The Steel Guitar Forum

can any one give me any info on a Marlen D-10 ?

Put this in the Pedal Steel section, and you will get tons of info. There are guys there that know these things in and out.

Richard is right. A search, can provide some info as well. I own one, but nobody can tell you anything about yours, without a little more info...?

Great tone, pretty wood. Well made, but their value is diminished by so many people not liking or understanding the pull-release mechanism.
I regret selling mine.

I would love to have a Marlen. And Lane is very familiar with them, and will blow you away with the info you need.

great guitars...beautiful wood, and awesome tone...stay in tune forever when set up correctly... plays smooth, and quick with solid stops...

Hello Clyde, Marlen guitars were built by an excellent craftsman, the late Leonard Stadler. Marlen guitars were more than capable of producing a great tone, when in the hands of a good player of course, as with any guitar. Mine was an earlier model, purchased new around 1969, extremely smooth mechanically, beautiful maple and walnut w/Star Of David inlay. After Leonard familiarized me with the workings of the pull-release changer, I never encountered even a minute problem with the guitar. Pictured below was my Marlen, a D10 model equipped w/8 & 4.

That's a beauty, Jerry!
Here's my '71 D10:

As you can see, not all Marlens had a lacquered cabinet with beautiful grain...

Edward, I like your color combination. Our Marlen name plates look the same. Mine originally had little rhinestones in the letters however, most of them eventually fell out. My case was lined with black fur/velour and you could see the little loose rhinestones embedded in the material. I never saw a Marlen that I didn't like.

I like the tone/sustain, Tony Arrowood gets on his blue S-10 Marlen. Fine player to.

Probably the nicest of the all the guitars built on the Sho~Bud Permanent design. When I first saw Bert Rivera in the mid-60s when he was with Thompson, he had a lovely D-10 Marlen. Since I had a Fender 400 at the time, it was clearly a case of Gear Envy.

Though I've never owned one, I had an S-10 here at the house for a few months and was so pleased with it's silky, transparent high end that I fantasized about acquiring a D-10. That is, until I told myself that I was thinning the herd generally and that getting yet another guitar would be working at cross-purposes.

I may acquire one in a trade one day and I'd definitely like to see what that felt like.

Feels like about 70+\- pounds, in the case, Herb!

Pull-release is as simple as it gets and have great tone. Here's the topside of a 1972 pull-release Marlen D10:-



and here's the underside:-



and another look from the keyhead end at the undercarriage, showing a lot of very straight rods:-



They play with more of a push-pull feel and their tone is legendary. They must be properly set-up but once they are you have a real keeper. Like a push-pull, raises win out over lowers on the same string.

Thanks for the replies ! I was told steel players was super to help and I find that to be the case, again thanks .

Ned, your Marlen is positively pornographic.

I've been playing a Marlen for a couple of months now. It's a very fun guitar to play, feels and sounds great and has a ton of mojo.

Though I have three cross shafts mounted underneath I've only managed to get an F lever in there so far. Still, I've used it on all my gigs and rsessions in that time. I really tried to bring the push pull out the other night but ended up grabbing the Marlen at the last minute. Guess I can't resist all that mojo!

Truly amazing instruments- Ned did you have your refinished?
If yours is a '72 mine looks like it's from the 1800's:)
But it's an all pull, therefore newer than yours.

Amazing tone, and incredibly stable ( albeit quite a load to haul)

G'day David,

The cabinet and undercarriage were both refinished when I bought the steel. Gary Sill refinished the cabinet and did a super job. The wood looks like it is "under glass". Jim Flynn refurbished the undercarriage and also did a heck of a lot of good work on it but he didn't set it up for playing...at which point I became the owner and decided the undercarriage could be "rationalised". There were a lot of pull-rods with bends in them, and I felt the steel would play better and be easier to set up if as many rods as possible were dead straight. One of the reasons for all the bends in the rods were the old Marlen bellcranks were single-sided only.

