Pedal Steel Cabinet with Integral Wood Neck

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

Has this ever been done?

Start with a 2 inch thick board for the top of the cabinet and carve the perimeter around the neck to a more normal thickness say ¾ in.

It would be easy to accomplish with the CNC equipment available these days.

Since tightening the neck screws too tight can shorten sustain (or at least this is discussed), would an integral neck be like lots of overtightened screws or would it be like having no neck since there is no joint?

Clearly the top of the guitar would be stiffer with an integral neck and the neck area being in the middle of top is the most advantageous place to add wood from a bending perspective. Similar to flat bed trailers where the support structure in the middle of the trailer lengthwise is thicker or more massive. This follows basic mechanics theory that for a beam with a distributed load or a load in the middle the bending moment is highest is the middle. So, that is where you need the material to support it. Another example would be a leaf spring, the ends can be thinner.
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Roger Edgington · From: San Antonio, Texas USA

Isn't a Fender steel made that way? David parker of Dallas,Tx has built steels like that. He has even incorporated making the head stock and tail piece as part of the one piece design. I have a S-10 non pedal that David cut out like that that was orginally supposed to be a pedal steel. It sounds great and also has a fully illuminated fret board. I have it mostly for collecting autographs. I have about 53 so far, mostly hall of faimers.

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

Fenders are done this way, yes indeed, but I was thinking of the typical steel cabinet made today with a top and two aprons.

The wood keyhead is another move further in that direction, that was discussed on the old forum quite a while ago, I searched just now but could not find it though.

There is lot of experimentation on body design in the 6 string world (different woods, combinations of woods, bolt on, set neck, through neck, truss rods, on and on), for pedal steels its always a flat top with two aprons made of maple, with or without mica. Except for MSA and Sierra I guess.
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Roger Edgington · From: San Antonio, Texas USA

Scott,
My guitar was cut out of Myrtlewood by a C&C milling machine with the intention of having end plates & a normal front apron. I rescued the top section which had been setting around for years. (without aprons) and rounded off the edge and made into a non-pedal steel. It has legs mounted like a non-pedal Fender.

jim milewski · From: stowe, vermont

my theory from observing a few things is this, my buddy had this beatiful MSA, really well built, very stout, I believe it was using 3/4' top and a thick neck and very stable in cabinet drop and tuning, my Emmons was a lighter guitar with thinner wood and a hollow metal neck as a typical push pull and I think the cabinet drop on a meter showed the MSA a bit better, but the Emmons rang like a bell and the MSA had no tone whatsoever (he sold it), it seemed to me the extra wood served to dampen and the MSA had no natural good sounding resonance. Another example is picking up a Gibson Hummingbird, a thick top and all around a pretty heavy acoustic guitar, next to a basic Taylor dreadnaught which is about featherweight, the Taylor "rings" and the gibson sounds muted. The challenge on a pedal steel is to build a stiff guitar but not to massive in construction as to limit its body resonance, I'm curious as to what a hollow wooden neck would sound like. I think one reason for the neat tone a Telecaster has is the hollow cavity beneath the metal plate the bridge sits on, sort of a resonating cavity.

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

The acoustic chamber is yet another concept to work with, there have been a number of solid body 6 string guitar with internal sound chambers lately - McInturff Taurus, a Gibson Les Paul model (don't remember the exact name), and others - guitars that appear to be solid bodies but wood is removed from the back before the top is attached.
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Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

There's some disadvantages to that approach. Among them: added weight, more expense, more waste, and less versatility (as to modifications and repairs).

Those are serious considerations for builders who already aren't getting rich at this, especially when you consider the only benefit is probably a little less flex in the cabinet. Properly built steels today, and that's most all of them, have very few problems with the cabinets flexing enough to affect their playability.

David Doggett · Posted 28 Jun 2007 1:56 pm

I think the jury will remain out on this until someone makes duplicate guitars with and without an integral carved neck. It certainly did not seem to adversely affect the Fender non-pedal steel guitars.

I think Jim and Scott are engaging in the acoustic analogy fallacy (no put-down intended, guys - you may be in the majority on this). In acoustic guitars, the top is the sound board and makes sound by draining off vibrational energy (sustain) from the strings and transferring it to the top, which moves air, creating more volume than the strings alone would produce. The thinner the top, the greater the volume, and the less the sustain; for example, a banjo, which basically just has a loud pluck. An acoustic guitar has a thicker and stiffer top, which gives more stustain, but less volume. A solid body guitar (unplugged) has great sustain, but little volume (compared to an acoustic guitar).

