The Steel Guitar Forum

So, is it a cheaper guitar made by the *new* Hudson maker now that the business was sold? It does look good for the price.

johnnie.

love what you built!! having built all sorts of instruments, i can only encourage and applaud anyone who builds something like this. the steel guitar world needs things like this.

its an optical illusion in the second pic down i think, but it looks like the legs on opposite corners are straight and the other corners are offset. yes no?

you should try a 6 string tuned EADGBE. keep 2/1 if you like. raise the B to C#. raise the G to G# and use RKR to lower the D to Db. hawk it to guitar players as a blues/rock slide pedal guitar. for this price, i bet it would sell. i think that is a market that has more potential than the pedal players who are so hung up on E9 and seeing lots of metal under the guitar and on the floor. think about not slotting the head on a 6 string. just angle the head and machine a ledge on the underside for the gears to go on. leave all the wood you can in the head for more sustain/strength. best to you and continue your building.

K Maul wrote:I looked at the site. Basically a good looking product. Now the many questions and critcisms will come.

Constructive criticism is good, it's the main impetus for change and improvement. I think the extended keyhead will appeal to guitar players, who will likely be the primary buyers.

I applaud anyone who's ever built a pedal steel or guitar from scratch.

Good Luck on this project Johnie!

Thank y'all

Thanks!

This appears to be something I'd be interested to buy in a 6 string version ....but....The extended keyhead off the cabinet looks odd and vulnerable to me. Would be better to chop that off and have a short keyless unit IMO. Just my observation and thoughts...but...I may be the odd man out.

I wish you good luck and much success however. This is a price point that will attract a lot of players.

Thanks !

Many kudos to you Johnie. Is this a pull/release changer or an all pull? Any pics of the undercarriage? Friendly suggestion, put more details on the website. I think you have a hit with this one.

Johnie King wrote:Bill Hatcher I've opened up a can of worms here I'm just the person too contact for orders
On the Growler. Wow it's unreal this morning lots of orders too fill already.

that is absolutely fabulous!

Thanks !

if you post some close up pics of the underside, that will answer a lot of questions about the tuning possibilities. hopefully you can move the changes to whatever strings you want. non moveable is not desirable. a player needs to set up to suit and not be limited. let us know!!

Johnie, I love everything about this effort! Would you please remove the photo? It's easy to see Ben's contact details under the darkish highlighter.

I love everything about this too, but I did remove the photo. I immediately noticed that I could see the contact details under the highlighter.

As far as I'm concerned, if a pedal steel is built so that

1. The tuning is very stable, and pulls go to and return from their changes solidly and well;

2. The undercarriage can be reasonably and readily reconfigured;

then it is a "professional-grade" steel to me, regardless of how many pedals and levers it has, or even how many strings it has.

There are lots and lots of different potential approaches to playing pedal steel. For some of these, a reasonably full setup makes sense, and may even be essential. For others, a minimalist configuration works just fine. And as already pointed out - a lot of great players over more than 100 years have functioned just fine without any pedals or levers, and 6-8 strings. And many fine players can do a helluvalot with a minimalist pedal/lever setup.

My concern about some of the older starter guitars like the Sidekick, Maverick, Carter Starter, and some others, was that they were not reconfigurable, stable, and/or solid. Any movement in the direction of solid, reconfigurable and more affordable pedal steels is a move forward.