The Steel Guitar Forum

As many will undoubtedly state, Scotty, a very gracious and caring man, did far more for the promotion of the steel guitar and its music than any other single person in the last half of the 20th and the first years of the present century than any other single person. I was highly honored (and overwh...

A story circulated in earlier days that it was Shot Jackson that actually came up with the E9th tuning while Emmons and Day were both on the road. Shot reportedly called both players to report what he had come up with and both players put it on their steels, but that the two players reversed the fir...

Tom Bradshaw out in California is one of the foremost technicians for ZB repair and restorations. Pull up his web site to view his high quality work.

The Rus-ler steel guitar company and stock were sold to Harold Flynn in Knoxville Tennessee in about 1992. Harold manufactured 31 steels during the period ca 1992 to 2003 under the Flynn brand name. Following Harold's death in 2003, I bought the company, manufacturing machinery, stock etc. I soon de...

I am in the process of restoring a triple-neck version of this steel. Tell me. what the control knobs on the pickup end of the guitar are doing -- volume or tone controls? Thanks for your reply.

Nice looker. I am in the process of restoring a triple-neck version of this guitar. Tell me, what are the control knobs for on the pickup end of the guitar -- volume or tone controls? Thanks for a reply.

Looks like a very professional job,

Go to the GHS steel guitar site. They liist both legs and sockets for sale.

They emerged in the late 1960s and flourished in the early 1970s. The now recently deceased Gene Fields was the main designer of the instrument.

Well, it turns out that my first number above of these steel guitars was correct -- Unbelievably, Sho-Bud built 4,400 of them for Fender.

Alan Brooks caught my numerical error above. Sho-Bud contracted to build 400 of these steels for Fender, not 4,000. Mia culpa.

I'll check out my source on this and get back with the report.

I just learned something I hadn't known about this model Fender steel, i.e., that the Sho-Bud company turned out 4,000 (yes, 4,000) of them, most all of which were manufactured for sale in England

Pull up one of Sarah Jory's European performances with her band on the internet. She and the band had just kicked off on the introduction to what has become a signature performance for her of "Together Again" when the fifth string on her steel broke. Without missing a beat or a word in the...

I get legs from Steel Guitar Nashville. Good quality, good service and at reasonable prices. See their web site address under Jack Stoners entry above.

Trent, as I noted earlier, I have the pedals and most of the changer mechanism for this guitar if you or someone else desires to convert it to a multi-kord with pedals. I will donate the pedals and what I have gratis since I have no use for them. The only thing else needed would be the actual change...

Looks like measles to me -- may be contagious!!!

When you replace the original tuning keys with these tuning keys (Gotos, etc.) are you also able to cover them with the original National metal tuning key covers?

You are on the right track by devising a means to install a bar in a pouch holding device. A famous Hawaiian player(Billy Hew Lin) that I saw in Honolulu several years ago had lost his left hand at the wrist and had devised a leather pouch that fitted over the wrist and had a steel bar attached to t...

Look again at the stand offs. You can buy short ones that are threaded at both ends for set screws that will immobilize the changer rod. All you need to do then is select a stand off length that fits the width of your bell cranks and then drill a hole the size of your changer rod through the round s...

Thanks for your interest. I have several projects going before I can get to the National project, but will post a photo when I have completed the National project. I will be stripping the paint off and everything else down to the bare wood and start over from there. FDL

Glad I ran across this discussion. I'm just starting to restore a National triple-neck and all of the tuners need replacing, so I will follow up on info you folks have here. An additional problem though is that three of the six original tuner covers were already lost when I bought the guitar. The on...

Think of the volume pedal as a means for sustaining volume and refrain from "pumping" it. After you have plucked the strings, slowly push the pedal down to sustain the amount of volume that you want.

Welcome! You already have one of the best steels. Go with it and be happy!

I'm way behind on this one, spending most all of my time in the Pedal Steel section, but tune me in: what is the function of tone bars on non-pedal steels? I can imagine their use on relatively slow numbers, but are they also used for faster numbers?