DIY pedal steel

crazydoc

crazydoc

Master Baiter
Today, while packing to move, I came across this photo of a pedal steel I built (in my appartment in Sacramento) about 35 years ago, using a Fender lap steel. When I moved to Southern CA I took it with me, but it wouldn't fit into the next move so I gave it to an old guy across the street in 1974.

I used it to record on a song or two - it didn't sound half bad as I remember (though it's on 1/4" reel to reel tape, and I have nothing to play it on anymore.)

Anyway, thought I'd post this for a laff - wish I still had the Fender, though.
 

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Way cool man! How did you engineer the string tension changes? Knee levers too?

I'm not a pedal steel player but I've been thinking about 'em since I found an old Kalamazoo electric student model at a swap meet a few years ago. I'm not a big country music fan either but I sure do love that pedal steel sound!

You got any steel playing I could listen to? Check out my untitled sketches at http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=3924&alid=-1
 
crazydoc,

i aint laughing..i wish u could build one of those for me.

pretty dead serious actually.

great great job!
 
I can't decide what's more amazing: DIY pedal steel or the fact that you built it in an apartment! I've built a few odd things in my life (mostly large format cameras) but never this ambitious or under these circumstances!
 
I took more pictures of it, including the mechanics underneath, but those seem to be filed away in oblivion.

Anyway, here's an enlargement of the working end of the guitar.
 

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Anyway, each string goes over the saddle and attaches through a hole to the side of a steel rod that is able to rotate in the eye hooks attached to the table. A lever arm is attached perpendicular to the rod and extends through the table. Pulling on this lever arm with a cable attached through pulleys (and a turnbuckle for tension adjustment) to the pedal rotates the rod and stretches or loosens the string, depending on which way it is threaded through the rod. I've drawn an end-on view of one of the systems (sort of diagramatic - not to scale).

The lever arm is held against a fixed stop by a spring, and when the pedal is depressed the lever arm is pulld over against an adjustable stop to raise or lower the string by a given amount. When the pedal is released, the spring pulls the lever arm against the fixed stop again, returning the pitch of the string to its original value. The downside of this arrangement is that each string can either be raised or lowered, not both, and only by a single pitch.
 

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Damn, I might give this a try. Wouldn't the string tension return the lever arm to its original pitch? What kinda stuff did you use for the rods and lever arms? :)
 
The string tension wasn't enough to return it to true pitch - it needed a hard stop with spring assist.

I used probably 1/2" dia steel rod bought at the hardware store for a couple of bucks and cut to various lengths as per the photo. The lever arms were smaller (like 1/4") steel rod inserted into a hole drilled perpendicularle near the end of the larger rod, and held in place with a set screw in the flat end of the larger rod. You can see these in the photo.

There are probably better ways to do this - use your own ideas too.
 
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