The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi, Just got around to practice on my 1974 Marlen Pull / release. The problem I have is the E to F raise knee lever has about about an 2 inches of travel ( at the bottom of lever ) before beginning to pull the two E strings. I do not know where to start to adjust ??
The 4th and 8th string are in tune on all pedals and knee levers. Its been fine for years , something is a little out of Whack !! Any help greatly appriciated. Best STU

Can you post a couple of underside pics? Hard to troubleshoot accurately without a little more info. You may be able to shorten the pulls for the raise, but the most important thing to keep in mind with pull-release when adjusting raises on strings that also lower is that you need to leave enough slack in the raise pulls to allow the lowers to drop fully. For string 4 this includes the C pedal whole-step pull on a typical E9 setup.

Thanks for swift reply, I'll be Abe to get some shots tomorrow. Thats really good of you. Best STU

Maybe this will help. This is a picture of a Marlen S-10 I once owned.



The C pedal and the F lever use the same pull rod. Each has it's own stop collar located on the rod. If your C pedal is working correctly, but the lever is not, you should look at the collar, green arrow, it may have slipped on the rod. You should be able to see this easily. The collar has a set screw holding it in place on the rod. Loosen the set screw and move the collar back to the right location. There may be some marks on the rod to help locate it. On my old guitar, the lever travel adjustment was used to fine tune the F note.

Thanks Bill, I think my setup is slightly different. Please see photos and video ( if allowed ? ) If so the movement of the knee lever you see is not pulling the strings at all, it is the slack before the pull !!Nope cannot post video, hopefully the photos may give you guys something to go on ?? Thanks in advance. Best STU

Hi again, I have the Pulls on the F lever working to pitch, C pedal is to pich on 4th string. Now the Lower on the 4th and 8th does nothing both stop screw and the lower nylon tuner have no influence, they are not touching the 4th and 8th fingers ?? Is there anything I can do to ' Start again on the 4th / 8th string Raise and lower knee lever adjustment? Beginning to drive me nuts !!c Thanks.

I'm not an expert, but I've tinkered with my Marlen.

If the lowers won't lower, I would think it would have to be either too much spring tension for the string to overcome, or not enough slack between the stop collar/nut at the changer end for the finger to move. Since it worked for years you know the potential is there. Maybe backward engineer what you did to fix the slack on the raise and try to evaluate the problem again. It sounds like your slack problem was just "moved" to a different part of the system rather than resolved.

Here's a couple links that might be helpful.

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... ll+release

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... ll+release

You can probably find more topics by doing a search for "pull release Marlen"

Thanks Andrew, I'm now back in a position of the F pedal working as it should, but still with nearly 2 inches of movement before the start of string pulls on strins 4 and 8.
Nothing is loose, it is just play in the lever ??? At least I can practice, though its a long push left with left knee. Thanks to all for your help. Any other ideas welcome. Best STU

Wow !! Lots of stuff to read there Bill. Thanks. You guys are the best. Not a lot of PSG players on the Isle of Wight !!. Ta again. Best STU

If you have it flipped over, you should be able to see why you have so much slack in the lever. Either it's slack between where the bell crank hits the stop collar (if you have it set up that way) or slack between the stop collar and changer finger. There always has to be some slack on changes that both lower and raise, but two inches seems like alot. If you're looking at the under side and working that lever, you should be able to see everything moving. Maybe a stop collar slipped and just needs to be moved back a little?

Like I said, I'm not an expert. But when I set up my Marlen with my very simple copedent, it was tricky to get all the collars in just the right position to eliminate any unnecessary slack without interfering with necessary raise/lower action. I've only had to go under to adjust twice since I finished the set up, and both times the stop collar or bellcrank set screw had slipped and just needed to be reset.

Pull release can be tricky, but I like it because you can see all the physics right there in front of you. You can look right through the changer and say hello to your right foot!

Hi Stuart, it does sound like the issue is simply one of balancing the slack required to accommodate the lower on 4. That video you mentioned might help everyone better understand what you're dealing with. Can you put it on Youtube and post a link?

Here is another reply I posted a couple of years ago for someone with a similar issue that you might find helpful: https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... 62#2855462