The Steel Guitar Forum

Last night I had the unpleasant experience of playing out and having the C pedal E-raise and the LKR E-lower literally break in the middle of playing (about a half an hour apart). Yes, it's an old ZB and I should expect some weirdness. I spend the rest of the evening trying to play around the problems. I didn't bring a second guitar

What's the worst you've had happen?

-eric

Only one that comes to mind is having the E lever break off my old Sho-Bud.

I did have some amp disasters but I assume you mean related to pedal steel mechanics... Oh well I'll tell anyway...HA! One night the band got silly and played the Mexican Hat Dance song (this was in Wyoming!) and the bass player went out on the dance floor, dancing around a cowboy hat. I was in a foul mood (girlfriend hassle) and that was just what I needed, so I went out and danced around it too.

This was before wireless.

I got to the end of my cord (I was playing regular guitar) and pulled my Twin Reverb right off the chair I had it sitting on. It barely missed smashing the other guitarists' fiddle. Funny thing was I didn't even notice it until I got back to the bandstand. It unplugged my guitar too, wondered why I couldn't hear myself.

I put it back on the chair and it was fine.

Another time, I lifted and set my Super Twin on the stage, which was about 4 feet high, and a band member decided to "help" me...I had it sitting on its little caster wheels near the edge of the stage, he pushed on the amp from the front to move it farther from the edge, which you DON'T DO, and as I yelled "NOOOooo!" he pushed it right over backwards on the hardwood floor. It smashed a pre-amp tube and wouldn't make a sound. I replaced it with one of the other tubes and then it worked ok, not even sure what stage I robbed but seem to have found a tube from an unecessary stage... and I played the night no problem.

Two Disasters.One,got a call to sub for a rthm/voc.Took my flat top /w pickup,no amp,gonna plug in-to the PA.Got to the gig and learned that the lead picker must have felt intimadated or something and didn't show.Played lead on a flat top through the PA.Bummer.
Another time I needed more coverage than my little 60 watt Gibson solid state could handle so I pluged in an extention speaker using a cable that the bass player had in his goody box.The cable was shorted and took my power transistors out.Another bummer playin through the PA.
From that day on,I always had a back up and tools.

Lots of amp problems... music store in Amarillo TX gave me a loaner Session 400 to use while they were putting new JBL's in my amp, the Session developed a problem and would only put out low volume with lots of distortion. A call to them and they brought out another Session 400, and after a few minutes it did the same thing. Ended up using the "night band's" (we were "Happy Hour band") amp to finish the night.

While backing up Johnny Farina in Mexico City, an equipment rental shop brought out a Twin Reverb for Johnny, it was dead. They brought out another one, it was dead too. They were so stupid they thought my Strat might have shorted them out, since that was what I used to show them they were dead. Show me how a guitar can "short out" an amp. Besides that, the Strat hadn't even been plugged into them until they got there.

Johnny ended up using my amp and I had to get my old '68 Fender Bandmaster out and play through it.

Had a Fender Twin Reverb that started making weird noises, squeeks and squeals.. sounded especially terrible during songs I played fiddle through it... I took it to several techs and not one of them could find anything wrong. Traded it in in Texas, and yes I told them why.

Had the pickup toggleswitch break a couple times on some of my regular guitars, both times stuck me in the both pickup position, not a big deal since I could still use the volume controls to get either pickup by itself.

Outside of LKL knee levers breaking on a Sho~Bud Super-Pro, the worst was with my Kline. They have a similar undercarriage to a Zb. One night before the gig, while tuning up, I stepped on my B pedal and it hit the ground and stayed there. The rods have a loop on the end that wraps around a hook in the changer. Well, the hook on the 3rd string broke off. I ended up hookin the rod to the hook that lowers the string, tuned the 3rd to A and played all night using the B pedal normally on string 6 and reversed (lowering A - G#) on string 3.

not a PSG disaster but...I had an upright bass that developed a habit of opening up during a gig, the back would start coming off around the lower part of the body, the first time it happened I wondered why my intonation was so off as it seemed to get flatter and flatter as I played... I got it fixed by a local luthier and then it happened again about 5 months later, Gorilla Glue was the final solution I did the repair myself, it looks awful and can never be taken apart again but it is still holding together!

