Ensuring the future of the Pedal Steel

[Wesley Parish]

One thing I've been thinking about a lot since I read that Sierra was shutting shop next month - to ensure the future of the pedal steel guitar, why not draw up a set of blueprints (in DWG and JPG and PNG formats) for a range of pedal steels from six-string to eight-string to ten-string to twelve-string to fourteen-string, with several of the changer options, from pull-release to Sho-Bud all-pull finger changer to Emmons push-pull to Carter all pull, including the dimensions of all parts, from the cabinet to the changer section to the pedals, etc, put it all together in an electronic book (PDF and EPUB and MOBI formats), and distribute it under a Creative commons license to secondary and tertiary schools worldwide? I expect it would interest any number of mech eng students in both secondary and tertiary level, as well as fascinating any number of music students; and releasing it under Creative Commons licensing would mean amongst other things, not having to sit over each school that expresses an interest to make sure they keep to the straight and narrow. It's also means sidestepping nasty things like tariffs which would suck the blood from any attempt to use such a book to get any ROI.

It's also based on the way IBM unexpectedly became the standard for Personal Computers in the early 80s - release the product with completely open specifications, so anyone who wants to can build additional parts for it, then suddenly find that every man and his dog are building clones and where you thought you had a market for number X of the machines, you now find you have a marketplace of X to the power of X machines ...

FWIW

[Les Ford]

There's this page that links to explanations and diagrams for a lot of critical parts:

http://steelguitar.com/mapIntro.html

[Steven Black]

I like that idea Les because builders are disappearing, maybe a new generation will build them.

[Carl Mayer]

I’d volunteer some time to a project like this. If anyone wants to send pics of spare parts next to a ruler I can whip up some CAD models (assuming any patents are expired and no other IP issues).

[Javier Schulenburg]

At least patents shouldn't be an issue given how old the technologies are, given that patents last at most 20 years

[Max Lee]

I agree with everything already said in this thread. It would be a shame for great psg designs to go extinct because the original builder/company stopped making them! I am just crossing the 1 year mark of my psg journey but I am also interested in contributing to an open-source psg design.
I have a background in engineering and access to solidworks, a large metal laser cutter, welders, and a manual knee mill and lathe. Plus, I have seen that there are centuries of collective tinkering knowledge on this forum!

Linking some threads I think could be useful (all guitars no longer in production, but I do not know about patent status)l:
Kline-type Changer Drawing: viewtopic.php?p=3087504
It would be very nice if Sonny or Paul could upload the original scan of his dimensioned drawing.

Fender PS-210 Patent Drawings: viewtopic.php?t=177022&start=25
If anyone could provide a scale reference (e.g. the bridge roller or axle diameter) this would be pretty straightforward to prototype.

Anapeg Changer finger photos and drawings: viewtopic.php?t=102313&start=75
Similar to the PS210 drawings, a reference dimension (axle dia, finger width etc) would be very helpful.

[Kurt Graber]

If Someone is building a Steel Guitar to save money, In my opinion is a BAD IDEA!
Ive built dozens of acoustic guitars and electrics and now I have almost finished my first pedal steel.
I own a Martin HD28 for a reference, I own 6 quality Pedal steels (Zum, Mullen, Sho bud etc) not only for reference but to play professionally. I dissected one of my quality Steels to see if I could make the parts and teach myself better Skills on my Mill. Im about $10000 invested in my machine shop tools and I have some pretty nice modern equipment with precise digital readouts for precision. If you dont have good references, Ive learned that your fooling yourself what quality is with no experience. I loved going to the PSG convention in St Louis and trying out all the Steels. I remember how much I cringed at a particular PSG brand, Or what I liked about another. So in other words, you can build/copy a name brand steel and it can still be a piece of crap if you dont know what your building. After Hundreds maybe thousands of hrs in my machine shop did I realize how much of a Bargain the steel guitar is to purchase completly built new/used. I decided a quality changer had to have Stamped or lazer cut parts and so that was not going to be done here. Lazer cut parts are not cheap but this is a must for quality. I know this thread is about builders calling it quits and who is going to fill their shoes. My experience of building just one steel has really opened my eyes of what is involved. Lets all hope a builder with a great business plan and a million dollar machine shop with automated equipment will step up to the plate. I once visited Bruce Zumsteg and he gave me a tour of his shop. Wow, what an expert machinist with no fancy CNC equipment etc.. This guy was just a perfectionist doing things by hand. Obviously he had a lot better equipment/machines than I have in my garage. There are very few people in this world that could do what Bruce accomplished and be successful as long as he did. Let me ask one final question, would you rather play a steel built from me out of my garage or buy a used Franklin (The most expensive one you can find)? Its cheaper to buy that Franklin, and mine is not for sale at any price. Im to proud of what I made. Just remember this is a labor of Love, that is why I do the things I do.

[J D Sauser]

The OP's concern was one of the reasons I asked b0b to give us this "Builder's Forum Section". And I think it's also the reason he gave it to us too just shortly before he left us so prematurely.

Now that being said. I know that many steel guitar owners like to think that our instrument is some kind of mechanical marvel.
It's NOT, and it never really was. Not even in the 40's (Harlin Bros. / Gibson ElectraHarp) and not today either.
Steel guitar manufacturing ALWAYS was way behind the mechanical capabilities available in it's times. There is not a single one PSG that was ahead of it's time when compared to other mechanical machinery built in it's time. I need not mention the existence of precision watches and clocks and also "robots" (called "Automates" in the 1800's) which were more advanced, more complicated and more precise than even some of the finest examples of Pedal Steel Guitars ever built. Then there are much more complex instruments like the piano and the organ predating the PSG with much more complex applications using wood. Instruments like clarinets and later the saxophone a mechanically much more challenging to built and their mechanics also have to look "beautiful".
We are still today, building just merely "evolutions" of mid 1800's leverage machines.
So, even if a Magnetron would wipe out all the history and "data" of pedal steel guitar building, as long as machinery and materials are available, most any precision machinist or engineer could come up with what we have seen so far, and maybe something way more advanced.
Now, I might sound like a loud mouth (again), since being an engineer, I must confess that my designs and ideas still too rely on the same basic lever/crank principles we seen and worked with every since it's invention.
Still, it is interesting that some of the earliest and sometimes even crudest contraptions still today are view as the best or at least among the best SOUNDING examples.
Even the very first electromagnetically amplified (pickup) "guitar", the 1932 Rickenbacher Fry-Pan, is still regarded by many as the holy grail of tone... a simple sand-cast one-piece chunk of aluminum, with very un precise frets!

I think that hobby and prototype tinkerers are among the ones which may give the instrument a new "push".

I too am saddened by the thought that this is the month, such a revolutionary new PSG concept is being given up with the closure the "Ross" era at Sierra.


In other words, if you guys so wish, I will gladly open a "Sticky"-Thread to put historical data in.
Just say so.

... J-D.

[Wesley Parish]

Well, for what it's worth, I found the Steel Guilders forum before it disappeared into the Wayback Machine, and copied some of the discussions into a text file, chiefly the discussions on dimensions. I've been thinking I could sort all of those out, separating the wheat from the chaff, and then it could be put up on this forum as a sticky.

For what little it's worth, I started building a pedal steel in 1981, but then my parents shifted from Canberra, ACT (Australia) to Tauranga (New Zealand) and everything I'd started, got abandoned and I never had the time or space to take it up again.

[J D Sauser]

Done!


HISTORIC VAULT (Where we post current and past Steel Guitar Design Ideas For Posteriority)
viewtopic.php?t=410221

It's a sticky.

... J-D.