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Topic: Proof: Mike Cass is a Genius |
Guest
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Posted 24 Jan 2003 6:03 am |
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Proof - Mike Cass is a Genius
Two years ago Ricky Davis sold me my first steel guitar -- an early '60s electrotone pedal steel. All the mechanics were shot and there was nothing underneath the steel, so I bought it to play as a D10 hawaiian. Last summer I got the itch to put pedals back on it and I knew the guy to call was Mike Cass.
I sent the steel down to Mike last summer and just got it back yesterday and the result is nothing short of amazing. Not only does it look ten times better than before, but the pedals and knees work perfectly.
Now, putting pedals on a pedal steel guitar isn't a huge challenge IF the steel is a modern steel with standard dimensions and readily available parts. But the Electrotone is anything but standard, certainly not modern, and forget about parts. What's more, compared with other steels, its body is long and deep and the step up between the necks is much higher than normal. In short, all the dimensions are wrong. To make matters worse, the original changer is single raise/single lower.
Well, the short story is that Mike Cass is a flippin' genius. The longer story is that he designed a complete undercarriage from scratch, had all the parts milled to his spec, and figured out how to make it all work AND provide multiple pulls on that old changer. He also made cut-outs at the tuning end of the steel so that it could be tuned with nylon tuners. The challenge was daunting -- I don't even pretend to understand all the difficulties Mike had to overcome to make this thing fly. But he did.
Here's the before and after pictures:
http://www.mightyfinemusic.com/electrotone_before.htm
Mike Cass can describe what he did better than I ever could, so here's what Mike has to say:
"Upon recieving this guitar, the condition could be best described as "rough as a cob!"  Many finish dings, grayed, very dull metal parts & no undercarriage or pedal rods. Additionally, it appeared that at least a few people had tried to modify the horn over the years. A number of holes had been drilled in the underneath & some evidence existed that perhaps this guitar was originally cable operated. That, along with a few structural cracks in the body made me skeptical, however I proceeded forward with the restoration.
"One day, not long after recieving it, I was at Dick Miller's shop picking up some p/p parts & I had the guitar along in my car as I was still in the cleaning up process, and was next heading to my refin guy (AJ Nelson) to see about touching up some places on the body. Dick saw it in the backseat and asked "what the '@#%!' is that?".....so we pulled it in the house and he looked it over. I told him of my intentions with respect to copedents & mechanisms. He offered his much welcome assistance, so we then began to design a system to accomodate the body size, limitations of the changers (single raise/lower) etc. Not long after that, Dick passed away  Along with missing one of my best friends in the world, I then found myself in the position of having to find another machinist to manufacture the parts for me.
"After searching for a time, I eventually wound up at Duane Marrs shop one day to buy some GL pickups he had gotten for me........... I had the Electrotone endplates, changers etc in the car (they had been out for buffing) along with the touched up body (which id also just picked up). I brought them inside to show him, and after some brainstorming, we saw how we could modify his a/p system & combine my ideas to come up with an attractive, yet fully functional, modern undercarriage made to the specs of this particular guitar; while also retaining enough of the vintage "cool" of the instrument to keep it somewhat original.
"The body width (15 1/2") & step depth (3/4") were certainley the major concerns with respect to stabiity, cross shaft flex, knee lever placement & overall layibility. Due to my modifications to allow for the above, along with Duane's thriving all pull conversion business it took a bit of time, but the new parts were eventually finished & I installed them. Of course there were a few bugs to work out along the way, but in a relatively short time thereafter, it was up & running. The results speak for themselves.
"To backtrack for a minute,...... the changers had been modified at some time in the past in order to attach what appeared to be the bottom 1/2's of two 'Sho-Bud Professional', single raise/lower changers, which probably utilized the rack & barrel type undercarriage (hence, the many holes underneath). Owing to the single raise / lower limitation, I saw that I would probably have to use a few Pro2 type parts to account for multiple raises or lowers, but there were many more places where new multi hole cranks could be used to afford the most comfortable playibility possible & promote stable tuning of the mechanisms. The result was that all but 1 of the changes (e9, 4th string E to F), tune on nylons at the right endplate. As a result, all things considered, this guitar plays & tunes about as well as anything else out there, imho, of course :-)
"I send my thanx & congrats to Stephen on his new toy, and my thanks to Duane, Jeff & Larry @ Marrs Music for their help......esp in lifting it on & off of the workbench for me as i am still recovring from a couple of broken ribs.
