Year of Fender cable Pedal Steel

Jim Park · Post by **Jim Park** » 22 Nov 2005 5:52 pm

A local music store acquired an old Fender 8 pedal 8 string Pedal Steel Guitar. The serial # is 01030. My question is what year is it, and what would have been the copedant from the factory? A knee lever has been added by someone using a door hinge but its kind of a neat old guitar........

Jim Park

Russ Tkac · Post by **Russ Tkac** » 22 Nov 2005 5:57 pm

I believe that the stock tuning was A6. As for the year...I'm not sure. My 8 pedal 400 is a 63 I believe. Jim...can you add a bit?

Russ [This message was edited by Russ Tkac on 22 November 2005 at 05:59 PM.]

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 22 Nov 2005 10:05 pm

The serial numbers don't seem to be year-related. We'd need some more details such as bridge type (bar or moving-finger) and pickup (flat and wide like a Fender Jazzmaster or more like a Fender Jaguar) to pin it down to styles - and codes from the potentiometers would be the closest thing to a dating system.

FWIW If you go to the Fender site the manual for the newer-type models is downloadable, and has the copedent in it. There's also a manual for the earlier-style 1000, with the same A6 tuning on one neck but a different copedent. you can see the difference in the guitar styles, though.

The A6 tuning and 400 copedent is actually pretty cool to mess around with. It's not good for Nashville country, but it's a good western swing setup.

Hope that helps -

Jim

John Daugherty · Post by **John Daugherty** » 23 Nov 2005 5:51 am

If it had 6 pedals from the factory (mod 800), I think it would have been manufactured after 1961. I bought a fender400 (4 pedals)in 1960 and another in 1961. It is possible that someone added 2 pedals to an original 400. I am not sure if the 800 had 8 strings.

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www.phelpscountychoppers.com/steelguitar

[This message was edited by John Daugherty on 23 November 2005 at 08:59 AM.]

Carlos Polidura · Post by **Carlos Polidura** » 23 Nov 2005 7:06 am

my first pedal steel guitar was a fender 2000 cable model. bought it back in 1969. that was a d-10 and had no knee levers. the stock tuning was "A6 top neck and C6 bottom neck". i did not know what a pedal steel guitar was back then.
never cared about serial numbers,although i now do.
carlos

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 23 Nov 2005 7:28 am

If it had 6 pedals from the factory (mod 600)...

John, there was no "Fender 600" pedal steel. The 400 (8-string model), came standard with 4 pedals, but could be special ordered with up to 10 pedals. The 800 (10-string model, introduced in 1964) came with 6 pedals standard, and could be special ordered with up to 11 pedals.

Early 400's (pre-1964) came with stamped-steel pedals, a solid rod bridge, and no roller nut.

Don Walters · Post by **Don Walters** » 23 Nov 2005 8:00 am

I owned a 1000 8-string 8-pedal with "cable-pull" that I bought in '58 or '59, can't remember exactly but it was before 1960.

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 23 Nov 2005 8:10 am

What Donny said.

The cable pull models were:

400 - one neck, 8 strings, 4-10 pedals

1000 - two necks, 8 strings each, 8-10 pedals.

800 - one neck, 10 strings, 6-11 pedals

2000 - two necks, 10 strings each, I believe 10 or 11 pedals were the options.

The 400 and 1000 have several iterations:

1. flat, wide pickup, bar bridge and nut

2. A transitional model with the flat, wide pickup, roller bridge and nut (I think late '62 and early '63). Only seen a couple of these, and only on 400's.

3. later pickup design and roller bridge and nut.

The manuals for 1000 and 400 oddly have the same A6 tuning (one one neck of the 1000, the other being E7 as I recall) but completely different copedents. Not being a knowledgable theory guy, I'm not sure what the differing concepts were - I've only tried the 400 A6 setup. My 1000 is set up in an "abbreviated" E9/C6 arrangement, with pedals as knee levers....

Jay Yuskaitis · Post by **Jay Yuskaitis** » 23 Nov 2005 9:31 am

Hi folks,
I really enjoy topics regarding the Fender cable model steels. I've owned 4 of them in the past 35 years. 2 long scales, 2 short scales. The 1000 model I now have (for the last 17 years), was built in January, 1964 and has a 23 inch scale , thus little or no string breakage. In my opinion, this is the sweetest, user friendly, foolproof and dependable pedal steel of the era. I know only 8 strings per neck limits the capabilities of many players, but speaking for myself, I haven't come close to mastering 6 strings. I also use the same tunings on my straight steels as well.
Jay Y.

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