I left my pedal bar, legs and rods at home and had to prop the D10 case across two chairs, lay the guitar on the case, retune the strings that the collapsed levers affected and played all night.
Jerry

Jerry Roller wrote:I left my pedal bar, legs and rods at home and had to prop the D10 case across two chairs, lay the guitar on the case, retune the strings that the collapsed levers affected and played all night.
Jerry

That's the best one yet Doesn't qualify as a mechanical, but it's good enough.

In my case the problem turned out to be a retaining collar on a pull rod that got lost and a different pull rod that popped lose from the changer. Wasn't quick to fix but at least it was straightforward.

Does anyone travel with two guitars? Or how much of a spare parts kit makes you feel safe?

-eric

Busting a pedal or knee lever to get out of playing a hard song. I've never tried that.
When I started playing steel with the Band I used the "fake it till you can make it" method. So If the song was way over my head I would look under the Steel and bang and shake on the rods, you know the old I've got a stickin pedal routine. I didn't know the the lead singer played Steel and he leaned into the mike while I was supposed to be playing a solo and said "you know the pedals on my steel always crap out at the same place in that same song. I don't do that anymore. I've practiced and practiced and got better now I beat on my amp and make out like it crapped out.

I was playing an older BMI guitar on a gig one afternoon and the rod for the first pedal came off. The ball joint sleeve at the pedal end had literally worn out from years of use, and broken apart. I took the rod off the 3rd pedal, put it one the 1st pedal, and finished the gig. Had to get some new parts from BMI to fix the guitar...
Larry J.

Come to think of it, PSG's are pretty darn reliable and well-built. I'd have a lot more breakdown stories if this were about motorcycles or cars...

Did the same thing Eric did,My 35 year old MSA-D10 Classic is so heavy,had the case cut down,just the guitar in one case,legs,rods,etc in another,had a studio date,got there ,everyone waiting on ME,had left the legs,rods etc,at home.I can be a dummy sometimes,that night no one had to remind of it,don't you know.

Well, it's not a mechanical failure since it was my own fault, but so far it's the worst steel gig I've had. A few weeks ago I was playing a night I was double booked at a local festival. I wrapped up a guitar gig and ran over to the venue where I was to play a steel gig. The band had already started, and the dobro player had set up my steel for me. Not being a steel player he did the best he could, but the legs were on backwards and the rods weren't hooked up. So while the band was playing I was trying to figure out what was needed to be done to the steel to get it up & running. I finally got it to where I thought things were good to go, just in time for the only song the band plays with a steel intro. Aaaaaaaaand the the pedals aren't working. At this point it was too late to do more investigating, so I faked the rest of the gig with no pedals. Between showing up late for the gig and not having my steel in working order I felt pretty bad.

A few years back I had an MSA D/10 and right at the begining of a song I broke the screw in ball on P-1 that the rod connects to. Since I wasn't really a C6th player [still not] I had 5 more on board. Took the rod off P-8, robbed the ball out that pedal and was back up and running in time for my steel ride!

A couple of months back I wasn't that lucky, the knee lever for my 2nd string lower broke at the begining of the gig, worked all night with out it. I do a closer inspection on my gear now!

Larry

E lever (RKL) on a Super Pro snapping off during a gig. It happened to me within months after I got the guitar in 1984. I immediately got all the knee lever brackets replaced with aluminum ones, which I heartily recommend to anyone with a late model Sho-Bud. A one-time moderate expense, and/or hassle if you do it yourself, and you never have to worry about that again.

I recently acquired a late model LDG on which three of the four knee lever brackets have been replaced with aluminum. Why three and not all four? They must have been replaced as they broke, which shows how much risk there is of it. I'll be replacing that fourth one ASAP! (Or else "Coop" the whole thing! But that's a different story.)

A side note: The one that didn't break is the LKL, which is mounted at an angle. Which would seem to possibly illustrate the better ergonomics of angle mounting.