The Steel Guitar Forum

Designed by Gene Fields, pre GFI. Ahead of it's time, you might say.
His personal PS210 had a fretted front neck...don't know the tuning.
A couple had a built-in seat. Here are some pics of Gene Fields' PS210.
I have a pdf of the owner's manual, if anyone's interested.

basilh wrote:This is of interest..

https://www.pedalsteel.co.uk/Vintage-Fender-PS210

Anyone who's ever spent time under their pedal steel changing things should watch this series of vids by Basil on the 210. Absolutely fascinating.

The PS210 is like a steampunk pedal steel

I saw one at Blackies, oh maybe 15-20 years ago. If I remember, it was a proto type and didn't have a serial number. And it weighted a ton.

These are videos explaining how it works and how to adjust it. (In chronological order)
https://youtu.be/q3BHepNy-NE

https://youtu.be/kNYVlinti8g

https://youtu.be/_EhO9hcFr2g

https://youtu.be/LqcA2Oxw-OA

https://youtu.be/5AaVt4gE1A8

I sure would like to see someone playing one of these Fender PS 210's... When I first saw one in a catalog, many years ago, I thought, Wow this is cool looking, I might buy one. Now that I've watched some of the videos, I'm certainly glad I didn't. Very complicated to set up properly. Just my 2 cents worth. They might be great, once you have it perfectly adjusted. Thanks, Tommy.....

basilh wrote:These are videos explaining how it works and how to adjust it. (In chronological order)
https://youtu.be/q3BHepNy-NE

https://youtu.be/kNYVlinti8g

https://youtu.be/_EhO9hcFr2g

https://youtu.be/LqcA2Oxw-OA

https://youtu.be/5AaVt4gE1A8

Basil this is very interesting, however the 3rd and 4th video come up as being unavailable... I remember drooling over the Fender Catalog that had this in it, but never ever got close to one.

What was the purpose of that shift lever looking thing close to the back of the cabinet?
Erv

Erv, it changed the pedals and knee levers from one neck to the other, In one fell swoop !

Basilh,
Thanks!
Kind of an early "crossover".
Erv

Hi Ervm
Later than Sho~Bud Crossover. I remember seeing them in the Fender catalog about 1975.
Bet yah it's chilly up there in Minnesota just now?

Andy,
We're pretty much over our cold spell.
It had been down in the 20-25 below range.
It's been getting up into the 30 degree range the last few days and for MN, that's good!!

Just a few points about the PS-210 that are not common knowledge.
The mechanism was limited to 8 pedals and one knee lever, or 7 pedals and two knee levers and so on. basically just 9 possible changes. Also it was not possible to time the pulls.
Ron Bennett and myself found a way around the 8+1 limitation but never managed to get timed pulls.( https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/012905.html
)
All of the metalwork is "Case Hardened" steel, there is a duplication of parts with the earlier Fender Pedal steel guitars, the bellcrank and the shortscale model pedal rod ends and connectors.
The keyless mechanism had PTFE shims behind the 'sleds' BUT it wasn't very successful as the components holding the string invariably broke and the guitar just would not hold pitch for any normal period of time.
The Pickup HOWEVER was and still is "Revolutionary" The principal behind its design was that on a "Normal" ten string pickup strings 1 and 10 are NOT in the same magnetic field as all the others because they only have ONE adjacent polepiece. The Genius Mr. Fields decided to use 12 polepieces thus putting ALL the strings in an equal environment. i.e. a polepiece on either side.
A single bar magnet does NOT achieve the same effect; the actual field isn't the same as the fields created by ROUND polepieces. The strings do have a noticeable 'individual' identity and don't interact with each other in the same way as they do in a bar magnet's field.


You can clearly see the 12 polepieces and also the parts of the keyless mechanism that bent and broke.
One other point, the fact that the string spacing was the same at both the changer end AND the tuners end made the hand very tired when playing around the first few frets.

basilh wrote:The guitar for sale here is missing the volume & tone controls, and the switch to bypass the (Also Missing) automatic pickup selector on the changeover lever. See mine..

Pretty positive nothing would be missing from this. He was scrupulous with his care of it. There are parts in the box. If he removed it, there was a reason.

Cartwright Thompson wrote:Wow. I don’t know much about these things but I’ve always been fascinated, ever since I pored over the fender catalog when I was thirteen.
What do you suppose the plaque on the bottom says?

It says what it is and when/where it was built and when it was rebuilt and by whom. It is a label my father put in there, he always kept notes about work and records.

Victoria Conner wrote:

basilh wrote:The guitar for sale here is missing the volume & tone controls, and the switch to bypass the (Also Missing) automatic pickup selector on the changeover lever. See mine..

Pretty positive nothing would be missing from this. He was scrupulous with his care of it. There are parts in the box. If he removed it, there was a reason.

So.... can we solve the mystery of the missing T/V controls? That’s weird!

So.... can we solve the mystery of the missing T/V controls? That’s weird![/quote]

Send me a picture private message and I will look for what you are talking about. Thats how much I know. Nothing. I am however confident in his scrupulous nature.

Better still would be a picture of the parts in the box then some of the "experts" here can identify them for you Victoria !

Mark Helm wrote:

Victoria Conner wrote:

basilh wrote:The guitar for sale here is missing the volume & tone controls, and the switch to bypass the (Also Missing) automatic pickup selector on the changeover lever. See mine..

Pretty positive nothing would be missing from this. He was scrupulous with his care of it. There are parts in the box. If he removed it, there was a reason.

So.... can we solve the mystery of the missing T/V controls? That’s weird!

What's strange is why would any player want to bypass the pickup selector system, and take it completely off the guitar.. ?
It would be nice to help Victoria sell the guitar and have a correct full description, including the copedent.

Victoria Conner wrote:

Cartwright Thompson wrote:Wow. I don’t know much about these things but I’ve always been fascinated, ever since I pored over the fender catalog when I was thirteen.
What do you suppose the plaque on the bottom says?

It says what it is and when/where it was built and when it was rebuilt and by whom. It is a label my father put in there, he always kept notes about work and records.

So It was rebuilt by someone. That would explain why the fretboards look wrong..
The original looked like mine..
[/u]

Hi Basil,
Question: Since you own one...
It looks like it might be hard to tune the open tuning with your finger picks on. Is that right or wrong?
Best wishes,
Andy

Hello Andy,(Ezzee~slide aficionado !!)
Indeed it's EXTREMELY difficult to tune the guitar whilst wearing fingerpicks and almost impossible to fine tune whilst playing..The tuning wheels require you to turn them with your thumb whilst gripping the frame with the rest of your available digits..

basilh wrote:Better still would be a picture of the parts in the box then some of the "experts" here can identify them for you Victoria !

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vh3Zg5RncgudfR4QA

Also of interest, Ronnie Bennett's mods to Basil's PS-210: https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/012905.html

b0b wrote:Also of interest, Ronnie Bennett's mods to Basil's PS-210: https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/012905.html

Bob, is it just me or are all the pics on the thread you mention no longer there?

memphislim wrote:

b0b wrote:Also of interest, Ronnie Bennett's mods to Basil's PS-210: https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/012905.html

Bob, is it just me or are all the pics on the thread you mention no longer there?

Thse pictures from 2006 are actually stored on Basil's web site, which doesn't use https. Your browser may be refusing to load them because of that. The internet is changing!