The Steel Guitar Forum

I again found something on a Carter steel that has me perplexed... As I started rodding this guitar after getting all the torx screws loose[nasty job]. I found some of the hooks in the pull rods were bent too much, and would not go back over the dog bones very easily.. No big deal, I got a small needle nose, and GENTLY tried opening the hook jjst a tiny bit.. Probably a 1/64 or less.. I put NO pressure on it and SNAP, the hook broke... wtf???.. Tried another. Just a very slight touch and again SNAP! When I looked the broken edges looked very "crystaline" if that makes and sense.. Now I am really afraid of these super brittle stainless steel hooked rods.. I am going to use what I have that fit[less than half], but the rest I am making out of mild steel.. All of a sudden. I am questioning the parts and assembly procedure that were used on Carters.. I never had one torn down this far, and man I have seen some weird things.. Unmovable bolts and tiny set screws full of loctite, flimsy brass dog bones, and stainless rods that snapped like they were made out of hard candy... I bought a carter new and played it many years trouble free.. Now I am wondering about the reliability once its been apart.. I am find new things every day here that are really troubling with this guitar and the parts and build procedures used when it was assembled.... bob

I'm not sure what you are doing, but I just bent one of the Carter stainless rods, and it didn't break on me. I've done it in the past too.

Work hardening or improper heat treatment can make metal snap like this as you probably know. The only thing I can think of is 'annealing' the metal with a torch.

Bob, I've had that happen to me, but never had any problems with the dogbones. I bought my 2002 New and still play it daily! Maybe the earlier Carters had a different brass alloy.

John Swain wrote:Bob, I've had that happen to me, but never had any problems with the dogbones. I bought my 2002 New and still play it daily! Maybe the earlier Carters had a different brass alloy.

John.. Not worried about the dog bones.. I am more worried about the rods. I used a very small flimsy pair of needle nose, used no pressure at all, and had two rods break in half at the bend, and look very jagged and crystaline.. Like hard candy.. Really weird... maybe they got a crappy batch of rods.. When I bought my first Carter [brand new], it was breaking strings at a monstrous pace.. When I called Bud he said they got a bad batch of nut rollers,and they probably made it onto my guitar.. He sent me the new rollers, and sure enough end of problem.. In my opinion there is NO way 2 shiny new looking rods should snap in half witha miniscule pinch from a little needle nose..I am not an expert , but that metal looks very strange to me,, Stainless is usually pretty hard to break,,, bob

Bob, back when I was rerodding the guitar I bought from you, I had one or two rods break in the same way. If I remember correctly they just broke when removing them. I had to steal rods from another Carter that I had, to replace the broken ones.

Someday, when time allows, I am planning on trying my hand at making some hooked rods for that other Carter, to replace the ones I borrowed. But the experience with the broken hooks has made me wonder if I'll have to heat the rod when forming the hook. (I was planning on making a rod bending jig so I can hopefully form the hooks with some consistancy.)

There are different types of stainless steel, and I wonder if the Carter rods were sometimes made with a less ductile alloy.

I've, too, have had Carter rods that snapped like a carrot at the hook.

I suspect they were made from the '300 series' type of stainless steel, which work hardens quite considerably during cold-forming.

On some of the shorter rods on my Carter, I used bicycle spokes, with no problems.

John Swain wrote:Bob, I've had that happen to me, but never had any problems with the dogbones. I bought my 2002 New and still play it daily! Maybe the earlier Carters had a different brass alloy.

You might want to take a look at the dog bones at some point. Everyone I have talked to about them have noticed the middle parts wears down, and sometimes breaks. Think about it, you have a stainless steel rod rubbing against a brass pin. Which do you think is going to win that fight?

Bruce Derr wrote:Bob, back when I was rerodding the guitar I bought from you, I had one or two rods break in the same way. If I remember correctly they just broke when removing them. I had to steal rods from another Carter that I had, to replace the broken ones.

Someday, when time allows, I am planning on trying my hand at making some hooked rods for that other Carter, to replace the ones I borrowed. But the experience with the broken hooks has made me wonder if I'll have to heat the rod when forming the hook. (I was planning on making a rod bending jig so I can hopefully form the hooks with some consistancy.)

There are different types of stainless steel, and I wonder if the Carter rods were sometimes made with a less ductile alloy.

Bruce, the hooks form easily and perfectly for me using 3/32 mild steel... I hold the end I want to form the hook over a propane torch, get it close to red hot and bend it with a needle nose.. They are easily adjusted afterwards if need be. I made up 3 so far with the little bit of 3/32 I had from other projects.. As I stated earlier, I will be using plain steel for all the rest of them.. Cheaper, easier to work, and the guitar will never know the difference.. I run some steel wool over them and wipe them down with an oily rag, and they look fine... Been doing it for years and have had no problems with rust... bob

I had a friend bend some stainless rods for the MSA, that needed to make a 3/8" offset just an inch and a quarter away (the lever shaft was right next to a pedal shaft pulling the same string). One took the bend beautifully, and the other snapped and the metal also looked crystalline.

I bought a used Carter U-12,last winter, and had a rod break off at the hook, while it was being played. -Jake-

some of the stainless from china has the wrong alloys and will snap. They use a lot of melt downs instead of raw minerals. Its hard to find good metal and steel.

