My MSA Classic SS from Tom Bradshaw

[Elan Bustos]

Hi everyone, I finally got around to posting this instrument after owning it for over 2 years. I bought this MSA Classic SS from Tom Bradshaw in 2022 after he lent me an MSA Classic for a month. He always has people borrow guitars before selling them because so many people give up after buying their first steels. I guess he got tired of people wanting him to buy back their steels. This is my only pedal steel. I've toured with it, and it's been amazingly reliable except for one problem which I have resolved.

A week into owning it (fall 2022), one of the screws holding on the direction reversing bracket for RKR stripped out. Tom advised me to clean out the hole and fill it with wood dowels or toothpicks and wood glue and then to drill a new pilot hole. This held for a year (until fall 2023) then stripped out again. All the force of RKR pulls on that one screw that's only 1/2" long. I made a decision to drill out the hole and secure it with a machine screw. It does not affect the appearance since it's on the back of the neck, and I have not worried about that screw since.