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Topic: home made steel |
Daniel McKee
From:
Corinth Mississippi
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Posted 21 Feb 2009 12:48 pm |
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| i was wondering what materials to use in making a homemade pedal steel i would like for someone to tell me how to make a homemade one |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 21 Feb 2009 1:26 pm
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| ok...get your crayons out, this'll just take a second..... |
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Paul Norman
From:
Washington, North Carolina, USA
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Paul Norman
From:
Washington, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 21 Feb 2009 3:55 pm
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| Chris check your PM |
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Kevin Hatton
From:
Buffalo, N.Y.
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Posted 22 Feb 2009 7:44 pm
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| I heard you could get all the parts you need down at the Kmart. |
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Mike Kirkley
From:
Helendale, California
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Posted 1 Mar 2009 8:21 pm Homemade steel
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Hey, Kevin, I tried one of the local K-Marts here in Sydney, and they had everything except the fretboards! I had to order them from Wal-Mart back in the States!!! That was quite a while back, and I'm still waiting on those darn fretboards!!! Got the rest of it all done, though...LOL
Mike Kirkley
Sydney, Australia |
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Kevin Hatton
From:
Buffalo, N.Y.
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Posted 1 Mar 2009 8:25 pm
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| Just go to the Steel Guitar Department. |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 1 Mar 2009 9:33 pm Be careful what you ask for..................
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Daniel..........In a REAL CLASSY RESTAURANT, if a patron requests a copy of the recipe and it's delivered to him/her, courts will tell you that you are then obligated to pay whatever the Chef asks for in payment for that recipe.
If someone delivers to YOU.......the building plans for a guitar, secret dimensions for the 'changers',
details on how to cure and/or laquer the finish, etc., YOU MIGHT then owe someone a lot of bucks!
Personally, I'd be extremely careful what I ask for....... (Just a tho't for YOU to ponder) |
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Bill Ford
From:
Graniteville SC Aiken
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 7:26 am
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Daniel,
Unless you are on a good to expert level at woodworking/finishing and metalworking/machining,and have a close source that you can talk to, ask questions(probably a million +++)and the equipment to work with, I would strongly advise you to purchase a good used instrument, or maybe a new one. Unless you have the above mentioned skills/equipment, you may be throwing a lot of money down a deep hole.
Now, with all that having been said, if you are still determined to do it...By all means, have at it, there are sources that you can purchase parts that are available from raw castings to polished and assembled ready to bolt on, but I think you will find this very cost prohibitive.
My best to you in whatever way you choose...Bill
_________________
Bill Ford S12 CLR, S12 Lamar keyless, Misc amps&toys Sharp Covers
Steeling for Jesus now!!! |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 10:08 am
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Bill gives good advice! Keep in mind that buying good parts to build a pedal steel would probably cost you as much (or almost as much) as buying one already assembled. The days of the "kit guitars", or building one yourself for a few hundred dollars are long gone.  |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 10:32 am
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I'd start with a sawhorse from Home Depot. That takes care of the legs and body right away. Just add hardware to the top of it.
_________________
-š¯•“š¯•†š¯•“- (admin) - Robert P. Lee - Recordings - Breathe - D6th - Video |
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Kevin Hatton
From:
Buffalo, N.Y.
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 10:41 am
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| Good idea Bob. You could add casters to roll it around. It would make a good single neck. |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 11:04 am The saw horse scenario..........................
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What b0b suggests, has already been done!
Bill Stafford played such a machine at one of the California shows about ten years ago. I don't think it had 'wheels'........like the early Bigsby models had.
Hey Stafford..........you got pictures of that event? |
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Fred Shannon
From:
Rocking "S" Ranch, Comancheria, Texas, R.I.P.
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Posted 2 Mar 2009 4:29 pm
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Gents I think Daniel is a younger person than most people think. Don't know that for sure, but some of his other posts would lead one to maybe believe same.
phred
_________________
There are only two defining forces that have offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American GI!!
Think about it!! |
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Ulric Utsi-Ć…hlin
From:
Sweden
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Posted 3 Mar 2009 1:19 am
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It boils down to the interpretation of "building"...
You canĀ´t buy parts from various sources and patch
them together like a Strat or Tele assembled from
original and/or aftermarket parts,and iF you could
it would probably set You back the bundle of bills
of a brand new instrument ; building means,apart from
mechanical know-how,cutting & shaping metal,skills
in trad luthiery,finishing,supply of materials and
so on,but,for all I know,You may posess all of this,
and if You do,itĀ´s a matter of getting down to the
planning stages,at Your drawing table...McUtsi |
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Pat Comeau
From:
New Brunswick, Canada
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Ethan Shaw
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 3 Mar 2009 8:08 pm
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| There's a pretty interesting article on building your own steel in an old Steel Guitarist magazine (that you can get trough the forum). I thought it was pretty inventive, but you would get a WAY better guitar for about the same money with a Carter Starter, or even a Maverick. My advice is: if you like messing with things, buy a steel, and work on it yourself. If you're just looking for a cheap way to get a steel, buy a used student model. It will end up being a lot cheaper than trying to make one. |
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Ned McIntosh
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 3 Mar 2009 10:21 pm
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Daniel,
The question you have asked is a huge, open-ended one.
