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Topic: An Old Fender Pedal Steel |
Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 11:58 am |
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Thanks for all the great information. I'll leave all this up here if it helps anyone else who might stumble upon one in this shape.
Last edited by Steve Chandler on 25 Jul 2021 12:57 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 12:54 pm
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You have a Fender 1000 that has been largely stripped of its original parts. It is missing the original pickups, knobs, tuning keys on the inside neck, five pedals, five pedal cranks, five cables and yokes, original pedal rack and fastening parts, Fender logo and finish.
I would guess it is a mid-1960s guitar, but with more original parts missing than there, it would not be worth obsessing about the year of manufacture.
The outside neck tuning keys, fretboards, cables, pedal cranks and pedals are in demand by guys restoring or adding to their guitars. The changer fingers are in demand among some B-Bender makers.
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Chris Lucker
Red Bellies, Bigsbys and a lot of other guitars. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 1:13 pm Thanks
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That's a shame somebody did that...
So if and when I decide to part it out I won't go to steel guitar hell? |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 1:34 pm
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no steel guitar hell There is no shortage of Fender 1000s. And, you will help someone loading up a single neck Fender 400. The guy who uses the changer parts in his string bender guitars is named Lee Rider.
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Chris Lucker
Red Bellies, Bigsbys and a lot of other guitars. |
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Andrew Goulet
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 2:08 pm
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The tuning pans are probably worth something too, if you go that route.
If it were me, I'd clean and fix it up. You don't need to worry about keeping anything original, and you can rebuild/add the cable assemblies with hardware store parts. It'll be relatively cheap to get it playing, and any knowledge you lack can be found on the Forum here. It'll probably be cheapest way to get into steel! Fenders have great tone, too
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Marlen S12 and a ZT Club |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 2:10 pm Thanks
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| Good to know. I can't imagine Steel Guitar Hell sounding too pleasant, probably about as bad as me trying to play this thing now out of tune in the key of L. |
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Edward Dixon
From:
Crestview Florida
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 2:32 pm Re: An Old Fender Pedal Steel
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| Steve Chandler wrote: |
| There are two serial numbers I have found so far 00903 and 1000-8-DN on the bottom of the chassis. |
Serial # is 00903. The other # means it is an 8 string Double Neck 1000
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"Faith don't need no second opinion." |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 2:41 pm Thanks
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That makes sense, is it possible the 00903 chassis number might have the year hidden in there either the 9 equaling 1959 or the 3 equaling 1963 or one of those zeros equaling 1960?
I agree with Mr. Lucker that calling it from a specific year might be redundant, but I still would like to know what year some of these parts are.
This is leading me to break out the Philips head and explore this thing a bit more.
If I do I will post some part pictures for the heck of it. I'm curious about these pickups.
Yes they are not Fender but I think I read somewhere that Fender basically used a Jazzmaster pickup in some of these things. Is that true? |
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Mark Perrodin
From:
Tucson Arizona, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 4:04 pm
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| Chris Lucker is unfortunately correct. this guitar has been brutalized. aside from missing a bunch of vital parts, it looks like the original finish is long gone. i have three of these things and they are both a challenge at times and a joy. if you like to mess with old cars that have carburetors instead of fuel injection; then maybe, this might be almost could be, for you. there is a bit of fiddlin’ involved. you’ll be rewarded if you tend toward that type of project. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 4:09 pm Thanks
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| I live in a house that is 130 years old, my daily driver is a '84 Toyota pickup and I've never owned a cell phone. Not sure if I can put the time into it unfortunately. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 5:31 pm strings
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| If anyone could recommend some strings and whatever basic tuning I would do on each neck that would be great. This key of L tuning is just not sounding good at all. I'm gonna hook it up through this old Dearmond Weeper Wah and my old Gregory amp and see how it sounds with the tremolo. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 6:40 pm Re: Thanks
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| Steve Chandler wrote: |
That makes sense, is it possible the 00903 chassis number might have the year hidden in there either the 9 equaling 1959 or the 3 equaling 1963 or one of those zeros equaling 1960?
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No, that guitar is a later (short-scale) model, and would have likely been built between 1964 and 1966. The actual year can sometimes be found under one of the tuning pans, though that's not true for every guitar. Yours is in pretty sad shape, but could be made playable with some money and work.
