Bow-legged Steel

[Jon Light]

I was assembling a client's guitar and found that I had to pull the two legs toward each other to seat the pedal rack. Not a lot but enough to catch my attention. Maybe 1/4". Sort of like putting a blade on a bow saw. Creating a tensioned situation.
I hate stressing the leg -- leg socket -- endplate structure. This is by no means the only guitar on which I've encountered this. One of my guitars requires a fairly large flex. Maybe all of them, to lesser extents. It doesn't really worry me but it's had me wondering if there is any possible truth to what the client/friend told me -- that he had been told that this was actually intentional, by design. For reasons that he didn't remember or understand.

Has anybody heard of this concept? Is it possibly legit? Or is it like the mechanic who did a brake job on my car years ago and when the wheel would not roll as I tried to drive it off the lot he said "oh, it's supposed to do that. Just drive it and it will be fine".

[Dan Robinson]

I can't imagine that being a design intent, or good for the long term health of the guitar.

If the leg's threaded plug is off axis the leg tip will "describe a circle" when you're screwing it into the body. You could use it as a rear leg where that won't matter.

[Jon Light]

I'm totally skeptical of the idea of design intent, myself. But I would definitely defer to someone with years of R&D if they told me that yes, there is a reason for this (beyond 'these are our manufacturing tolerances and we're ok with it'. And even then, maybe it is ok).

But no, I'm not talking about the threaded plug. That's a whole other situation when it comes up. But with what I'm talking about, the legs screw in centered & true. And forcing them open or closed to fit the pedal rack feels so stressful to the endplate-body joint.

[Donny Hinson]

There should be no effort required to slide the pedalboard clips onto legs. The technique of preload (pressure required to do the attachment) has no logic in this case. But any small amount of misalignment where the endplates meet the body can make a big difference two feet away, where the legs attach to the pedalboard. It might be advisable to loosen the screws on the endplates (once the pedalboard is firmly attached) and then retighten them. This will assure that the "set" is optimum between the body/endplates assembly, and the legs/pedalboard assembly.

[Bobby D. Jones]

Did you measure the pedal bar leg slots distance against the leg holes in the body?
If the measurement the same.
The leg may screw in straight till it hits the end plate.
A burr where the leg shoulders against the flat face on the edge of the hole could be the problem. It would not take much of a burr to cock 24 inches of leg at the pedal bar's position.
If someone used some type of wax like candle wax to lube the threads, And wax got on the flat contact surface could cause a 1/4" misalignment.

Good Luck finding what is causing this and an easy solution.

[Cody Stewart]

A lot of things can cause this.

Bent legs for one. Roll the legs on a flat surface and see if they’re bent.

Warped or distorted body will also cause this. Look down the front and rear apron of the guitar. A lot of times, a guitar will bow slightly downward in the middle of the body because of the string tension. It’s fairly common and somewhat natural and normal.

Or the guitar’s leg sockets were drilled and tapped out of alignment.

I’ve seen many vintage Sho~Bud and Emmons guitars that had issues like this. They were particularly noticeable when looking over the top of the guitar towards the floor and analyzing the squareness profile of the guitar, legs and pedal rack. Often times you’ll find they’re pretty kitty wampous. But to the untrained eye, not noticeable. Bent legs can be usually replaced, but warped bodies and crooked leg sockets really can’t be. Sometimes it jsut is what it is.

[Jon Light]

Just responding to random things that have been said (thank you all for the input) ---

I have had bent legs and/or out-of-whack threaded plugs over the years. But here I'm talking about good, true legs.

The sockets have seemed ok -- no racked movement in the last turn.

The multiplication of error from endplate socket to the leg tip is exactly what I'm looking at. It takes so little deviation of angle to end up multiplied to measurable mismatch at the pedal bar attachment point. As I said, the deliberate 'pretensioning' idea was presented by the client as something a builder had once told him and I can't forget it. I was "really?! Wow. I never would have imagined!" But I can't begin to devise a theory to support it. And I still have a suspicion that it's something someone would say when confronted with misaligned legs. "It's supposed to do that!"

In the client's guitar, tuning issues, cabinet drop etc, were normal.

In my (modern) guitar, cab drop is borderline grotesque on the bass strings of my 12 stringer. 15 to 20 cents from day 1.

I can't point to this as the culprit but it does make me wonder if loosening some screws and trying to realign things might be worth trying.

[John Hyland]

Why would this be done on purpose. Let’s look at the theory. Exaggerate the movement and pull the legs toward each other. Assuming the leg joint is rigid the leg movement would be replicated on the top of the guitar, but proportionally less distance ie at the strings.. But in the opposite direction and tensioning the strings more. So what would be the purpose of that. Reduce cabinet drop? Stabilise the top of the instrument? Stabilise the legs? Who knows? But the bottom line is ¼ inch would make no appreciable different to anything and more likely just bend the legs. In other words pointless.

I think there must be a connection issue where the end plate has twisted, presumably near where the plate connects the legs. The amount of movement at the plate to get 1/8 at each leg is probably just 1/80” Are the back legs also wider?

[Johnie King]

Very few steels I have encountered that the legs line up perfectly with the pedal board.

But it’s so nice an rare when the legs match the pedal board perfectly that I get goose bumps!!

[Tucker Jackson]

Just bought a set of new legs for a steel and ran into this situation for the first time: the legs had to be pulled slightly toward the center of the guitar to get the pedal bar on.

Donny laid out the solution: don't cinch down the legs until after the pedal bar is situated. For some reason, when assembled in this order, that tension between bar and leg doesn't seem to be there even after tightening -- the legs rotate freely even as you reach the limit of cinching them up.

[Bobby D. Jones]

With the pedal bar removed. Set the guitars front legs on a level floor or table, With tight front legs. Prove sitting area level, Check top edge of the front apron for level, Then check the straightness of the front apron, A 1/8" bow in the front apron would make a 1/4" to 3/8" spread in the legs. Check the plumbness of the front legs.

Then put the pedal bar in place and check everything for level, plumb and straightness again. This may show what the problem is.

The story about the tensioning of the legs to put the pedal bar on, Sounds like a salesman's way of talking his way around a bowed body on a guitar, They are trying to sell to unknowing new player.
In 1970 or so the Sho-Bud permnant I got measurements off of to build a steel, Was called Swayback. It had a seeable bow in the front apron. And had to force the legs together to get the pedal board on the guitar. But it had the Sho-Bud sound and tone.

Good Luck finding the problem. If the body is bowed, May be something that will have to be lived with if it is a good sounding, Playing guitar.