Among electric guitars, hollow and semi-hollow bodies have less sustain and more acoustic volume; but, except at very low amplified volume, the acoustic volume is irrelevant. You get that short-sustain, jazz box sound. Solid-body electrics have much more sustain and less acoustic volume, but the acoustic volume is irrelevant, because the magnetic pickup and amplifier magnify the sound of the vibrating strings. Do you want a thinner top or hollow body on a steel guitar to drain off sustain? In one sense, this experiment has already been done. The Gibson console steel guitar was hollow, and the electrified tone and sustain suffer compared to a Fender Stringmaster.

As for a more massive body, many people claim a D-10 has better tone than a comparable S-10 or S-12, allegedly because of the more massive body. And I don't think it is at all clear that the tone of an Emmons p/p is due to a thinner body. 3/4" is already mighty thick for a guitar top. While it is true that the tension of the neck screws affects the tone, the neck is hollow (or concave) underneath, so tightening the screws too much could distort the body, adversely affecting tone. I wonder what one would sound like without a neck at all? Wood neck P/Ps have good tone, but the changer is attached diffently, as on the bolt-ons. The bottom line to me is that the influence of the neck on tone is complicated, and not exactly straightforward. Thought experiments and comparisons on paper only go so far.

Chris Lucker · From: Los Angeles, California USA

With the neck and body as a single piece of wood, you will have grain going the same direction which could lead to cupping or warping. All I know is that in architectural applications, a glue-lam beam, or a beam made of several pieces of wood selected for grain balance (simple explanation) has more resistance to twisting, warping or bending under load than a beam made of a single timber.
Besides, I like the sound of lighter weight body guitars, myself.

jim milewski · From: stowe, vermont

the term "massive" probably is not the best term, I was refering to thickness, double necks are larger bodies and to my ears with a few exceptions seem to sound better, the Emmons I was comparing to the MSA was a double without the rear neck and the MSA was a S12, just hitting each guitar with your knuckle revealed the Emmons was more resonant, when plugged in the Emmons really excelled on the wound strings with great definition while the MSA notes died early and on the muddy side

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

This is the guitar that I made for Joaquin, although the photos aren't very good. He wanted a single
neck 9 string and I wanted it to sound as good as it possibly could. Everything on the guitar can
either contribute to or damp the vibrations. My thinking was that the more integral the guitar is, the
better it will sound. The top plate and neck are machined from a single block of wood and are slightly
slotted to accept the front and back skirts which are surfaced and doweled. The key head is bolted into
the top plate and endplate, as is the changer. Danny Sheilds wound a copy of the Bigsby pickup.

David Doggett · Posted 28 Jun 2007 9:45 pm

Jim, that's an unfair comparison. Try comparing an Emmons D10 with an Emmons S12, both with metal necks; or two similar MSAs, one with wood necks and one with a metal neck. In comparing my Zum S12 to my Sho-Bud Pro III D10, both with aluminum necks, I would give the nod to the Zum. But my Emmons p/p S12 with an aluminum neck beats both. But these are unfair comparisons because there are so many differences other than mass or neck material.

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

Chas,

Wow that is exactly the concept I was thinking about. Did you have a model with a bolt on neck to compare to?

I agree with those that believe that the more wood present in a D-10 or SD-10 vs a S-10 contributes to better tone, so I was thinking about ways to add wood. The integral neck also puts the wood in the correct place for bending resistance.

If the body has higher bending resistance that also makes other less strong than maple tonewoods feasible.
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Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

This is similar to the comparison of an electric guitar with a bolt-on neck, compared with a neck-through-body guitar. You need two otherwise-identical instruments where that is the only difference in order to do a fair comparison.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Scott, that was the only single neck guitar that I've spent a lot of time with. I always thought that the double necks sounded better than the singles, but then Tommy Detamore had a single Emmons PP, that sounded fabulous.

My main guitar is a modified Sho-Bud Professional that I spent a couple hundred hours "cleaning up" and it sounds pretty good. Some simple things like squaring up the changer and keyhead castings and the neck ends, so that they have a close fitup, goes a long way towards improving the sound on those things. I also "wrapped" the changer around the end and bolted it into the end plate, which seemed to make a big difference.

One of the best sounding guitars I have has a titanium tube frame. It's very resonant and doesn't flex very much.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

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jim milewski · From: stowe, vermont

curious to the scale length of the Rickenbacher

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

The scale length of the Rickenbacker is 25".

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Actually, that's not the only single neck I've spent time with, I have a S10 Bigsby, but it has a large body and I consider them to be a class unto themselves.

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