should swap fairley easy. I think you can get those from Al Brisco.
Good luck

On second thought, if it were me, I would find some of those little brass barrels with the set screw that will fit in bell crank holes and do away with those dog bone things, if that's what it has. That way, you could use a straight pull rod with threaded end which I think works much better. You are definitely going to need some longer pull rods.

Richard Sinkler wrote:It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. The first pedal usually goes in the second pedal slot as they pre-drill for a zero pedal. Since the knee levers don't actually mount on the cross shaft, you can place the cross shaft anywhere, and mount the lever where you want it, as long as the "intermediate rod" is long enough to go from the lever to the cross shaft. And if you take Henry's advice, go with the barrels (like on the knee lever intermediate rod). That way you can place the levers anywhere, and cut the new rod a little longer than what is really needed. That way you can deal with the slack to be what you need. As far as where the knee lever is mounted, front to back, place them where you think they will be most


comfortable. You really have an advantage over
someone ordering from the factory in the fact that

you can mount the levers where YOU want, not where

the builder wants.


Already figured out the pedals and they are in the right place.. I just want the knees where the factory puts them,.. thats where they were on my old carter and it was perfect.. The 2nd hole is where the pedals start unless there is a zero pedal which would be right against the leg... If I can't get some help on factory lever placement, I guess I can figure it out myself, but geeez I thought at least a few guys would have a plain old carter s10 and could give me a heads up... I am aware of the dog bones, bent push rods etc, and will most likely make my own from 3/16 brass hobby tubing.. bob

A word about switching from dog bones to the barrels. Al Brisco sells the barrels that will fit the Carter bell cranks (3/16" diameter). Michael Yahl sells some, but I believe they are 1/4" and won't work. I wanted to mount one of his half stop assemblies on my Carter, but those barrels were too big and he didn't have any 3/16' ones. Buy some stainless welding rod and make new rods. I bought some through Amazon for like $13, and I can do my E9th neck on my D10 with some to spare. I would also replace the socket head cap screw with a hex set screw. The cap screw could get in the way of other rods. Trying to bend the hook in new rods would be a real pain. I never could do it. If you want to stay with the hooked rods and dog bones, just tell Al which pedal you need them for, or better yet, the length, and he will take care of it.

I would actually suggest that you call Al. He is probably the best source for info on a Carter. He can probably set you straight on which holes to use for pedals/levers.

David Mason wrote:Well, as the guilty party (with the temerity to think a S10 C6th would be a good-enough idea to order it) I would say, if you can assign a location of the existing holes to a specific map point, either on graph paper or on a drawing program, you can then move all the hole locations around as units, entirely consistent with each other. If I wanted a Carter S10 in E9th tuning and I had something to play in the meantime, I'd put that one up as an even-up trade for one, because there are hundreds of S10 E9th Carters out there. (Exp. for others: As it was never set up initially as a S10 E9th, there aren't any E9 "starting" points to go back to.) And of course I.M.O. that's quite a little piece of work, if it wasn't for this G.D. sciatica it never would've left here; but the amount of painkillers needed for me to use left-foot pedals reached the point where details like eating, driving, thinking etc. were hittin' the skids. Involuntary muscle spasms might be harnessable for vibrato but not by me, and I can't even fathom another operation - the lumbar, sciatica one is a low-percentage one in the first place.

Or, if you have a steel with ideal pedal & knee locations already, you could use also that as a template for assigning new positions relative to each other. Obviously going from D10 to S10 locations is going to change up some of the angles, but the relative relationship among hardware placement has got to be the way to go. And once you have a template for all the measurements for one pedal, the rest get progressively easier. I wouldn't drill the first hole until I was sure of where they were all going in relation to THAT hole, and then just drill and install the two most-distant, "outside" mounts to see if my scaling/angle ideas were accurate, then adjust as needed. (There was a reason I had Carter do the hard thinking? )

But since you have worked on a lot of steels, at some point you will just have to trust yourself. And As Richard says it is a chance to get one exactly the way you want.

Henry Matthews wrote:Richard, did all Carters have the dog bones? I bought one new in 90's and don't remember mine having those.

Bob, good advice from Richard to give Al a shout.