Good Luck Stephen !"
MC
Mike, my heartfelt thanks go to you and those who assisted you. Please thank all of them on my behalf for keeping a piece of pedal steel guitar history alive.
[This message was edited by Stephen O'Brien on 24 January 2003 at 06:03 AM.] [This message was edited by Stephen O'Brien on 24 January 2003 at 06:08 AM.] [This message was edited by Stephen O'Brien on 24 January 2003 at 06:10 AM.] |
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Mark Ardito
From:
Chicago, IL, USA
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Posted 24 Jan 2003 6:42 am
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Stephen,
All I can say is WOW! What a great story and guitar!
Congrat's...it looks great!
Mark
------------------
Sho~Bud Pro I, Fender D-8 (C6&E13) http://www.darkmagneto.com
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 24 Jan 2003 8:23 am
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Could either of you gentlemen give a little insight into the history of this instrument?
I have never heard of this guitar. When was it originally built, where and by whom?
Erv |
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Guest
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Posted 24 Jan 2003 8:30 am
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Erv, I know the builder was Canadian and that's about all I know about it. I think Al Brisco might have more information about the builder.
thanks for looking. |
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Ricky Davis
From:
Bertram, Texas USA
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Posted 24 Jan 2003 11:36 am
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Thanks, Ricky. I've been playing this thing all day and I just am more and more amazed at how easy it plays and what great tone it has. Don't worry, I'll send her down to visit one of these days. I'm sure you'll enjoy that.
Oh, and my copdeant, yes that is home grown on the C6th neck, but I won't go into details here because I don't want this thread to turn into a "copedant flame". 
Anybody who's interested in my simplified C6th, just write to me and I'll tell ya all about it. |
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Jay Ganz
From:
Out Behind The Barn
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Posted 25 Jan 2003 7:37 am
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Oh man....did that come out nice!!!
Just another typical Mike Cass restoration.
Basket case turned into an incredible
looking steel that plays as good as it looks!
Hey Stephen, can you stick on an audio sample. I'd love to hear that thing.
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Drew Howard
From:
48854
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Guest
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Posted 25 Jan 2003 11:37 am
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| Jay, coming from you, that's high praise indeed. Yes, I will get an audio clip of me playing so you can hear it. |
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Jody Sanders
From:
Magnolia,Texas, R.I.P.
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Posted 25 Jan 2003 12:22 pm
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| Mike Cass is not only a genius at restoring guitars, he is one of the nicest guys in the business and an incredible steel guitar player. See you down the road, Jody |
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Guest
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Posted 25 Jan 2003 4:11 pm
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Jody, thanks for the nice words about mike. He really is a good guy and works his butt off and does an incredible job. He did this job despite having his friend and machinist die and suffering from broken ribs. Man, that's guts.
I wish I could say I've heard him play, but I haven't. Maybe I'll get down to Nashville and find out. |
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Dyke Corson
From:
Fairmount, IL USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2003 7:54 pm
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I must echo all the above great comments about Mike and then some. He has done fantastic work for me on everything I have given him (including a basket case Sho-Bud for my wife)he is currently working over a D-10 cut-tail and when he is done with that, I'll be giving him another push pull (I have not decided which one yet)to work his magic on. He is a KILLER player who was kind enough to spend an afternoon with me to help me with my lame playing. I feel very fortunate to call him my friend.
Congrats on your "Cassified" guitar!! |
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Paul Warnik
From:
Illinois,USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2003 7:06 am
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| According to Mike-he recently finished up a restoration and set up on the one and only "Blade" for "The Big E"-Hey Buddy-Hows it playin' now that it's been "Cassified"??? |
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Guest
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Posted 27 Jan 2003 7:19 am
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| That's right, Mike told me about that he was working on Buddy's horn. I guess that's about as good an endorsement as you can get. |
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James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 11 Feb 2003 6:51 am
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Stephen,
WOW!!...You are one lucky guy !!...What great looking ( and I'm sure sounding ) steel you have here...Mike did a real bang up job on this one !!..Good Luck with it my friend..Jim |
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ha...thanks Mike 