Steel Guitar Builder

I'm new here, but I've been hanging around for a while. I have a shop where I've been making acoustic guitars and mandolins for the last 15 years. And I've been playing pedal steel for the last 12 years. Not a virtuoso, but I can get around on it. It's a Carter 3/5 that I really like a lot, but this forum has convinced me that I can make my own, so here goes. It will be a 3/2 pull/release with standard A B C pedals, and knee levers to raise and lower the E's. I have photos of my progress so far, and will share as soon as I can figure out how to do it.

Cheers, Jim

Progress so far.

More photos

Hello Jim, that looks very promising, keep us posted.

Regards Ron Mc

Nice start and from the looks at what ya got so far , im betting its gonna look great, are your changer pillow blocks wood? Fret board is really nice brass fingers ? Russ

Fretboard and pillow blocks are made from ebony since I'm a lot more comfortable working with wood than aluminum. Also I made the key head from birdseye maple. If any of those parts don't work out, I figure I can replace them with aluminum. The changer fingers are 1/4" brass and the shaft is 1/2" hardened steel. Instead of aluminum channel, I'd like to make the pedal bar with the same figured maple that I used for the main body. I'll try to share some more photos soon.

Love the fret board Jim, inlaid frets and markers, love it! Looking forward to watching your progress!

Here's a photo of my key head and roller nut. The rollers still need their string grooves, and I'll try doing that on the drill press. The body of the nut is ebony.

I did try to make a key head with 3/4" aluminum, but since all my machinery is of the woodworking variety, I was unhappy with the results. So I'm gonna try this with maple. Don't know how it'll hold up.......

Maple wood holds up on regular guitars , i dont see any reason why not on a pedal steel, im using one i made from walnut myself and walnut pillow blocks on the changer . Russ

You might be ok with a wood nut, but I think that wood pillow blocks are just not mechanically strong enough, and cabinet drop will be a major problem.

Cabinet drop is always a problem, even with an all-aluminium construction, but it can be managed, but I think that having the changer mounted in wooden blocks will be a mistake.