This is what it might have looked like when it was new:
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 6:46 pm Thanks
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| Thanks for the photo, what a beauty it once was. Why anyone would anyone it up the way it is now? |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 7:03 pm
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Interesting find.
I don't know if you could ever locate another stick-on number 8 to match 1 - 7.
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 7:18 pm
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It is curious that even the original legs are gone.
If you add more cables, here is a tip. Don’t use hardware store parts. Go on eBay and buy old metal Erector Set pulleys.
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Chris Lucker
Red Bellies, Bigsbys and a lot of other guitars. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 8:18 pm Thanks
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| That is good to know. If I get that far into I will do that. Is there any reason this would have the heavy strings in the middle? One of the necks is strung how a guitar is, heavy down to light. The other is strung with the heaviest string in the middle. I'm getting ready to restring it and thought that was odd. I haven't looked up anything about restring it yet, been too busy with the Junior Brown amp and the new Les Paul...I'm getting to it though. I figure I'm a little ahead of the beginner game as I am a all 5 finger finger picker.... |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 24 Jul 2021 9:56 pm
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You can find the Fender owners manual duplicated online. It give you the tuning information you need
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Chris Lucker
Red Bellies, Bigsbys and a lot of other guitars.
Last edited by Chris Lucker on 25 Jul 2021 1:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 8:21 am Re: Thanks
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| Steve Chandler wrote: |
That makes sense, is it possible the 00903 chassis number might have the year hidden in there either the 9 equaling 1959 or the 3 equaling 1963 or one of those zeros equaling 1960?
I agree with Mr. Lucker that calling it from a specific year might be redundant, but I still would like to know what year some of these parts are.
This is leading me to break out the Philips head and explore this thing a bit more.
If I do I will post some part pictures for the heck of it. I'm curious about these pickups.
Yes they are not Fender but I think I read somewhere that Fender basically used a Jazzmaster pickup in some of these things. Is that true? |
There is no serial number decoder for Fender pedal steels (or non pedal) and, like the guitars, the numbers didn't relate directly to years (at least not until they stopped making steels). They just stamped serial numbers on the chassis and used them vaquely in numerical order but not necessarily. No records were kept of what numbers were used when. Generally, by the 60s, Fender had stopped writing serial numbers under the tuner pans, even for Stringmasters. The pot codes (if original) can give a "not earlier than" date but yours may well not be original.
It would have had pickups that looked rather like Jaguar pickups - not Jazzmaster (the earlier, long scale Stringmasters had pickups that looked more like Jazzmaster ones.
What to tune it to? What kind of music do you want to play on it. If it were mine, I'd probably use a basic E9 (lowest 8 strings) with standard A B and C pedals and the other neck as a straight A6 - no pedals. To be honest though, I would consider the weight of it to be too much to lug around for only that degree of flexibility and would rather have a doubleneck Stringmaster or a regular single neck pedal steel if I was thinking about gigging with it. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 26 Jul 2021 9:38 am Thanks
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| Thanks for the info. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to have the time to put into this pedal steel and hope to pass it along whole and not part it out. |
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Aaron Clinton
From:
Calgary, AB
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Posted 28 Jul 2021 2:59 pm
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Add one knee lever and I would play that
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and don't forget to boogie! |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 28 Jul 2021 7:22 pm
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| Chris Lucker wrote: |
| It is curious that even the original legs are gone. |
Sharp eyes, Chris! 
(Those are the non-adjustable legs from a Fender 400.) |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 2 Aug 2021 6:48 pm Pot Dates
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| Everything has been taken apart. The pots are dated January 1963. |
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K Maul
From:
Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL
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Posted 2 Aug 2021 7:13 pm
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The pots aren’t an exact way to date a Fender steel. There is a wide band of time that pots were used since Leo bought in bulk.
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Kevin Maul: Airline, Beard, Clinesmith, Decophonic, Evans, Excel, Fender, Fluger, Gibson, Hilton, Ibanez, Justice, K+K, Live Strings, MOYO, National, Oahu, Peterson, Quilter, Rickenbacher, Sho~Bud, Supro, TC, Ultimate, VHT, Williams, X-otic, Yamaha, ZKing. |
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Steve Chandler
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 2 Aug 2021 7:29 pm Thanks
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| Yeah I know that. I had many an old Strat and Fender tube amps over the years. I have found that it usually means within a year or two though. Just thought I would mention here. Thanks |
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