Pedal Rod labels

[Ollin Landers]

OK. This is about the silliest question I can think of. I'm sure there is a better way to do this.

Every guitar I've owned I've had trouble with keeping any kind of label on the pedal rods. My Zum has the clip type and my Carter had the stick on labels.

I lost all the stick ons on the Carter and replaced them with clips. But they keep falling off or getting lost. Same with the Zum.

I know some guys in the old days used electrical tape at different places on the rods to denote what position to put them in. If it didn't look so bad I'd probably do it.

Has anyone come up with a better method other than the ID Clips?
Is there any way to get those clips to stay on?

[Dave Diehl]

Ollin, I had the same problems. I finally got some clip on numbers from Lynn Flanagan landflag@gmail.com and they stayed on. I have them on all my guitars now and never had a problem with any of them falling off.

[John Swain]

After the stickers fell off my Carter I wrote numbers on the bottom with a Sharpie. Still there eight years later.

[Erv Niehaus]

Bill Rudolph with Williams Guitars has those clip on numbers for sale. I have had no trouble keeping them on.

[Wesley Medlen]

My BMI's have them stenciled on the coupling

[Jerry Overstreet]

You can buy a number stamp set from www.harborfreight.com for $11 or $15. Stamp the # on the bottom of the pedal connector like Mullen does. You can put a little fluorescent paint or a color you can see well in dim light, in the recess.

[Greg Cutshaw]

My MSA legend had all the pedal rods the same exact length with the variable height adjustment affixed to the guitar body. Thus no need to number the pedal rods as they are interchangeable.

[Ron Funk]

Ollin -

I've done what I was told some 30 years ago.

For each of my Emmons PP's, I've gone to a craft store (Hobby Lobby, Michael's, etc) and bought a sheet of those small self adhesive numbers, and applied proper number to each corresponding pedal rod connector.

You can then apply small dab of clear fingernail polish over each number as kind of a sealer.

[Lane Gray]

A bit of sticky on the inside of the clips helps.
I do like the struck numbers on my Sho-Bud,but they're not easy

[Brint Hannay]

After the stickers fell off my Carter I wrote numbers on the bottom with a Sharpie. Still there eight years later.

Sharpie works for me, too (Sho-Bud Super Pro, in my case). Easy, cheap. When the numbers get faded, I go over them with fresh Sharpie.

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

My MSA legend had all the pedal rods the same exact length with the variable height adjustment affixed to the guitar body. Thus no need to number the pedal rods as they are interchangeable.

Same with my Millies. All the new MSAs are like this.

Reece once told me he liked to alter the pedal height to adjust to the floor when he played.

[Donny Hinson]

The MSA design is novel, but I do wish they'd kept a hook on the top end. Fidgeting with the straight-line connectors just takes more time, and more than once (while not paying attention to the red mark) I've gotten the straights and right-angles mixed up.

As far as rod labels go, just print them on paper with your computer, cut into strips and wrap the around the rods, covering them with Scotch tape. That way, you get to pick the font, font size, orientation and position.

[David Nugent]

This method may apply more to single neck guitars. I painted the bottom of the rod clips on my Emmons red, white, and blue left to right, (if you happen to have the fourth Franklin pedal, simply leave it unpainted). Certainly beat attempting to read those stamped numbers in dim light.

[Ollin Landers]

Thank you to everyone. You guys are great.

Not a bad suggestion in the whole thread. The top of my list is a new Millennium with interchangeable pedal rods. Sadly that's out of the question at this time.

I'm going to sift through the list and decide which one will work the best for me.

[Stu Schulman]

I'm so used to the electrical tape thing that I have adapted that using"Heat Shrink"I just can't see little taped on numbers without reading glasses,I will post some pictures tomorrow...ive always liked the MSA method.

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

The top of my list is a new Millennium ...

Sadly, the Millennium has been discontinued. MSA still makes wood guitars though.

[Dave Magram]

Here’s a two-part solution that I came up with many years ago when I re-framed the problem as “What is the most efficient and convenient way to assemble my pedal steel, even on a poorly-lit stage or when I’m in a hurry (or both)?”

1.Marking the pedal rods: The hex pedal rod-end connectors on my guitar are painted black--a felt-tipped pen wouldn’t work. So I used “White-Out” (which is really white paint) to paint the flat bottom of the connector.
Once the white paint dried, I wrote on it the number of the rod in black ink, and coated it with clear lacquer (or clear fingernail polish) to protect it. That was many years ago, and all of the numbers remain quite readable.

2.Storing the rods in order: Next my wonderful wife bought a 24” x 36” thin black towel and some sturdy cloth with an attractive design on it, and with her sewing machine (a thin towel is easier to sew in a sewing machine) sewed four wide pockets for the legs and ten narrow pockets for the pedal rods in this order: two leg pockets, ten pedal rod pockets, two leg pockets. (I only have eight pedal rods, but having ten pockets makes it easier to quickly store the pedal rods in sequence.)
By taking an extra few seconds when I pack up the guitar to put the pedal rods in the pockets in sequence, there is no fumbling around setting up at the next gig. (And if I ever want to double-check that I’ve attached the correct rod to each pedal, I just read the black-on-white numbers on the bottoms of the pedal rod connectors--easy to see when the steel is upside-down in the case.)
And once the pedal steel is assembled, the towel serves as a protective cover to keep the dust off.

-Dave

[Mike Ester]

I used a Dremel tool to grind the numbers on my rods. Still visible since 2005.

[memphislim]

I used a Dremel tool to grind the numbers on my rods. Still visible since 2005.

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-290-01-Str ... B0000302YN

[Bob Sykes]

Like David, I used colors to match up the rods, Also colored the corresponding tuning nut ends to make life easier.

Being an old elec tech, I used the resistor color code.


Potential drawback is assembly under colored light can make red and brown look the same.

[Mark Fasbender]

i like the tape in different positions. i dont think it looks bad and i can see it quite clearly

[Dave Hopping]

What Mark said.If a good part of the crowd thinks we're playing a keyboard,they're not likely to notice the pedal rods,or whether they have little pieces of tape around them.

[Glenn Demichele]

I put multiple little strips of tape on each rod to number them in binary

[Henry Matthews]

These work great. Can buy them at an Electrical Supply house. Will do oodles of guitars and then some. They are little stick on strips. Just wrap around pedal rod.

[Scott Duckworth]

Colored paint or sharpie dots on the rod and pedal.