Physically, you will need some - or all - of the following:-
seasoned sausage-quilted or birds-eye maple wood of straight grain, without splits or obvious defects; aluminium extrusions and castings (for pedals, pedal-rack, headstock, roller-nut etc); machined aluminium components; steel rods and at least one changer-axle (accurate to perhaps a ten thousandth of an inch); Delrin, Teflon, Nylon for bushes etc; stainless-steel rods about 1/8" in diameter for pedal-rods; nylon tuning-nuts; possibly nylon or poleytheylene washers; machined bellcranks or pull-fingers; perhaps some rivets (depending on your changer design); machined rollers for the nut, at least ten machine-heads; a quantity of (preferably) stainless-steel machine screws of various threads and diameters; possibly some set-screws, and assorted items such as wood for inlays, or formica, lacquer, thinners, fillers, plus the tools and materials to assemble, finish and test and play your guitar. And that's before you think about the pickup, wiring and socket for the guitar-lead to plug into. Fortunately steel-guitar wiring is relatively simple, but the choice in pickups is now much more complex than in earlier times. You will have much to occupy your mind.
You will also need a design, or at least some idea of how you will build the very heart of the steel-guitar, the changer. Will it be an all-pull changer, or a push-pull? How many raises and lowers per string will you have? What about the neck material? Wood or aluminium...or something else again? And the fretboard, one of the most visually distinctive features of the steel-guitar, how will you make yours, and from what materials?
But that's just the beginning. To build a steel-guitar (or any other instrument) you must have the one indispensible ingredient - love.
Love of the instrument, love of the building and design process, love of the expectation of the finished product, love of the musical genres the instrument is most suited for, and a love of those who play the instrument.
Stradivarius was once asked why his violins sounded so good. Some attributed it to the varnish he used (the formula for which remains a mystery to this day), but he himself said it weas the love he put into each instrument as he built it. He built for players, but he also built for the centuries. He looked far into the future and built the most perfect mechanical amplifier we know of today. A single violin, unamplified, can still fill an entire concert hall with soaring, pure sound. The pedal-steel isn't a perfect instrument by a long way, but it is a superb "chord-inversion" machine, which is part of its appeal. You can try for perfection, but physics, acoustics and mechanics are against you, and the best you can hope for is minimal compromises with maximum tone and functionality.
So to build the pedal steel you need a whole lot of vastly disparate and seemingly incongruous skills and talents. You need to be an artist in wood and a machinist in steel, aluminium and structural plastics. You need to have an eye for looks and an ear for tone. You need the curiosity to experiment...why didn't someone choose to make the strings change pitch using this method instead of the conventional methods, that sort of thing. You need the desire to build something that no-one else has built, with better tone, a better mechanism, better looks and easier maintenance than has ever been built before.
Buddy Emmons may have set the basics of the design many decades ago, but within that framework there is room for inventiveness and ingenuity.
And that, Daniel, is perhaps just a glimpse, through a glass darkly, of what you will need to build a steel-guitar.
_________________
The steel guitar is a hard mistress. She will obsess you, bemuse and bewitch you. She will dash your hopes on what seems to be whim, only to tease you into renewing the relationship once more so she can do it to you all over again...and yet, if you somehow manage to touch her in that certain magic way, she will yield up a sound which has so much soul, raw emotion and heartfelt depth to it that she will pierce you to the very core of your being. |
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Pat Comeau
From:
New Brunswick, Canada
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Posted 4 Mar 2009 6:22 pm
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Holy cow Ned !!!....you didn't give that guy much chance  ,
It is not that hard to build a pedal steel guitar once you know how everything works. 
I'm not a machinist or a craftman by trade, i just like to work with my hands and create things,
there are alot of different ways to build a pedal steel guitar, it all depends on what you want, you can build a PSG with just a few home power tools like a circular saw, a drill ,grinder, palm sander and regular hand tools, i know cause i did it and my PSG is alot better than most student model out there, but if you want to build an almost identicle PSG has the big company than it's a little different and takes more time and cost alot more and you'll need to have special power tools to make the parts, but again it is not that hard once you know how everything works.
my advice would be to start with a single body S10 and a very simple design.
Here's a video of me playing my homebuild pedal steel guitar. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDTw2zNriI
Daniel!...if you need some information just let me know cause i know where you can get all the information to get you started on an easy pedal steel guitar construction project.
Pat C.
