The Steel Guitar Forum

I gave a lesson to a guy locally last week. He is VERY tall and we had to tilt the Rains forward by 2" for his legs to fit under.. In the meantime, he went home and wanted something to practice on and built this!




His email read "There must be some way of adapting a pedal steel to fit me. The standard Rains seemed ok if it had a platform or something supporting it level.
Would three pedals be enough to start with? They seem very complicated with all those levers and things. Meanwhile I have built my own just to practice the scales on (see pics). It actually works, but only has four strings and two pedals so far, as I ran out of half-inch pulleys. At least it has lots of leg room. Watch out, Rains!

All the best,
John

David Hartley

wierdest guitar evar. cool.

I used to play with that stuff when I was a kid.
We called it MECANO and you could play with it the whole day long. Along with LEGO of course.
Now I wonder wether this has anything to do with the fact that I became steel player.
Did most of us play with construction toys when we were kids...

Peer

Thats one those new "Mechanommons" push pulls we have all heard about !!!

I've read in another thread that these guitars tend to be 'clanky', does this one have that problem?

Peer Desmense wrote:I used to play with that stuff when I was a kid.
We called it MECANO and you could play with it the whole day long. Along with LEGO of course.
Now I wonder wether this has anything to do with the fact that I became steel player.
Did most of us play with construction toys when we were kids...

Peer

When I was a kid in the 50s they made "Erector Sets". That is what it reminded me of.

http://www.girdersandgears.com/erector-10064.html

Meccano!!!! Great stuff, and I'd eagerly await Christmas and birthdays, because I'd get the supplement set that would upgrade my existing one (6A would turn your #6 into a #7, etc). It was a marvelous toy, and made in Liverpool by Hornby who also made great toy trains! I still have a couple of bits and pieces, including the instruction manual. This would have an impossibly-optimistic picture on the front of a proud dad watching his boys complete a massive facsimile of either Tower Bridge or a giant blocksetting crane - it was the same picture even if you only had Set #1, the components of which would just about run to a tiny wheelbarrow....

I guess toys are still educational, but these kind of hands-on products have been replaced with micro-chips. Appropriate to our age, but not as appealing to an old codger like me!

That's a great effort - I never thought of making steel guitar with mine!

PS: Bill: I imagine that Meccano was very similar to the Erector Set, and was the European equivalent.

Bill, I had Lincoln Logs and Plastic Blocks. I must be even older than you!

Is that a 'Franklinstein'?

What's the co-pedant?

Yup, looks almost identical to my Erector Sets growing up. I made all kinds of stuff, but never a guitar. A.C. Gilbert, the company that made Erector Sets, went out of business in the 1960s, but the torch was carried on. Current versions are made by - you guessed it - Meccano of France, which is apparently part of Nikko of Japan. Basic info here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erector_set . Even though these are still made, I haven't seen one of these in the hands of a kid in the US for at least 40 years. I wanted to get one for my daughter, and I got evil looks from everyone around me. Shoulda' done it anyway.

I'm all for chips, bits, bytes, and computers - but I think at a young age, there's nothing so fascinating as mechanical contraptions. They're more tactile and easier to grok what's happening. I have no doubt that this early experience made it easier for me to do the math, science, and engineering thing. As a society, we pay lip service about wanting more math and science for our students, especially women and minority students. Stick one of these in everybody's hands in kindergarten and first grade, turn them loose with some fun projects to work on, and make it look cool - it'll happen on its own, IMO. But it seems that we only want to talk about this.

Can you tell Peer Desmense (on the forum) that I tried making a LEGO one, but it collapsed om me!
Maybe someone out there has some spare Meccano pullies! Also it has the advantage that when I get bored with it I can make a dockyard crane or something.

John T

Yup, I had one of those "educational} erector sets back in the 50's.I was a pretty slow learner even then. Can't begin to say how many times I got my fingers caught in the motor. Still the best gift that I ever got for X-Mas. The DoRite folks of to-day wouldn't blinke twice to out law one of those to-day. I might chock on my finger after I got it caught in the motor.

Dave M. you're right on again!!! Today's teen-agers don't know what a spark plug is let alone how to check the gap on a new one and replace the old one...not because they couldn't do it...because they don't know that there are such things under the hood...what's a hood?
Had Lincoln logs when they were still made of "pressed wood"...they'd swell up in the summertime and didn't always go together as planned.
Had two Erector sets...never did find out where they went...parent's divorce left many "voids" in my life, if you know what I mean.
Still have the American Flyer train set though...since 1951...still runs fine and is still intact, transformer and all.
Those were wonderful days...kids today will never experience this.
BTW what's the cabinet drop on that steel?
PRR

Paul,
Sorry for being off topic, but, I had an American Flyer layout that filled the attic in my house, about 20'x40'. My current HO layout pales by comparison. God, I miss those days!

When I was a kid in the 50s they made "Erector Sets". That is what it reminded me of.

Guys use Viagra these days.

(Sorry I couldn't resist.)

I wonder if Gary Rittenberry got started this way?

Forget the guitar--this guy means business!!!

Yep certainly differant, Put a starting handle and a magneto in there someware and watch the sparks flow. Keith White UK.

Hey guys,
Improvise, adapt, and overcome. As my dad would say to me when I was younger, "Boy, for everthing and anything there is a way ". That's some serious enginutyu there.

Christmas of 1967 or 1968, my brother got a Mechanno set. I'm not sure how much that had to do with it, but he turned out to be a very talented mechanic...he just never took it up as a trade. I'm sure he could be a good pedal steel tech if he put his hand to it.