The Steel Guitar Forum

Hello Everyone,

I recently purchased a ShoBud 6139 3x1 with the old rack and barrel system underneath, and I have to tell you I absolutely love this system! I only have 1 knee lever which I setup myself to Lower both Es to Eb, well I wanted an E to F lever as well but my guitar needs all the parts to add a knee lever, which is going to take some time.. so...
I just modified my knee lever (RKL) to lower my 8th string from E to Eb and also raise my 4 string E to F, all on one lever!! Now I can use 1 knee lever for double duty until i actually get another knee lever installed. It literally took 5 minutes to make the change to the knee lever... All this after having the guitar for less than a week. I am a rack and barrel fan for sure! Easy to work on, and this plays and stays in tune EXTREMELY well... And the sound, my goodness its got a coil tap switch, and when I tap the coil, through my 1967 Ampeg rerverberocket II with a 1957 Jensen P12N.. Nice! only an 20 watt amp, but sounds great just mic it for gigs.. wooohoooo

Just wanted to share in the goodness

Smitty

Welcome to the 6139 Club...

The two-hole pullers are almost as easy, and a bit lighter.
Congrats on the rig.
BTW, Michael Yahl at www.psgparts.com has kits to add levers.

i've shared that rack n barrel joy myself. they are so logical. you can figure them out at a glance.

Love my R&B!

I still have a fondness for the rack and barrel system. Kind of like an old girlfriend.

I had a 3+3 R&B round-front '72 or '73 with the lower-wound split-coil pickup for quite a while. Tone heaven. Only reason it's gone is that I'm just too tall for narrow S-10 pedal steels. I finally decided it's SD-10, D-10, or at least a 1.5-wide S-12 for me.

But I have a mid-60s D-10 Fingertip that I need to tear down this summer when I get some time. The undercarriage parts are soaked in dried-up nicotine right now - it came out of a Nashville pawn shop, and obviously has been around the block. But these old Sho Buds just sound great, to my tastes.

Yeah, love mine. That's my guitar in my avatar. It is 3+2, and adding 3 more knees with parts from James.



I recently wanted to try a tuning compensator, which was amazingly easy to implement with the rack and barrel system.



When adding new pulls, you can leave the rods at their full length (trimmed so the far end won't contact the opposite side end-plate). That keeps options open for moving things around later by simply adding barrels where you need them. For experimenting with pulls I don't see how you can beat this system.

The original pickup has a coil tap, wired to a 3-way switch. It sounds luscious through my Fender Deluxe.

Leave the rods at full length... absolutely.
Case in point... on my E raise lever (LL) I added a barrel on my 6th string to true up that string in the A pedal/F lever position. It only moves slightly, and right at the end of the KL's travel, so you can't feel it a bit... but it trues up that string just perfectly. And all you have to do is add a barrel to an already existing rod.
You gotta love the versatility and simplicity of the rack & barrel system.

Exactly, Skip.... tuning compensator.

A great system that has held together for almost half a century.

I'm still lovin' mine...just love the tone thru my Fender Super!I think it's a '73.

How about some undercarriage photos? Those are some beautiful steels!

Mitch

Serial #2752.
Complete with a couple extra barrels & stops, just hanging around, doing nothing.

Don,

What is the chain-drive linkage on that knee-lever?

Dan

That's the reverser. Notice it's over on one side and under on the other. Clever. And on a Rack and Barrel, it's not like you'd notice the extra weight...

Yes, it's the reverser. I didn't want to remove the pots and switch, but they were kind of in the way to put the lever where I wanted it.

Love this guitar...

Where is the best place for either video or diagram description for the adjusting, tuning, general maintaining of the Rack and Barrel system. I have a 6139 3X1

Also I've been wanting to add knee levers ever since I got this guitar. Best place to order parts??

The names Jeff Surrat and John Coop came up last time I looked into it. Still the place to go and how can I contact them?

Thanks!!!

I sent you a PM with some info. I'm sure others will chime in. Some of our members are pretty good making our Buds work better.

We lost John Coop in 2011.

Don,
Now you've got to use Tri-flow lube. It's made for bike chains. RP

My favorite system. Wanna change something? 10 minutes. Infinite possibilities.

Ron Pruter wrote:Don,
Now you've got to use Tri-flow lube. It's made for bike chains. RP

The one for chains has a paraffin (wax for you Brits, because you call something else paraffin, divided by a common language again) base. That's not the stuff.