Bob Cox wrote:some of the stainless from china has the wrong alloys and will snap. They use a lot of melt downs instead of raw minerals. Its hard to find good metal and steel.

Yes, I can attest to that.. As a long time auto technician I can say that the parts made in China[almost everything sadly] are absolutely dismal when it comes to wear... Years ago, you would replace ball joints once in the life of a car.. Nowadays, they wear out in a year... I have had Chinese made ball joints wear out and be totally shot within 8 months and 6,000 miles.. The metal made there is dreadful.. I guess i didn't think that these rods might have come from china.. In any case, they ARE most likely welding rods, and probably were not intended to be used in a "wear" part.. bob

Bob, I have started replacing all my dog bones with these MSA type things. It requires cutting off the hook with a dremmel and inserting these which carter should have used at the get go. My Carter is an S10 2010, made after Bud left the factory. When I compare the workmanship,to my 2008 model the 2010 model is inferior in a number of small ways. I guess woth Buds departure quality was not maintained.

Brian.. where did you GET those?.. The only person I know of is Al Brisco, and at $6 per+shipping from canada, I decided to pass... Check your email!... bob

I haven't found source for the 3/16 inch barrels except Al. If there is any other, I would like to know too. I put these on my A, B and C pedals. I want to do the other two E9 pedals and 6 knee levers. That's 14 more to do. At $6 a pop, that's a good chunk of change.

I just bought some 3/32" welding rod. Although they are stainless, they were pretty easy to make pull rods out of. I have an old linesman's pliers that cut right through them with only a little bit of effort. Tapping them was not hard either. I was Leary about cutting the hooks off, thinking the rods might not be long enough.

Duplicate. Boy, the forum isn't very iPad friendly.

Bob, I got mine from Al Brisco. Kind of expensive , but I know of no other source.

Brian

Carters sound good, but I'm hearing too many stories like this about them. I don't think I will ever buy one.

I have lots of those in 2 lengths both 5/16" long and 3/8" long. They are Ø1/4"(.250").

http://www.psgparts.com/Barrel-Locking- ... BL-250.htm

I'm assuming that these will work as it's been stated that the MSA barrels are the same. MSA is the application that these intended for but please let me know if they will also work for your Carters.

Michael

Hey Bob,
Just to throw another idea out there, the tips are constantly being worked. Maybe, if subjected to this process long enough they could eventually become "worked hardened"? I wonder if the remaining rod is as brittle or if it just was the tip?

Regards,
John

Michael Yahl wrote:I have lots of those in 2 lengths both 5/16" long and 3/8" long. They are Ø1/4"(.250").

http://www.psgparts.com/Barrel-Locking- ... BL-250.htm

I'm assuming that these will work as it's been stated that the MSA barrels are the same. MSA is the application that these intended for but please let me know if they will also work for your Carters.

Michael

They won't work. They have to be 3/16" diameter to fit in the holes of the bell crank, and that's a tight fit. The holes might be able to be drilled out but that would require removing the bellcrank, and might make the area around the hole weak and possibly break. Plus, you would have to deal with removing the torx screws that were mentioned, and you would have that headache. They also need to be 5/16" long, although 3/8" could work, but I wouldn't go any longer than that.

I don't know if you remember, but we "talked" about you making Carter parts a while back, but you told me you wouldn't because Al Brisco still had Carter's stock of parts, and wouldn't until all those parts were gone.

Thanks for that info Richard,I've got so much going on right now I forgot that we'd discussed that.

Nevermind...

Will Cowell wrote:Carters sound good, but I'm hearing too many stories like this about them. I don't think I will ever buy one.

All guitars have some sort of little problem that crops up. The Carter issues aren't really an issue unless you are changing the copedent around like Bob is doing, even though the dog bones are a problem. Using the barrels instead of the dog bones is a major improvement, but it is really a bitch to get the rod to go through the little hole without the barrel turning in the bell crank. Using a small allen wrench placed in the hole on the opposite side of the barrel than where the rod goes through, helps a bunch. Doing what Bob is doing is a pretty big task.

Will.. Our friend Richard is 100% dead on!!.. I played a Carter for YEARS, and it was a brilliant pedal steel. I told John Fabian what I wanted, and it simply did everything I ever asked.. Now that being said, yes if you have to totally dismantle a carter, move everything around, make 14 pull rods etc, you are in for a lot of work.. The biggest bitch I have is the excessive tightness of very small fasteners, and the ludicrous use a of Loctite.. It turned this into a really tough job.. I still have 3 pedal stop screw that are loctited in place and won't budge, and the allen wrench is slipping in them, so I will have to deal with that perhaps when the final fine adjustments are made..
This guitar had a VERY odd C6 setup, every one of 10 pedals and levers on the right half of the guitar!. and had to be totally revamped.. Most carter steels will have a more conventional copedent needing a LOT less work.. I knew that going in I had a lot of work to do on this particular steel.
I bought it because 5 and 5 S10 steels are very hard to find...Please don't feel there is anything "wrong" with a Carter.. They are great guitars, just have some quirks like the tight fasteners, loctite and brass dog bones, most of which never cause problems for most owners... When I played my 1st Carter year after year, I never even knew those parts were there, it was just a very reliable steel.. If you ever find one a a price you like, grab it and don't think twice!... bob