The Steel Guitar Forum

Wow—this sounds great, Patrick!

A much needed oasis for all the Steelers in the our steel repair desert!

Looking forward to meeting you and checking out your facilities!

Bob Knetzger
Kirkland

Patrick Timmins wrote:Would be happy to host you Eric (and everyone else who has chimed in).

You sold me my first pedal steel! A 69 ZB D11. It is now my living room guitar and gets played every day.
Working on rebuilding and updating a red ZB student model now to see if I can make it a gigging guitar. Much lighter than the D11....

Glad yer still lovin' the ZB Patrick!
That was a sweet one - but I can't move a double neck anymore. Only single necks for me
I do hope to get up to the pacific northwest later this year. Happy Trails!

Patrick.Is that a Hammond C-3?

Congrats! This is great!

Your avatar is a winner already. If you could put your forum avatar on a large bill board somewhere within 3 blocks of the store, put the name of the store at the bottom, and your business would be famous overnight. Tell 'em the store opens at high noon.

PS - Are you actually going to sell that Fender 400 or just use it to generate interest? It might have higher value as a fixture.

Just saw this. Great news for us in the PNW! Hope to make it over sometime soon. Best of luck, Patrick and keep up the good work.

Thanks Eric, that's why the ZB is the living room guitar. At 90+ lbs in the case, it's not going to gigs anytime soon. It does make it to the studio occasionally.


Hi Stu, It's a Hammond A100. It's the same as A B-3 and C-3 except the preamp is hung upside down below the lower tone wheel instead of behind it so it is all most a foot shallower than the others. Handy when your space is limited but all the same mechanics and preamp. It has an effect loop built into it so I can play pedal steel, among other things through the preamp and whatever Leslie I have hooked up. Fun stuff!

Thanks Abe! You have quite the collection as well!

Hi Richard, The 400 is a keeper. Not up for sale, but any visitor is welcome to play it to see why it's not for sale.

It's getting a little hard to keep track of the PMs on the forum.
Just to keep the mail traffic down on the forum, you can email me at:

Patrick@tenstringsadmachine.com

Hope to have the website up soon.
The name of the store and studio is, Ten String Sad Machine. Hope that's not too hokey.
Shopping around for a graphics/logo artist now.

Congrats! I'll definitely visit next time I'm in Seattle.

Cappone,
Vancouver BC

+ wow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love to stop by sometime and check it out.

I do have some long deferred work to be done on my two Excels as there was nobody here to do it. It would be great if you could fix them up.

Thanks
Fraser

email sent

I haven't had Patrick do any work for me just yet, but he's studying E9 with me, a very sharp fellow, we even had a live lesson in my Olympia studio a few months ago, both of us vaxxed and boosted. I have confidence he'll do great work for you. The range of other services is fantastic! Good luck, Patrick!!

For anyone in the Northwest having trouble getting your head wrapped around the E9 neck, I teach primarily via Skype, occasionally live with a nearby student who is Covid-safe. I strive to teach students better ways to learn and understand music, then apply that to the pedal steel guitar. If it's hot licks you're after, please look elsewhere.

All best,
John McClung
Pedal Steel Lessons, Casuals, Sessions
Olympia, WA 98512
Email – steelguitarlessons@earthlink.net
Website – http://steelguitarlessons.com
Skype name: professortwang
Cell & text: 310-480-0717

OMG. My eyes just teared up a little.

Thank you! BEST OF LUCK BROTHER.

Jay

Thank you John and everyone else for words of encouragement. John has really helped me progress during Covid and I can't recommend him enough.

I have had a few new customers from the forum now and am genuinely honored to have your trust. These instruments are very personal instruments and I will treat them better than my own.

I have had the basic tune up jobs, but a few fun projects have come through.

A forum member brought in a Rains with a significant laundry list.

First, it really needed a changer rebuild with a level and polish of the finger tips.

Before:


After:


Changers went through the ultrasonic cleaning station to get the years of grit and grime out. Tightened a few rivets as well:



Paid special attention to the action and polished it out to produce less friction and put less wear on the finger tips.


Installed:


The customer had been using blocks of foam to reduce the space between the knees. Instead of moving the knee axels, I designed some custom knees that can be reverted back to factory condition in 5 minutes.

New dog leg knee levers LKL and RKL.



For comfort and playability, we added knee 3 flags. One was already installed on RKR.




