Joerg Hennig
From:
Bavaria, Germany
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Posted 24 Jun 2002 11:02 am |
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OK here we go... As Joey Ace over in that other thread with the same name suggested, I´ll start a new one for the actual topic. Since "Steel Guitar Abuse" is quite common here in Europe  , here´s a few stories.
1. Czech steeler who had a ShoBud ProIII. Put the guitar in case. Case has an extra compartment to hold the volume pedal. But the dude didn´t bother, just put the volume pedal on top of the undercarriage, closed the lid and carried the thing around. Next time he wondered why the pedals didn´t work.
2. Bavarian steeler, also with a ShoBud. Played a lot of gigs and hauled the guitar around a lot. One day the case couldn´t take it anymore and broke in half. Instead of getting a new one, he just left the guitar assembled from then on and put it into the van like that, regardless of all other things bashing against it.
3. My first pedal steel was a push/pull Emmons that looked something like this when I got it:
Used to be a D-10, very crudely converted to an S-10, with a pad loosely glued on where the back neck used to be. Mismatched pedal rods that read something like "1,4,7" definetly not "1,2,3". Pull rods all bent and warped and often cut off with pliers, ends left rough. Underside full of holes as if peppered with birdshot. (The dealer said, "Those are all original, they´re for putting on additional knee levers!") Of the four existing knee levers, only one worked. NO positive stops on any KL. Changer full of dirt. Tuning screws on the endplate hardly turnable. A large crack in the top between changer and endplate where the wood would gave in when you pressed it with your thumb. Several random, unused bellcranks and other stuff (at least those made good spare parts). At least two of the screws that fixed endplates to cabinet MISSING. Tone control in place but not wired. The final touch was the finish - metallic red on top and on both front and back aprons an airbrush design of a sundown over the sea! Too bad I never took a picture of it... But in those days, to me all this didn´t matter, I had an Emmons, and to some degree it still sounded great. What a delusion when the first real steel player I met told me I had been ripped off...
Anyone who has similar stories? |
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