The Steel Guitar Forum

I know I can adjust the angle of the regular knee-levers to fit my legs; What about the LKV? I've moved a change today (it's lowering the 5th to an A) and I can hardly reach it.



IS there a similar worm-screw to adjust its angle?

Roger I'm not familiar with how those are configured, but is there not a pivot screw going through the vertical lever that would allow you to loosen adjust and then re-tighten to the right angle?... Guess this could be a stupid question as you've had that guitar upside down enough times to know.

Hi Roger,
I think you can lower it by adjusting the screw that the knee lever stops against. Then you have to readjust the nylon nuts on the changer.
The caveate is that it will go low enough that you can't close the lid when you try to put the guitar in the case.
I learned that as I was rushing to go to a gig.
Good luck,
George

Dale:

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I'd just had it upside-down and it took all my strength to lift it again. When I found the VKL was too high, I had no energy to do it again.

Then we went to see 'Elvis' - an excellent visullay accurate yet cynical view of his life.

Back now.

George:

Closing the case won't be an issue. My working days are over and I'm strictly an at-home-tinkerer now.

I know it has that 'stop' fitting above it and, yes, there's a screw that may still have some adjustment left. Thanks for that tip; I hope I mounted the rod in the right bell-crank hole (away from the axle?) It's a whole-step lower on string 5.

George:

I've already hit a snag! The Allen screw on the stop-block is directly in line with the LKV flag. It is impossible to squeeze a wrench into that tiny space and it certainly won't turn by hand.

Roger,
I don't have a flag on that vertical. It's hard to visualize what's blocking your getting a wrench in there.
You could loosen it either by the locking nut ... or force the screw out with a hex wrench even with the locking nut tight.
Or ... if you back off the nylon changer nuts, doesn't the lever fall down further and out of the way?
I tried to put that longer change on mine a long while back, but gave up ... could never get it feeling comfortable. It just has the 1/2 tone drop on 5 and 10.
I also wish Emmons had adjustable vertical lever heights. That would be great.
Cheers,
George

Sorry. George - I didn't mean 'flag', I meant the actual lever. It blocks my access to the screw and it's too small a gap even for an L-shaped wrench.

Do you mean there's a locking nut on the lever itself? I will look again tomorrow.

Thanks for responding.

And I'll try backing out the hex tuner, too, and see if it drops a bit.

Roger,
The locking nut (or jam nut) is on the hex stop screw to keep it from turning after it's adjusted.
You should be able to see it from the side. Once it's loosened the stop screw should be easy to turn.
George

This is what was made for me by a buddy of mine, DwightbCook, RIP, he could fabricate nearly anything. With my LG 11 it was perfect. He milled it out of a solid piece of aluminum.

Thanks, George.

I had another crisis (see 'Pedal Steel') that has thankfully been fixed.

I'll look for that nut tomorrow.

That's neat, Larry!

On some steels by body depth and vertical knee lever design is a problem. Placing a 1/2 or 3/4 inch thick wood plate against the body, Then proper length longer screws is the only cure for a high vertical knee lever. Or some sort of extension like the one shown in above picture will cure the problem.
Check if guitar will still go in its case, If you get mad at it.

Good Luck in finding a fix for the problem.

The guitar is belly-up as we speak.

I managed to shift that lock-nut and move the Allen screw. More importantly and, thanks to Tucker Jackson's detailed emails explaining the science of bell-crank holes vs. changer-holes (leverage, etc), I'd placed the E-clip in the wrong hole. I've fixed that, but I can't test the LKV until about a thousand other jobs have been done.

I'm switching LKL1 and LKL2. It took me almost an hour just getting a bell-crank off the cross-shaft! I want to change pedal 4 on both necks, too. At this rate, I'll be commandeering the dining room table until Christmas!

Update:

I've now removed the B-A lower from my LKV (on E9).

I decided to add the 10th string raise (B-C#) that I removed recently from my A pedal. I love that 4/5 chord with A and B pedals but I found I missed the low string raise when it came to single-note playing on 10,9 and 8.

Apart from a slight senior moment where I was feverishly winding in the hex-tuner hoping to get the raise but was plucking the FIFTH string to test it!!!

When the light came on, I'd managed to get the 10th all the way up to D#!!!!

It works just fine - plenty of travel in the LKV once I moved that locking-nut on the 'stop', but it's still hard to reach (short legs!)

Some sort of add-on piece will make life easier.