[Boatanchors] Dial Stringing - Magic Solution To Cord Slippage

[Michael D. Harmon]

Hi Folks,

I work on guitar electronics frequently for a friend of mine who has a 
steel guitar shop here in St. Louis.  Almost all of the older volume 
pedals use a cord arrangement to move one or two pots when the pedal is 
pressed down, raised up, or moved side to side.  I have seen every kind 
of material used in an attempt to eliminate cord slippage.  Black tar, 
belt dressing, beeswax, you name it.  Some of the stuff works better 
than others.  Most of the "solutions" have one thing in common - they 
all usually make a BIG mess!  It's not so much of a problem until you 
have to replace a volume pedal pot.  A good steel player will cycle a 
pot hundreds of times in one night's performance, so periodic pot 
replacement goes with the territory.

My wife is a violinist, and one night I was grumbling about having to 
clean up the belt dressing mess inside a volume pedal with GooGone, and 
she suggested violin rosin as an anti-slip solution.  I tried it and I 
will NEVER go back to anything else!  You can get a small block of rosin 
at any music store or violin shop (you don't need the "concert quality" 
stuff - the cheapest rosin will work just as well), and a small block 
will last forever.  Just hook the end of the dial cord on something so 
you can pull it taut with one hand, and run the block of rosin back and 
forth over the length of the cord a few times to get all sides of the 
cord in contact with the rosin.  Your dial cord will never slip again!  
In fact, you have to make sure you've got everything aligned before you 
put tension on the cord, because when you do tighten the cord, it WILL 
NOT MOVE!

I don't claim to be the "inventor" of this method, but it seems to be 
the world's best kept secret.

Mike Harmon, WB0LDJ
mharmon at att dot net