How do E lever locks work?

[Colin Swinney]

On universals, there is sometimes an E lever lock so you don't have to hold it in while playing in "B6 mode". How do these work and does anyone here use one on a standard E9?

[Jerry Overstreet]

Lever locks generally work by holding the knee lever hub in the position that it would be in when you operate the KL.

I like Sierra's idea where the lock uses an eccentric cam to sit against the hub. It's positive to keep the tuning stable.

I built a simple one for a Remington U12 string with just a few small aluminum parts.

I'll see if I can find a photo.

Otherwise, just google on search here for Lever Lok or Lever Lock to see some other ideas. As far as use on a 10 string, no reason why you couldn't use one it you have a need to hold a particular string lowered or raised for a time in order to use the knee elsewhere.

Edit:


In this one, I attached a bracket to the body for the stop and the L shaped alum. stub lever. It worked so: Engage Knee lever, rotate the locking lever 90 degrees to hold the KL in place.

Pretty simple. Others used another form of a locking mechanism. I recall someone had a photo of one on a ZumSteel guitar. Maybe you can hunt that up.

[John Sluszny]

Sorry, I'm not really answering your question but I wanted one on my Carter S12 Universal and I NEVER use it !

[Colin Swinney]

Thanks Jerry, that's definitely more in line with what I was thinking would be necessary if I wanted to add one. The only time I've ever seen one was on an Excel and that's like a gear shifter poking out of the top of the guitar, that's way too much effort to add to mine. I'll have to do a deeper search on here to see other implementations.

[Ian Rae]

John, I'm the same. Mitsuo Fujii insisted on putting one on my Excel U12 and I never use that either! At least I have some spare parts if I need them

I'm no great fan of it poking out of the top. If I were adding my own it would be underneath but easy to reach.