The Steel Guitar Forum

I recently acquired a D10 Professional that’s all rack and barrel and was wondering if it’s possible to use the existing 4 knee levers on both necks and how to do that if it is possible I believe one of my 4 levers is pulling a string on my C6 and E9 neck but how do I make this possible on all levers so that I can have the standard 4 knees on my E9 and C6 without having to buy parts for new pulls and lever kits

Joe,
Not a small request you are asking? You can't just go out and buy these personalized parts for old R&B's. They would probably have to be custom fabricated. But, the answer to your question is yes it can be done. RP

I would presume the RKL is operating on both necks as that was fairly standard. Only the RKR would be of any use on the back neck as the standard left knees would be out of reach while playing the C6 pedals. The RKR can be made to operate on both necks but it requires very specific parts to work properly without totally gutting the undercarriage.
Michael Yawl at PSG is your best bet for getting those parts( be prepared to send pics, descriptions and model numbers are pretty much useless in this case).

Also, understand that even that is not necessarily a small undertaking, it would require the removal of all the rods on the back neck and installing a rack that is connected to the rack on the front neck, then reinstalling the rods( and of course the barrels).

I also recently acquired a R&B professional. Seems to me that the specific rack that actuates both necks is attached in the middle. You'd have to get more racks that attach in the same manner for the knees to actuate both necks. And space is definitely limited under there. You may look into adding some bell crank pieces to fit your needs as they take up less space and are somewhat still interchangeable.

Further, your LK levers for the c6 neck would be in the wrong place anyways. So really you would only want the other RK lever to pull on both necks and to add two completely new levers in the middle for your c6 neck.

I had a R&B Professional that had 4 levers. One on the right knee operated on both necks with the C6 change being the 3rd string lower from C to B. The other one on the right knee only operated the E9 neck. This really frustrated me. When I really thought hard about, I came to the realization that when these guitars were "new", the standard C6 consisted of the 5 pedals and the 1 knee lever. Not many were using more than 1 lever on C6. I miss that guitar.

Maybe a pic of the undercarriage would help. Could there be enough room to mount a two hole puller cross shaft and another knee lever just for the C6 neck?

Yeah you don't really want the two E9 left levers to work the C6 side anyway...cuz they are way over there on that side and the pedals for the C6th are way over there on the other side..ha...duh.
So your actual request of making those two left levers to pull something on C6 side without making parts; IS IMPOSSIBLE....so NO YOU CAN'T.
So to get on with a normal process of progressing this set up to get knees to work the C6 side; is like I did below on the Big Jim Murphy Pro II which is a rack and barrel but the pullers are not racks; they are crossbars with pullers that pull the barrels.
This pic you can see the two right knees have linkage to pull both necks..and then where you would normally put your left leg to play C6th pedals; you can see there are 3 knee levers for the (C6th side; LKR;LKV;LKL) and there is still the (E9 side own LKR;LKV;LKL).

and yes those parts have to be made by michael at www.psgparts.com as nobody has what you need just laying around; I know this cuz I'm the only one that would and I DON'T...ah..ha...
P.S. yes that is 10 pedals and 8 knee levers.
Ricky

Ricky, I'm curious on this subject as well. Is it possible to add only the pullers you needed for the extra knees, keeping the rest of the guitar original? We are talking about Rack guitars here which definitely take a lot of space to actuate. My 72 Professional has only 2 knees. I've reached out to Mr. PSG parts and he said he's a ways out on rack knee kits. Wondering if there's an easy way to make it a hybrid system.

Yes james; you can put round crossbars in with two hole pullers between racks for extra knee levers. But certainly have to redo the original positions of the pedal racks to put in extra Racks for knee levers.
And it would take some measuring on your part for michael to make crossbars for certain areas to be pulled between the original racks. But the Professional and first series Pro II with barrel tuning with crossbars and pullers instead of racks are the exact same pedal steel in every way except for that. So to me; if you wanna load up a C6 with more than 5 pedals and more than the two right knees....just replace the racks with crossbars....just like the one I just posted with originally Doug Jernigan's; and when he turned it in; they gave it to Big Jim Murphy.> 10 pedals 8 knee levers and that would be IMPOSSIBLE with racks at all.
Ricky