The Steel Guitar Forum

Hello, I am new the the steel guitar and the steel guitar forum. And I bought a Sho-Bud Maverick for a pretty good price but the down side is it's missing parts and by the look of things possibly a knee lever.( Because I can see the holes for it) But I don't know what I am going to need and or buy. Advice is much appreciated. Thanks, Matthew.

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Hey Matt!! Welcome to the Forum! Talk to Jim Palenscar at Steel Guitars of North County. https://steelguitars.me/ For those who don’t know him, Matt’s a great guy who has made several albums of latter day surf music. I’ve played bass on a lot of it with drummer Gary Ferguson

Thanks, Peter I'm flattered. But I think you got the wrong Matt. I have not released any albums. I'm just a hobby guitarist. Thanks anyways.

D’oh! I sure did! Apologies. Nevertheless, Jim is a great resource although not as close as I thought.

Here are som pics of the underside of an old 3 & 1 Maverick there were some variation of this I think.







Good luck
Barry

Thanks Barry. Looks like that is a later Maverick. But the photos will still be helpful. Thanks.

Matthew Murray wrote: [/img]

It seems to be pretty much missing the entire undercarriage. What's left there isn't exactly exciting either. So, needs a complete undercarriage.

Jim may be of help, I am sure he could... but I am worried about the financial viability of that project, unless you could fabricate a simple undercarriage yourself. Keep in mind, these were very basic "Student-Models"... and SOME, actually sounded pretty good... but they were "crude" and basic.

There are plenty of "old"-MSA parts being sold around... that would be what I would "rig" it up with... done right, without going "Wernher Von Braun"-crazy over it, it'd be better then what they were new.
But Jim may have an even better idea.

... J-D.

Thanks JD I will take that under consideration.

Hi Matthew,
Welcome to the forum and other bad habits and vices.

That is an older and better Maverick with the Gumby key head.
Some of those had very nice Birdseye Maple, but it looks like this is rather more plain Maple. Still they all had good tone.

You are sure missing a lot of parts. My thought is as long as you have to get so many why not add 3 knee levers to make the steel more useful for modern playing.

Michael at Wild Horse parts has some of the missing parts an they are all very well made, better than original.
https://www.psgparts.com/Linkage_c9.htm
https://www.psgparts.com/Pull-Rods_c7.htm

Looks like someone got hungry and took a bite out of that!
If we knew where you are located we may be able to point you in the direction of some help within driving distance?
Good luck,
Andy

I am located in Rathdrum Idaho. The closest psg mechanic is Patrick Timmins in Seattle. But yes somebody did take a bit out of it. I think is was an attempt at a knee lever I'm not to sure. But it has holes for it so it makes me think it had one from the factory.

Hi Matthew,
Thats a little north of Coeur d'Alene, Beautiful area, but 300+ Miles to Seattle.
Maybe some steelers in Spokane who could help?
Wish I knew someone close to you, but I don't.
Maybe someone else here will chime in?

I searched out some past posts on the forum search and found these:
This first link shows where the fellow used the newer 2 hole puller system and looks very workable.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... t=maverick
You could also add the E to F lever on the 4 string by pulling on the E to F# pedal rod and using the knee lever stop to tune it. That is a very important change to have these days.
The long spring holds the 2nd and 9th strings in the raised Eb & D note and allows them to be lowered by lever to C# and or D for the 2nd string. Also very useful.

On this thread found under a search "Maverick" there are 32 pages and I bet you'd get some good ideas here. I just didn't want to go all the way through since I don't have that kind of steel.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/search. ... 54&start=0

Thank you Andy I will read that material that you provided. The closest steel player in my area that I know of is Duane Becker. But I haven't talked to him yet. And everyone that I talked to is saying is just say to fix it and get rid of it and buy something better. What is your opinion on that? I would like to modify it make it better than is was from the factory. But I don't know if I should.

