The Steel Guitar Forum

Guess I’m done practicing tonight...

Gonna be fun drilling out the remnants.
Never heard of this happening before.

Bummer but yeah, it happens. Mostly on 180° connections though.

Good luck getting the stub out. Careful perfectly centered drilling necessary on a hard steel part in that soft aluminum stock.

Might be worth adding to the General Maintenance List to check ALL of those threaded links for the correct tightness...presume it's been 'working' in the hole for a while and loading up that part every time the pedal was depressed...

...if that is the case, it may(?) be easier to get the the stub out than first thought 'coz it might also be loose in the thread...

I would be drilling a hole in the (centre of the) stub as previously mentioned, then using a lefthand thread tapered tap .....and warming up the aluminium (my spelling!) with a heat gun or similar....

....if you were able to drill it with a lefthand bit, that would be even better, but....


Good luck with it....

Peter

That happened to me years ago on my MSA. I'll bet the broken screw is not tight in the hole. In fact, I believe that is the reason that they break. If the shoulder of the screw is not tight to the pedal, it puts stress on the screw itself. You may be able to get it out with a sharp pointed tool, try to make a punch mark off center on the screw, then use the pointed tool to rotate the screw. The punch mark will give you a spot to apply the pressure.

I ended up removing all those screws on the MSA and grinding them shorter. They all had a slight gap between the shoulder and the pedal. Which puts stress on the screw,

In 1982 I had that happen on a large festival gig. We took a break and this guy ran out to the parking lot and got the ball joint off his carburetor. It fit and I finished the day with it! It happened on "Up against the wall redneck mothers".

STOMP THOSE PEDALS!!
Erv

That's one thing that's not gonna happen on a push-pull.

I was able to drill straight into the centre of the remaining bolt, but it seems pretty fused in there. I do have experience with this kind of stuff and it’s not looking too promising. Luckily up here in Canada Al Briscoe has a supply of Carter parts. Probably have to replace the pedal. I ended up moving the C pedal over so I can at least play with the A and B changes.

Scott, can’t believe a random ball joint worked for you. That is some serious luck!

playing 45 years most of those at tough, long, hard working gigs,,, NEVER saw or heard of snapping a ball stud on a pedal.

If its "stuck" in there and won't back out with a sharp pick of some sort, it was most likely cross threaded or had some damage either in the threaded hole in the pedal, or the threaded portion of the ball joint.. No other reason for it to be locked in there... bob

To me it seems like it'd been over tightened causing strain on the area that broke. Gave extracting it another try this morning and am pretty close to giving up since the drill is skating around now and marring the pedal threads. Ill replace the pedal and the ball attachments on the other pedals as a precaution. The ol' "if one goes..." logic.

By how much of threaded section sheared off I'm guessing the pedal threads are already damaged but you could helicoil it.

That’d be an idea if the part wasn’t available. I actually hadn’t come across that concept before. Looking at Helicoil kits though, it appears a replacement pedal wouldn’t be much more and I’m assuming would be more solid.

This’ll also give me the opportunity to grab some parts for the Eb to E change on the second string that I wanted to try out. Fate? We’ll go with that since it’s better than being annoyed with the thing breaking.

A new pedal has to be easier than the struggle of removing what’s left of the broken stud.
Good luck.

I would suggest when you get the broken end of the nipple out that you put a small washer on the new one,the problem with some of the nipples are not threaded up to the nut,and that leaves a weak point ,and by putting a small washer on the nipple it will seat up against the pedal a lot firmer. I do this to all my pedal connections and have never had any break.Hope this helps..


Jimmy.

I have seen this before and it has always spooked me. That's why when I was working on changing holes on this client's Bud and I found that the ball was super tight, I put in the new one first and tried it out to see if it did what I hoped, before messing with forcing the original and risking having it break. (The new one did exactly what I hoped. The old one needed some serious torque to remove. But it did come out in one piece.)

I doubt you would have enough clearance to grind a slot in the piece left in the pedal, but if you could, you could get it out with a screwdriver. A machine shop could possibly do this . They deal with this kind of stuff all the time.

Depending somewhat on how long that ball joint was in the pedal it's entirely possible for the remaining portion to be stuck even without being cross-threaded. I've dealt with a lot of broken threaded joints and don't recall any of them being cross threaded (unless I knew that to be the case already). I've used this method on a few steel guitar pedals with 100% success.

The most sure and easy way I've come across requires a tig welder. Simply tack a bit of steel 1/8" or 3/16" steel rod
(you may need to sharpen the end) to the broken remains. The tack doesn't need to be very big. Grab the rod with some pliers (or a wrench, if you've been cleaver and sharpened the end of a bolt with a head) and twist that broken bit out. Of course this is more difficult if the stuck bit is below the surface or has been drilled. This method is by far the most reliable and quickest of any of the methods and I think I've tried them all.

I believe that the instant intense heat breaks the bond of corrosion, loctite, hardened grease, etc. Allowing the broken bit to spin right out.

Wise decision on obtaining a new pedal. This one's stub is obviously stuck past ordinary means of removal.

When you get the old pedal off, you can send it to me, or Ross if he's agreeable, and we can most likely repair it....no guarantees however. That is if you want to go to the trouble of shipping it back and forth.

Hey Jerry, I appreciate the offer. I’ll most likely just forget about the old pedal and move on with my life once it’s replaced.

I've never tried this, but you can Google "dissolving a tap from aluminum, and find:

"This trick works only in aluminum, AFIK. Dissolve as much Alum as you can in a (crock)pot of warm/hot water. Immerse the aluminum part, turn on the heat, and allow the brew to simmer for a couple of hours. The tap will dissolve, and the aluminum will get a kind of sooty coating that washes off."

Might be worth a try.

Garry. ??????

I broke off a tiny tap in an aluminum piece, and was googling how it might be removed. I'm speculating that the chemical works to dissolve the ferrous tap (or bolt) while leaving the aluminum intact. Nothing to lose by trying it.