The Steel Guitar Forum

I am a big fan of Pedal steels from the early days.

The 8 String Pedal steels of the 1950s and 60s certainly lack performance but not style.

This little guitar can still make music and looks good doing it

Three pedals, no knee levers, no roller nut

Show us, and tells us about your 8 stringer.

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another early Marlen, 3x2 tuned to an 8 string version of Hal Rugg’s tuning. it has a maple top and solid mahogany aprons.

it’s pretty damned fun. it started out with 4 pedals and i deleted one and added two original Marlen knee levers.they are shaft collars welded to sheet steel and screwed to the lever. very simple and they work well. the guitar has a,b & c pedals and rkr raises string 2 from c# to d# with a feel stop at d and also lowers string 8 e to e flat. rkl raises string 4 from e to f. string 4 doesn’t lower to e flat. lloyd and hal showed the way. it’s a good sounding guitar when someone else plays it. came with a stutter switch, a boo-wah, a tone control and a switch tied to a capacitor the size of a lil’ smokey sausage that gives some real variation in tone. also had to get new pedal rods from psgparts.com. they are extremely well made and fit just right. it was a fun project to get it up and running with the tuning i wanted. totally worth it.

Fender 400 with my version of Sneaky Pete’s tuning.

Mark Perrodin wrote:

Fender 400 with my version of Sneaky Pete’s tuning.

Ha mark love the Coors can nice added touch

Mid 60’s Chuck Wright Sierra..

I'm guessing the most common 8 stringers out there are Fender 400's. I actually bought 2 and combined the best parts from both to make my "Super 400" (one had the best paint job and chrome on top and the other had much better pulleys/cables/hardware underneath). The threaded bolts sticking out allow individual adjustment of the tension springs. Also added a couple knee levers with about $50 of parts from Home Depot and a removable arm rest

You guys are killing me with those Marlens….and they don’t lack in performance, in my humble opinion of course. I have a pair of long scale Fender 400’s and a couple of 1000 D-8’s.

A Fender 1000 converted to an SD8 and a 400 I recently bought.

1959 Sneakycaster II - B6, 9+2,double-pulls set up on 4 strings, Hotone effects attached upside down (kicked in with a knee - the compressor has been removed.), 2-stage clean boost, and 2 pickups rewound slightly hotter than stock by Jerry Sentell with blend, volume and tone controls.

It's a country-rock monster.

Here's my Jackson Pro IV 8 string (from before I owned it). I have it set up 3 and 3 C6. Great guitar!

Williams S8 5&5......I recently sent this guitar back to Bill to add three additional pedals......Steeltronics Z8 coil tap pup......3/8" string spacing......love this little keyless beauty......

HowardR wrote:Williams S8 5&5......I recently sent this guitar back to Bill to add three additional pedals......Steeltronics Z8 coil tap pup......3/8" string spacing......love this little keyless beauty......

The cabinet is beautiful

Dave,
that Wright Custom is great. I had a Wright S-10 for awhile. they sound great. i’d love to find an S-8 Wright one day.

guys,
your Williams and Jackson guitars are absolutely gorgeous. Do they play as good as the look? What is the string spacing? I want one set up with my Sneaky Pete tuning. probably have to sell a kidney to make it happen.

My Williams D-8 has Stringmaster string spacing. Tuning is E9 & A6

K Maul wrote:A Fender 1000 converted to an SD8.

With Apologies to Russ Pahl !?

PS - I am also member of the 8 stringer club, although I am not half as innovative as everyone else here. Mine basically looks like Dennis Montgomery's before the mods, i.e. a new-looking Fender 400 Sunburst.

Very cool guitars. I'd love to see the tuning charts & copedents for these if anyone feels like posting them.

Dennis Montgomery wrote:I'm guessing the most common 8 stringers out there are Fender 400's. I actually bought 2 and combined the best parts from both to make my "Super 400" (one had the best paint job and chrome on top and the other had much better pulleys/cables/hardware underneath). The threaded bolts sticking out allow individual adjustment of the tension springs. Also added a couple knee levers with about $50 of parts from Home Depot and a removable arm rest

I ended up w/ Dennis' other 400 in immaculate shape sans undercarriage. Was able to source old stock parts for four pedals (thanks Kelcey O'Neil!), so now both are fully functional.

Here's how Mark Perrodin tunes his 8 stringers!

thanks Dave

Pete McAvity wrote: I ended up w/ Dennis' other 400 in immaculate shape sans undercarriage. Was able to source old stock parts for four pedals (thanks Kelcey O'Neil!), so now both are fully functional.

Hi Pete! Great to hear you've been able to restore the 400 to full working order

Nathan Golub wrote:Very cool guitars. I'd love to see the tuning charts & copedents for these if anyone feels like posting them.

Sure, I originally came up with this odd tuning that was based on stacked 7th chords:



When I presented it, I was very flattered that b0b thought it worthy of a link on the "Unusual Copedents" page You can check out a thorough explanation of how it works here: https://b0b.com/wp/copedents/dennis-mon ... cked-7ths/

I used that for a few years then one day wondered...what if I created a tuning that was built on just the common 10-8-6-5-4-3 Emmons E9 grip?



The idea is it's meant for big strummable chords across the whole neck rather than picked string grips. In open position:

LK gives me an EMaj7
P1 gives me an Em
P2 gives me an E7
P1+P2 give me an Em7
P3 functions like an A pedal in Emmons E9
P4 functions like a B pedal in Emmons E9
RK gives me an E dim

The limitation of it is most chords have to be played in root position (other than P3+P4 which is like holding down the Emmons E9 A+B pedals), but the advantage is it's a lot of fun to slide around and have easy access to the family of 7th chords at each position

If you'd like to hear it in action, this is the tuning used on the "Armistice" album linked in my signature.

Mark Perrodin wrote:guys,
your Williams and Jackson guitars are absolutely gorgeous. Do they play as good as the look? What is the string spacing? I want one set up with my Sneaky Pete tuning. probably have to sell a kidney to make it happen.

My Jackson plays great. The string spacing is about 3/8 at the changer and 5/16 at the nut.

Dave