J D Sauser wrote:It seems to be pretty much missing the entire undercarriage. What's left there isn't exactly exciting either. So, needs a complete undercarriage...

The guitar is not actually missing very many parts. These things are simple, there just aren't very many parts. To get the ABC pedals up and running you just need a couple of the yoke assemblies like what you have on the first pedal plus a couple of coat hangers. Michael at PSG parts sells the assemblies but he's out of stock. He does have the ball joints though: https://www.psgparts.com/Ball-Joint-Pla ... 0-SNAP.htm. It looks like the ball joint and hook is still there on the B pedal so you need one more ball joint. The flat steel yoke bar and threaded hook can be easily replicated for a couple of bucks at the local hardware store. You have one complete for reference. If you look closely at the pic (borrowed from Barry's post above) you can see that for the hook someone just bent the head of a 10-32 x ~1-1/2" machine screw 90 degrees and fed it through the center hole on little flat yoke bar.

Michael seems to be out of stock on most of what you will need for the knee lever, but perhaps someone has some old parts they could sell you. I may have some of it, I'll check this weekend. There lots of different ways to get a knee lever working. To replicate the stock setup you'd need one more of the same yoke assemblies, a cross shaft, two L brackets to mount it, a knee lever and bracket, a stop bracket and a return spring. Basically as shown in the pic, the cross shaft doesn't need to be full width like that though (you can see that the original wasn't based on the existing bracket screw holes). Mostly all very simple parts, easy-to-fabricate parts except for the ball joint and knee lever/bracket ass'y. The knee lever bracket does not need to be the older welded tab style like in the pic. The later clamp-on hex shaft style bracket with cast knee lever will work fine on a round 5/16" shaft, just need to file a little flat spot on the shaft below the set screw. The return spring can be just coil spring from the hardware store, it does not have to be a torsion spring.

I have talked to Michael about a knee lever kit but he hasn't contacted me yet of wether or not it has come back in stock or not. I did find a used one on reverb but I think it is a little expensive for what you are getting. $145 last time I checked. (Hopefully I am not making a fool of myself because of the price.) But any advice is very welcome.

More photos. A little bit clearer.

Here is what I did for a slightly more local customer in exactly the same situation. Instead of ordering the plastic pieces that get old and brittle, I used 90 degree quick connects and slightly redesigned the yokes and puller rods for more adjustability. Didn't want everything relying on just hooks to stay in place. Customer seems happy and just wanted 3 functioning foot pedals. Turned out pretty cool, just a bit limited.

Very impressive work Patrick brilliant use of readily available parts.

Barry

Patrick Timmins wrote:Here is what I did for a slightly more local customer in exactly the same situation. Instead of ordering the plastic pieces that get old and brittle, I used 90 degree quick connects and slightly redesigned the yokes and puller rods for more adjustability. Didn't want everything relying on just hooks to stay in place. Customer seems happy and just wanted 3 functioning foot pedals. Turned out pretty cool, just a bit limited.

Hi Partick,
I really like what you did there. Good thinking.
All can be done with very little tooling and material.

I have plenty of the Quick Connect & Ball joints in stock at $5.00 each.
Shipping first class in a padded envelope is just $5.00
He can contact me through the forum. Best to use the e-mail option or PM but I don't get notices of PM's any longer so the e-mail option is best.

Knee levers can be made from 1/2" X 3/4" aluminum stock from the local hardware shop. Not very fancy, but usable.
We could give him better advice if we knew what tools he has to work with, band saw, hack saw, drill press, files or what? More of the right tools always help make for a better job.

I was thinking letting Patrick do it have it done right the first time. And at a future date try to build one myself. But I am still looking for a knee lever to put on.

Matthew Murray wrote:I was thinking letting Patrick do it have it done right the first time. And at a future date try to build one myself. But I am still looking for a knee lever to put on.

Hi Matthew,
I'll look for a knee lever when I get home. Don't get your hopes up too high, but I may have one more than I need for the Sho~Bud I'm re-building.

