Steel Guitar Builder

Currently, I am building a 7 string pedal steel guitar, made entirely from aluminum (except for the fretboard, which I might change to aluminum?). I've spent the past week polishing, and polishing, and polishing, to bring the finish to a real shine. This guitar will be set up with four foot pedals, no knee levers (at this time.) The tuning is simple open E, from low to high (E - G# - B - E - G# - B - E). Pedal 1 raises both G# stings to A, pedal 2 raises both B strings to C#, pedal 3 lowers middle E 2 steps to D for dominant 7th, pedal 4 lowers high E 1 step to D# for a Major 7th. The pickup can be adjusted, moved, closer to or farther away from the bridge. The fingers are simple one piece. I have a interesting settup underneath so that, the pedal rods are always pull, but the rod connecting to the finger can be push or pull to raise or lower the note. The stop adjustment is in the finger itself (adjusts stop of forward motion of the finger), and also in the body (for stop towards back of the guitar.) The stops are adjusted from the end, are easy to get to and adjust (unlike my earlier designs).

Here are a few pics:











I'm thinking about knee levers, what is the common use, of, say, four knee levers? That is, what do they normally do? Raise or lower which strings, and, for what purpose?

Wayne

Hi Wayne.... pretty impressive work. Any chance of posting a picture or diagram of your changer and how it works?
Cheers,
Mac

mac639 wrote:Hi Wayne.... pretty impressive work. Any chance of posting a picture or diagram of your changer and how it works?
Cheers,
Mac

Here's a little diagram I drew up real quick, not to scale or anything, just gives an idea of what's going on.



I don't know if anyone has ever done it this way or not? Just something I came up with. It works, is simple, and seems rock solid, stays in tune. I did something similar on my last guitar, except I used cables.

Not shown in the diagram, is the way I manage to have two strings pull different travel lengths. Two rods from the tuner fingers connect to a single lateral rod, which has a center rod from it, and it allows for varying travel lengths. On my first pedal steel guitar, I didn't realize that strings of different gauges have different travel lengths.

Wayne

That's what I like to see , something different rather than another clone , post more please . Russ

azureskys wrote:That's what I like to see , something different rather than another clone , post more please . Russ

Basically completed, I just have to take the pedals and pedal rods off, and polish them.

I spent about a full week polishing all the parts. Lot's of work, don't know if I want to do that again. I can see why wood is normally used, it's easier to work with.

Sound/tone can be changed by moving the pickup closer to or farther away from the bridge, or the pickup can be slanted. Sustain is excellent. Guitar is heavy for it's size. Legs and pedals, rods, etc, all come off for transport. I plan on making my own case (when I get around to it.)

Wayne