First steel build

[Nicholas Cox]

Hey all,
I’m interested in building a pedal steel and would be grateful for any advice, plans, places to get parts, what works on guitars and what doesn’t, etc…
If you have built your own, what guitar did you model yours after?
I’ll search past similar posts but any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Nick

[Mike Preuss]

What helped me considerably was when I started buying stripped C6 necks/changers/keyheads from D10 - sd10 conversions and rebuilding them as s10 E9 guitars. In my opinion the changer is the tricky part. Having a spare or disassembled changer allowed me to take measurements and make copies of the geometries of the fingers, scissors, etc. Dick Miller has lots of videos on YouTube I found helpful too
https://youtu.be/IIZMrM2469Y?si=EYu069L5jYzR5RpW

I have PDF files of cutting and drilling templates for scissor fingers. DM if interested. Good luck!

[Nicholas Cox]

Thanks Mike. I’ll check out those videos.

[Tim Toberer]

Hey all,
I’m interested in building a pedal steel and would be grateful for any advice, plans, places to get parts, what works on guitars and what doesn’t, etc…
If you have built your own, what guitar did you model yours after?
I’ll search past similar posts but any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Nick

The idea of building a modern changer is daunting to me. Thankfully my copedant doesn't require one! To even consider building a modern style changer I would think you have to have access to some machine tools and know how to use them. If you don't I would start there. Maker spaces have been brought up here frequently as an option. The community college her has a nice machine shop where I took a class just to learn some basics. I went with a pull release single finger changer because it seems plenty versatile for the types of tunings I want to experiment with. Pretty easy to make even with some limited tools and basic skills. Keep us posted! Not many venturing into this forum its seems.