I think this is what they call a project

[Sam Inglis]

A "custom pedal steel" came up in a local auction house last week. I left a token bid online, and apparently no-one else put their hand up. So, I now have a pedal steel which cost me ten pounds. That's about, what, twelve dollars.

So that's the good news. The bad news is, it might not be worth a whole lot more than ten pounds.



It seems to be almost entirely home-made. It's filthy. And it's even heavier than my MSA D10.

Slightly to my amazement, the pickup actually works. Does anyone recognise this?



I've hooked up the loose rods and all the pedals and levers seem to do something, which is good. It even has the same copedant as my MSA -- Day pedals with Es on the left.





The changer is mostly brass and although it's dirty it hasn't corroded in the same way as the steel parts.



Tuners look like they came off an old 70s Japanese guitar or something.



I haven't tried to tune the changes yet...



The auctioneers told me it had belonged to "a lady from Shipton". I guess it was custom made by or for her, because the legs are really short.

Does anyone recognise any of the parts? Or is it all home-made apart from the pickup?

[Eric Dahlhoff]

Some parts look like a ZB Custom. The yokes and the changer, and the keyhead. But not everything. Not the pickup. Maybe someone put it together out of spare/scrap parts.
Have fun!

[Dave Hopping]

Looks as if it needs what the car guys call a "body-off restoration", but it does appear as though it's all there and was built to have all the capabilities one would expect of a 3X4. Since Sam only has ten quid in it, it might be worth throwing some money at, provided there's someone fairly nearby who's up to the task.

A question:

What does it say on the front apron?

[Sam Inglis]

I think it can be made playable for sure, though possibly not by me! The hardest thing is probably going to be sorting out the height, as I can't really get my knees under it. As far as I can tell the legs aren't adjustable, so raising it might involve making new legs as well as pedal rods.

The front apron has a medal badge that reads 'Custom', and the letters GLP.

[Abe Levy]

I love the see through body and key head! If you decide not to keep it i would be very interested in those parts...

[Sam Inglis]

Alas I think shipping it to the States would cost a fortune!

[Per Berner]

You could probably sell the tuners for £5 and the pickup for £15 on eBay, and recycle the rest. Then you have doubled your money...

[Sam Inglis]

It came with a few tone bars and some strings, plus a nice volume pedal. So my ten pounds wasn't wasted.

[Tim Toberer]

This is a tricky one. Its gonna take a whole lot of turd polish to make it halfway beautiful, and then its is still kind of a turd. Reminds me of the house we bought If it were me I would give a it a quick cleanup and make sure everything moves freely and get it working. Then sell it for a few hundred maybe to someone who just wants to give the instrument a try. The fact that it has a full set of strings on it suggests it may not take much to be functional. It is kind of funky cool.

[Abe Levy]

I'd be curious how much the shipping would be to just ship the body, pickup and keyhead/roller nut. If its available I am interested. I'll also be in the UK in July and could possibly pickup. Thanks

[Sam Inglis]

Hi Abe,

The body is super heavy. Whoever made it seriously overbuilt the metal frame. I haven't tried removing the neck and keyhead but it looks as though they are just bolted on.

Where will you be in the UK? I am in Hull, East Yorkshire and I'll be around most of July. You're more than welcome to come have a look and see if it's any use to you. In the meantime I'm going to try putting some new strings on it and see if I can get it playing OK at a basic level.

[Abe Levy]

Sam - if you can get it running, I think that's best, but if you can't, I don't need the body, just the neck and roller, and I'd take the pickup too, but mostly I'm interested in the lucite parts. I'd like to build a guitar around it. I'll only be in London, and won't get to East Yorkshire, but I think shipping of just the lucite parts wouldn't be that much. Let me know and thanks!

[Sam Inglis]

Thanks. Let me see how it goes. I will likely be in London July 17th if that overlaps with your visit?

[Sam Inglis]

Hmmm. First setback. I removed the strings today, and the plastic support that holds the roller nut shattered into a hundred pieces as soon as the tension was off.

[Sam Inglis]

I am making some progress with this. A friend 3D printed a new support for the roller nut which works well. I have cleaned the machine heads and restrung it, and it kinda works. But there are a couple of things that are puzzling me.

First of all, the pedals and LK levers are aligned rather awkwardly. On my MSA, the LKL is roughly in line with pedal 3. On this instrument the pedals are much further across to the right. I'll have to see whether that is still a problem once I get the whole thing lifted up.

Second, as this is a one-up/one-down changer I can't figure out how to tune the fourth string change so that the C pedal raises it exactly a full tone and the knee lever raises it exactly a half tone. Assuming this is a ZB Custom mechanism, how does that work?