The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm renovating an old Fender 400, all is going well so far. I've just worked out the way all the cables operate (really straightforward!)
My question is, how does the lowering set-up work? I've two newly built knee levers ready to fit, they'll be hooked up to the relevant lowering fingers (the ones with the fitted springs), but I just can't work out how they'll operate.
The manual just says attach the cables to the fingers and tune as normal, then adjust the stop screws to the lowered note.
There must be more to it than that? Should the levers have springs attached etc? Help!

The lowers work just fine however on a Fender cable guitar the lowering return springs are WAY too stiff and it takes considerably more effort to activate a lower than a raise. I generally replace them with thinner return springs. I've got no absolute method for this- just reach into my "box-o-springs" and find a thinner one and cut it short enough to make it work.

Thanks for the tip, I've a similar box in my shed, it'll be trial and error, but the right strength springs are in there somewhere!

Wait a minute.... I recognise that name... I was actually just emailing you at your store address, courtesy of Ted Nesbitt's
suggestion. Email on the way, Happy New Year!