Getting just about all the pull-rods dead straight was done to minimise unwanted friction and drag, both enemies of stable tuning with the pull-release system.

So, I spent several weeks with a model-maker's lathe, turning the old single-side Marlen bellcranks into double-sided ones so rods could run straight through the gap in the middle, just like a modern all-pull steel. In addition I had to make stop-collars (aluminium), rod-guides (white Delrin) and rod-clamps (bronze).

The changer was untouched, and I didn't add side-rails of aluminium-angle for the cross-shafts because each end of the cross-shafts sits in a miniature "Torrington" needle-roller bearing set in a hole in the wooden cabinet - well-supported and very smooth in action.

Gutting the undercarriage allowed some "enhancements". Each bellcrank was locked onto the cross-rods with two opposed set-screws instead of a single one, and every change was re-rodded using stainless-steel 2.4mm welding-rod, which were threaded with a metric thread, 2.5mm X 0.45mm, whereas the American set-screw size of 8-32 was retained for all the stop-collars, rod-clamps and bellcranks.

Deviating from American standard threads on the pull-rods caused me some anguish but rationality prevailed over sentiment; I wanted a steel that was stable, maintainable using materials available in Australia and looked as though someone cared about it.

On various threads re Marlen steels quite a number of photographs of my work have appeared (a search will turn them all up if you are interested) and the result is an old steel with a new heart...and all the tone, playability, tuning-stability and appeal of the vintage 8X4 Marlens.

One very important thing I did realise was that it is one thing to set up a pull-release steel-guitar when it is sitting upside-down on a table...but you need to check it again once it is standing on its legs because the pull-rods hang a little differently underneath when it is the right way up - and that can make all the difference to getting pulls to be repeatable and to return "true".

Pardon my ignorance, but can a half stop be achieved on a pull release guitar ? How is this accomplished ?

Mechanical half stop like the MSA or Sho-Bud.

Lane is correct, a mechanical half stop can be put on anything that moves, push pull, all pull, pull release and even lawn mower throttle. It consist of a strong spring, rod and a few keepers and of course, anchor points. Basically looks like this. this if off Pedal Steel Guitars Parts Web site.

Makes sense to me now ! Duh

gentlemen I am dennis n brown I am a beginning steelplayer I hav just purchased a 78 marlen doubleneck I have been playing a carter starter I need toknow the basics I dohave some dumb quest ions 1 which neck is the e 9 and which the c6 the guitar is a 8 pedel 4 knee model which pedals and knees works the e 9 neck and which works the c6 neck I have been using aexpensive korg ttuner to tune my carter using 440 441 439 etc can I tune the c 6 the same if so what a the frequencies for the c 6 tuning the electronics are allworking as are allpedal and knees ijust need some basic info on how to do the tuning and set up I ama accomplished musician I play bass, rhythem some lead violin and sing have played in bands for years and amwanting to learn the steel sorry tobe so dumb but helpme plase yours dennis brown

Some detailed pics of the underside would help us answer you specifically.
In general, the E9th neck is the far one, and C6th is the near one.
Typically left knees work the E9th neck and the right knees work both necks.
The leftmost pedals usually work the E9th neck.

thanks lane for your helpful reply as for pics I am very computer dumb hecki am 68 and not of the computer generation when I was in college we still had to use sliderules in college chemm that was backin the stone age you know just go up to the pibehindc on this and look at the one jerry van hoose shows mine is just like it same color cabnet and has spring tensioned screws also the red one belowmr van hooses from new south wales Australia looks just like mine but for some reason every thing on the underside is black like some one painted it whyi don't know can you give me any c6 tuning s presently I use a korg tuner and tune to settings of 441 441.5 442 439 etc can c6 be tuned the same way if so what is the tuning frequency for each of the 10 strings my computer tech is comeing tonight I will see if he cn show me how to posts pics thanks again any one else can chip any instructions in writing would be helpfulalso dennis