The Steel Guitar Forum

I know steels have really advanced as the years go by, but I am interested in knowing what kind of copedents originally came on older Sho Bud guitars such as permanents and fingertips. Before any modification occured, how where these guitars set up? Did anybody buy these kind of guitars new and remember the set up? What was the function of all the pedals and knees on the original permanents and fingertips, as well as what was the tuning used?

One of the earliest tunings was the straight "E", or "E7th", with the equivalent of the present A&B pedal, either not split, or (later) split. Shortly after, they added the "C" pedal equivalent, but it was a couple of years later (early '60s) before knee levers came along. By 1962 or '63, the setups on E9th and C6th were pretty much what we have today, only without knee levers. After '63 is when knee levers (only 1 or 2) became standard.