We are in Las Vegas until Monday night so I'll check on Tuesday for you.
Best wishes,
Andy

Okay thanks Andy.

Hi Matthew, I just checked my parts stash, I've got these parts, which would be everything you'll need to replicate a stock Maverick RKR except the lever itself, the pullrods and a return spring. These are later '70s parts, so different than what was on there originally but it will do the same job. RKR on a stock Maverick is lower-only, by default it lowers 2 & 8 a half step. For raises it would require a reverser. Pull rods can literally be made from coat hanger wire, though if you want some nice straight, stable rods, hobby supply stores sell 0.093" (3/32") steel pull rods pretty cheap that work great. The cross shaft and yoke assembly in the pic are from a later '70s Maverick, the stop bracket is a takeoff from somewhere, somebody milled it themselves. I actually had one of the correct levers for this bracket style but unfortunately I gave it to someone else a couple of months back. The return spring can be just an extension spring hooked to the knee lever bracket and stretched/attached in the direction of the keyhead. You'll have to experiment with that a little to get the tension right - the spring needs to hold the changer fingers firmly against the inward edge of the cutout with the strings tuned to the correct open pitch when the lever is at rest, but not so stiff that it is difficult to engage the lever. Just enough tension to resist the string tension hold the fingers against the cutout plus just a tiny bit more.

If you would like this stuff just shoot me another PM and we'll work it out.

Thanks for the kind words Andy!
It actually took a lot of tooling to produce the parts shown.
Here are the tools used:



The .050 steel yokes were sheared to size and trimmed with the corner notcher on the right. Holes were punched with the turret punch press on the left (much safer than drilling holes in sheet metal and less burrs/easier cleanup).


Then corners rounded on a fiber wheel and placed into a vibe deburr machine to deburr all sharp edges and give the parts a uniform finish.

Rods between the quick connects and the yokes were cut in the rod parter attached to the bender (the hole in the hand shear), deburred on a belt sander, and then threaded on the lathe. Made from ER308 stainless filler rod.



After threading on the lathe, the 2 with collars attached were bent on a zero radius die setup on the DiAcro No. 2 bender (one of my favorite tools).






The last was bent on a mandrel to form the hook since a collar would not fit between the pull rod swivel/clamps.

The pull rod swivel/clamps were made from these and trimmed down flat in the lathe. They are basically copies of the Kline swivel clamps. I was inspired by a recent Kline build for another customer:



Then made a brass tool on the CNC machine to reliably position and drill the holes in the swivel for the 1/8 stainless pull rods. Drilled holes on drill press above.





Used stainless set screws to hold the new stainless 1/8 pull rods in place in the new pull rod swivels. Length is adjustable with only hooks for the changer end.
The 1/8 lock collars were bought off Amazon....


Also, the changer on the old Shobuds are typically referred to as pull "OR" release. Unlike the later pull/release models where it is easy to tune a pull and release on the same string. I've seen people add mechanisms to allow a release on the same string as a pull with these changers, but then we are getting beyond the value of the guitar for what it would cost to have a shop do the work.

I'm sure there are easier ways to do it, but when someone is paying for a fix, it's best not to use coat hangers and zip ties, which is how the guitar arrived at my shop. I own a hack saw, but can't remember the last time I used it. I have lots of other tools and welding equipment, but I think the most important shop tool is a good shop stereo.

And I'm glad I took the time to relay this because I was about to go to the store for some more Diet Mountain Dew and noticed some sitting on a shelf in the first pic

This is an interesting guitar. About 1970 I seen a steel with wire pliers handles for knee levers.

Is that a hole partially drilled in the front apron that would hold the end of a cross rod, Straight across from the the slot cut in the back apron?

It looks like the guitar once had a knee lever that was on the outside of the back apron. Some kind of bearing block was held in the back apron with screws on the edge of the slot on the back apron.

Some guitars over the years had knee levers on the outside of the back apron.
Good Luck on this project.