_________________
Comeau SD10 4x5, Comeau S10 3x5, Peavey Session 500,Fender Telecaster,Fender Stratocaster, Fender Precision,1978 Ovation Viper electric. Alvarez 4 strings Violin electric.
Click the links to listen to my Comeau's Pedal Steel Guitars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYiaomZx3Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2GhZTN_yXI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDTw2zNriI |
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Ned McIntosh
From:
New South Wales, Australia
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Posted 4 Mar 2009 11:11 pm
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Hi Pat,
To a fellow Commonwealth-nation steel-player, greetings. My only experience of Canada is a month in Winnipeg for the Pan-Am Games in 1999. Canadians made me feel most welcome, and I very much enjoyed my stay. Our two countries could not be more different, but the underlying fabric of both has a number of threads woven on the same loom.
In truth, I feel you judge me somewhat harshly. I told the truth. I told it without the sugar-coating. It's been called "Black Truth". I've reached the age in life where you don't have a lot of time for the sugar-coating.
I stand by everything I posted, and in my defence wish to point out it was perhaps a trifle less, shall we say, "light-hearted" than some other posts might be considered. It was not my intention to discourage Daniel; quite the opposite. But if he really wants to build his own steel, then it is best he goes into the venture with both eyes wide open.
I have the greatest admiration for all builders of this utterly bewitching instrument. Your own efforts are superb and I have often perused your posts about your steel built "in the Sho-Bud" style. My blonde, lacquered Carter D10 and your steel are visual cousins, so I am perhaps a little more appreciative than some of your splendid efforts. Clear lacquered wood is about as simple, yet elegant, as it gets. Perhaps you are not a machinist by trade, but in the view of a great many on the forums you most certainly are a gifted craftsman.
"Once you know how everything works" is the key phrase in your post. Knowing how everything works implies a depth of knowledge and understanding which for most of us is acquired only by the passage of decades. The steel guitar is a marriage of disparate and unlikely materials, yet they combine under the skilled ministrations of the expert builder to become a thing of beauty to the eyes and ears of the beholder, and so much more for the player and owner.
Truly, there is a lot to know in just building, leave alone playing, this instrument. How the wood works and can be worked, how the metal works and can be worked, how all the tools work and can be made to fashion wood and metal into the components you require. No matter how many ready-made parts you may start with, you still have to fabricate, assemble, adjust, finish and test the result.
So my post was not to chide Daniel, but to hopefully embolden him into setting forth on his quest, better-equipped with knowledge and with some idea of the task ahead, be it complex or relatively straightforward.
I stressed the need for love of the instrument, and love of all the process of building it because I don't believe you can construct a musical instrument of any true value to you unless you have a genuine and deep respect and admiration for it, coupled with a desire to be strongly associated with it.
If my post is a little overwhelming, then put it down to my excessive love of the English language and its ability to be scientifically exact and yet tantalisingly abstract, with almost identical words.
Gentlemen of the forums, the steel-guitar fraternity is in no position to discourage any expression of interest, however youthful the person from whom it emanates, for in these young people lies the future of the steel-guitar.
_________________
The steel guitar is a hard mistress. She will obsess you, bemuse and bewitch you. She will dash your hopes on what seems to be whim, only to tease you into renewing the relationship once more so she can do it to you all over again...and yet, if you somehow manage to touch her in that certain magic way, she will yield up a sound which has so much soul, raw emotion and heartfelt depth to it that she will pierce you to the very core of your being. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 7 Mar 2009 11:57 am
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| Fred Shannon wrote: |
Gents I think Daniel is a younger person than most people think. Don't know that for sure, but some of his other posts would lead one to maybe believe same.
phred |
Well, 48 is young, isn't it?  |
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Bill Ford
From:
Graniteville SC Aiken
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Posted 7 Mar 2009 12:33 pm
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Only if this was still available, complete with beginner course, and case. Can't hardly buy a decent used case for that now.
Bill
_________________
Bill Ford S12 CLR, S12 Lamar keyless, Misc amps&toys Sharp Covers
Steeling for Jesus now!!! |
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Mac Knowles
From:
Almonte,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 8 Mar 2009 9:51 am home made steel
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Hi Daniel,
It was interesting to read the responses from your inquiry. Don't be afraid......you really can build your own pedal steel. It's not something you can do on the kitchen table however, you've got to have a shop of some kind. If you're fairly handy with tools and have the basics like a sander, scroll saw, 3/8"drill with a stand etc. and some hand tools you can do it, but it'll take you a long time and a lot of effort. I know that for a fact, since my first steel, a D10 took me a whole winter to make with just the tools that I mentioned above. But the guitar was good and I played it all over the country for nearly 30 years. I wrote a book on the subject and sold hundreds of them. I still have the book, but it's a little out of date now with the changes that have taken place in the steel building business over the years. Have a look at my site www.mkguitars.com to see what I do do now with building them.
Cheers,
Mac |
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