Old Marlen Pedal Steel Guitar

[Wally Parks]

My brother picked up an old Marlen steel guitar. It has 8 strings with 4 floor pedals. My question is how would this be tuned? All the pedals only raise. This guitar looks to me like it was an old prototype. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated

[Lane Gray]

Wowser. That IS early.

[K Maul]

The shot of the underside is quite dark,but it is probably pull-release. Tune raises [with pedals engaged] at the keyhead like a push pull. Any lowers are tuned using the knee lever or pedal stops. There are several threads on the forum about this.

[Edward Rhea]

Really cool. Definitely a pull release. Can you tell us, what the black & red buttons do?

[Herb Steiner]

What Lane said! That is probably the earliest Marlen I've ever seen.

As to the red/black buttons, I have a Gibson C-530 with red/black buttons that operate a boo-wah tone sweep and a stutter switch. Both were trademark Speedy West chops. I surmise that's the usage on this Marlen.

Cool find.

[Chris Lucker]

Pedal one has a lower. It reverses to release the bottom string. There should be a return spring connected between the pivot where the rod goes to the bottom string finger anf the screw a couple inches from it.

[Wally Parks]

Thank you guys for the input. It is helping figure this out.Herb is correct on the black and red buttons. The black is a soft boo wah and the red a stutter switch. Very interesting. Thank You again Wally

[Damir Besic]

I know one thing, it is more then likely a tone machine... I can almost guarantee you, it has the tone to die for...

[Ian Rae]

My question is how would this be tuned?

Here's my suggestion from tracing the rods. Only a guess, but it contains the elements of the modern tuning and would be a valid precursor.

[Chris Lucker]

You can make that pedal 1 lower work better if you move the reversing pivot farther from the changer. Doing do will allow a straighter rod to the finger. Remember, you are missing the lower return spring for that change.

[Charley Bond]

I rebuild that baby with today's undercarriage & have a Super Sweet Steel...

[Lane Gray]

Give it an all-pull changer and you'll ruin the tone.
Fingers matter

[Ian Rae]

Maybe what Charley means is leave the actual changer but smarten up the linkage. I did that with an old pull-release guitar, replacing wires bent through holes with properly engineered pivots. Made it more playable.

[Brett Lanier]

Yeah, you can do anything you need to do with a pull release. It just takes a little a little creativity, and a lot of patience.

I can't tell for sure by the pictures but it looks like the guitar doesn't have a roller nut. That could cause problems with a more complicated setup, especially with getting lowers to return to pitch.

My Marlen has the best tone of any guitar I've ever played, and it seems to have the same style changer/fingers as this one. I think the wider string spacing could have something to do with it. More finger mass per string, and less interferance from magnets on adjacent strings.

I'd be interested in hearing how a boo-wah button works.

[Jim Pitman]

I saw a Marlen on Craig's list a few days back. Wich I had some $.
Brett - you need to demo your guitar at my house. (or I'll come to you)