And they all fold down nice and neat.





This was a fun project and I hope to be able to be able to do more like this.



Thanks for all your support!

Patrick@tenstringsadmachine.

Now I know you're definitely the man to help finalize and craft my adjustable LKL flag, Patrick. Great looking work!

I'll trade you for some lessons.

I have a LKV lever that needs to come down a bit more than it is capable so it is more accessible for me. Looks pretty simple, a 1/2" to 3/4" drop via a shim. Nothing would seem to impede that theory.

EDIT: Shim won't work, my mistake. Gotta figure something else out.

Patrick, any plans to make t-shirts/stickers? I'm buying, if so!

I sure am! The artwork is what is holding up the website. I also don't have enough pedal steel t-shirts. May do bandannas as well. Just listed another old motorcycle to help pay for it all.

I'm having an artist that does a lot of graphics for some of the hip new country artists work on it for me, but she is a little busy working on getting stuff ready for new tour dates and album releases. Here is a link to some of her work: https://dribbble.com/AliceMauleDesign


And I have no idea what it will look like. I just asked her to make sure it is something she would wear/buy. Looking at her other work, it should turn out well.

She has a nice resume, I'm very impressed!

How's business??

So far, so good.

Staying busy with all repair work so far. Took a break this morning to sell a 66 Ducati scrambler (Flat tracker) to make more room in the shop, and just made a gaggle of ZB turnbuckles for one of my own projects.

So glad I still have grandpas old South Bend lathe with the dog gear that turns real, real, slow for threading, both directions.



I have tapmatics and CNC, but for a handful of parts, the South Bend is kind of meditative. Nice, quiet, relaxing. Also, my tapmatics don't work on left hand threads. At least I don't think they do, I've never looked into it.

Edit: My oldest tapmatic (probably from the 60s) actually does work in reverse! I don't know why I never tried. My 2 newer X series tapmatics will only work right hand threads. They were way more expensive too......

Just waiting on some art to launch the website and start selling PSG's.

Patrick,
I am so envious - I've been making all my ZB turnbuckles with hand taps! Talk about "meditative"...
Happy Trails

Updated list for the shop.


Edit: as of 6/23/22
Thanks for the interest and support. Feel free to PM me at patrick@tenstringsadmachine.com till I get the web page up. I guess I'm a little lazy when it comes to web design....

Items available for sale currently:

Just became a Milkman dealer!
Have "The Amp 100" Brand new and sounds great!
"High Headroom" discrete op amp boost. I have put one of my own Jensen clone op-amps in there and it adds a nice growl. Stock sounds great too. Stop by and try them out to hear the difference between the two!

Waiting on a Milkman pedal steel voiced TV front 40 watt. I haven't heard one yet, but have heard good things about them. Should be fun!

New black Mullen Discovery S10 3&4 List price
Dekley S-10 3&4 late 70s with Ampeg sticker on the underside
BMI s-10 3&4 mid 70s
93 Sierra Session S10 w/ pad likely 1993, several pickups to choose from
Emmons Loafer SD-10 4&5. 1976 cherry.
Carter S-12 extended E9 4&5. Red wood grain. unknown year but in good shape.

Taking orders for custom Mullen guitars. I include 1 year free adjustments and maintenance to make sure it fits and plays just the way you want it.

Items available to try out:
Not for sale
69 ZB Custom D11 9&4
65 Fender 400 4 on the floor
20 Zum Encore 4&5
75 Emmons S/D 10 4&5 with a tunable split on the 5 string

A couple of other personal guitars on the bench.

Peavey Session 2000
Peavey Nashville 400
Fender Twin Reverb 78 (ultra-linear 120 watts)
Silvertone 1482 studio amp with Alnico 12

Incase anyone is curious, I also have a Peavey Black Widdow 18" cabinet. It is insanely large. About the same volume as my Ampeg 8x10 cabinet.
Come play through the worlds largest pedal steel rig!


Thanks again for all the encouragement! I'll update when the website goes live.
As for why there are no prices listed, I really want to be a local resource (and this is not in the "for sale" section). I want people to be able to try out different things before they buy so they know what they are getting into, or what to start saving for...

Patrick.

Best of luck! Great news!

Congratulations. Sorry I missed you, I moved away from Seattle in 2003. But I'm planning a visit in about a years time, Summer 2023. I'll be sure to drop by.