The Steel Guitar Forum

I have an early 70's MSA Classic D10 that originally just had knee levers on the right knee (raising/lowering the E's). I bought a LKR and LKL kit so I could move the E changes to the left knee and do some raises on the right knee.

I install the kit, and RKL is working fine. The LKR, lowering the E's, I just can't get to work right. It needs way to much force to get the full range of the lower and I can't get it to stay in tune.

I've spent a couple days fiddling with it, and am ready to just turn it over to an expert to get it set up properly. Does anyone have any recommendations in the Chicago area?

Make certain the lever is not "overtuned". Look at the bottom of the changer and make sure all the changer fingers are in line. If one or two are out of whack (not in a perfect line), that could be causing your problem. There's a thread near the top of this section on overtuning, and how to correct it.

Changer should look like this when guitar is in the case. All changer fingers in a neat little row:

Don't use the lowering hole in the changer that's closest to the top of the guitar- frequently that will also raise the other scissor and make it next to impossible to achieve a decent lower.