The Steel Guitar Forum

First of all, hello! I just joined and am looking forward to reading what everyone has to say on here.

I'm a new pedal steel player, and was just looking at a YouTube tutorial on some scales. The instructor played a B diminished on the 15th fret by hitting strings 5, 3 and a dropped 2. I realized that I can't drop my 2, and I always thought that it was strange that my D pedal only dropped my 9th string, which I don't imagine using all that often (maybe I'm wrong about that). Well, sure enough, there is a broken rod in my case that looks like it could go from my D pedal to my 2nd string.

I'm thinking I'll switch the rod from the 9th to the 2nd string for the time being so I can get more use out of my D pedal, but I'd like to have a complete set soon.

So, my questions:

1) Is there anything in particular I need to pay attention to? Are there standard lengths? Of the five different lengths, this looks to be the second shortest.
2) I live in Germany. Does anybody know of some good suppliers in Europe?

This is probably relevant: I have an ABM 10 string steel with five pedals and two knee levers on my right side.

Thanks for the help!

- Justin

Pictures of the ends of the rods and where they attach to the bellcranks would help.
They'll most likely use standard sizes of either aluminum or stainless steel rod, with threads cut for the tuning nuts.
There are different means of attaching the rods to the bellcrank

Contact ABM about replacement rods. its a European company if I remember right.

Bob Hoffnar wrote:Contact ABM about replacement rods. its a European company if I remember right.

It's even a German company. Tel.: +49 (0)30 930 211 22, Fax: +49 (0)30 930 99 48, http://www.abm-guitarpartsshop.com

As far as I know they stopped making steel guitars many years ago, but who knows, they may have some spares gathering dust on a shelf.

Hey Justin,
you should contact Wolfgang Bednarz at WBS Steelguitars, located between Frankfurt and Wuerzburg. A very nice guy and excellent builder. He sure can help you...

http://www.wbssteelguitars.com/contact.html

Thanks everyone! I wrote ABM and they gave me the address for the people who have their spare parts now.

Thanks Pit, always good to have a good pedal steel builder nearby!