Questions for Old Fender Fans

Ross Whitaker · Post by **Ross Whitaker** » 17 Jul 2012 4:10 pm

Hey all, a friend of mine is wanting to restore an old Fender pedal steel that he's had sitting around in his basement for a while. I told him if he sent me some pictures, I'd post them on the forum and pose his questions.

So, the pictures:

And the questions:
-What model is this?
-Are replacement parts available?
-If replacement parts are available, where?

Thanks for your help!

-r

Benjamin Franz · Post by **Benjamin Franz** » 17 Jul 2012 4:51 pm

Ross, that's a first generation Fender 400, dating from around 1958 to 1960.

There's a dedicated Fender pedal steel forum here. Loads of info on
Getting these things playable again.

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Fender_Steel_Forum/index.php

Ross Whitaker · Post by **Ross Whitaker** » 17 Jul 2012 5:22 pm

Thanks, Benjamin.

Daniel McKee · Post by **Daniel McKee** » 17 Jul 2012 6:39 pm

That will make a nice steel once its cleaned up.

Chas. J. Wagner · Post by **Chas. J. Wagner** » 18 Jul 2012 5:05 am

For parts, you may want to check with Bob Carlucci...
Parts for cable Fender pedal steel guitars..

Michael Yahl also posted that he was working on Fender Parts. As of Jun 16th...

Michael Yahl wrote:...I'm working on all those parts right now. I hope that in about 6 weeks I'll have a bunch of components available for the whole line of those guitars.

Michael's web site

Fred Glave · Post by **Fred Glave** » 18 Jul 2012 6:18 am

The 400 is a cool steel. This one is in pretty rough shape, but with time and patience it could be brought back. Good luck, I love to see these kept up and/or brought back to life.

Daniel McKee · Post by **Daniel McKee** » 18 Jul 2012 10:22 am

Its always great to see any steel guitar restored and brought back to life especially the older ones like this.This fender steel is a little valuable than later ones because of the frame and color the later after 1960 or so went to another style frame and then a few years later all sunburst.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 19 Jul 2012 7:42 am

That steel, commonly known condition-wise as a "basket case", has very little value due to the extremely poor condition. While it could be fixed up, costs would be prohibitive unless the owner did everything himself. Unfortunately, with the requisite refinishing and re-chroming required, most of the real "collector value" would be lost. You could make it just a "player", and enjoy it, but make no mistake...it's not valuable by any stretch of the imagination. Similar models, in decent-to-good playable condition, are only bringing $600-$800. With many hundreds of them still out there, it's really not in the same category as something like a Bigsby.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 19 Jul 2012 8:16 am

I'd second Mr. Hinson. Rebuild it because you want a project, because you want to see it brought back from the lip of the landfill.
To call it a quixotic errand would smack of error: Don Quixote didn't have to pay for his windmills.
The project would never break even

Ross Whitaker · Post by **Ross Whitaker** » 19 Jul 2012 2:32 pm

Yeah, I think his main concern is restoring it to a playable condition, not a presentation-worthy one. He'll appreciate the words of caution.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 23 Jul 2012 12:39 pm

Wow, thats is REALLY bad shape... Old Fenders are not that expensive, and in my opinion, it would cost as much or more to restore that guitar as buying a clean well maintained one.. If I had that steel, i would strip it down, clean up whatever was in decent shape, sell the parts and buy a clean old Fender.. There are lots of them out there, and parts can be had through Mike Yahl.

bob