Welcome to The Steel Guitar Information Resource.

Carter Steel Guitars has established this web site to provide you with information on how to maintain, adjust, and repair your pedal steel guitar. You can use this site as an online owner's manual for most steel guitars.

You are invited to become more familiar with your guitar and its mechanics. We strongly believe that proper and timely maintenance, along with a basic understanding of the mechanics, will increase both:

This web site is intended as a basic guide and is not meant to cover every specific situation encountered in pedal steel guitar repair and maintenance. Please feel free to contact us with your questions and suggestions for topics of interest or subjects not yet mentioned on this web site.

It should be noted that some of the material is directed more toward all-pull mechanisms. The reason for this is that all-pull mechanisms represent over 80% of all pedal steel guitars in existence and nearly 100% of all pedal steel guitars being made today.

This site relies on Java-based technologies and DHTML to power the slide shows, graphic animations, and navigation menus.

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This section will contains information on how to assemble your pedal steel and then easily take it out of the case so your back won't be as stressed.

A good method of packing a steel guitar to reduce the possibility of damage during shipment will also be shown.

This section covers how to tune your steel guitar and adjust the pedals and knee levers for proper operation.

There is also information on how to change the action (shorter, longer, easier, etc.) of the pedals and knee levers.

Trouble shooting guides are provided to assist you in diagnosing causes of your steel guitar's inability to "stay in tune".

Possible solutions to these problems are also provided.

Links to various relevant sections of
Pedal Steel Guitar Illustrated are also provided so you can see how the basic mechanisms function and interact.

Lubrication is an IMPORTANT part of steel guitar maintenance.

Your steel guitar is a musical instrument containing a mechanical system for operation. The mechanical system typically consists of various metals and plastics.

Lubrication is used to ensure that the parts move freely and that metal-to-metal wear from movement is minimized as much as possible. Moving freely means that the pedals, knee levers, and strings all move to their intended pitch. Minimization of metal-to-metal wear means that your steel guitar will last longer and maintain its playability and accuracy over time.

Recommended materials and methods are covered, and their use is demonstrated.

How do I change my strings?
What gauges do I use?
What if I use different gauge strings?
How do I reduce the amount of breakage on my strings?

These questions and more are answered in this section.

The "Logic of Rodding" is discussed.

Charts for some all-pull guitars are shown.

While the charts are somewhat brand-specific, they demonstrate the logic well.

A blank chart is also provided for your use in documenting your existing rodding connections.

Charts of the basic tunings are provided as well as a downloadable blank chart for you to work out or record your tuning(s).

This section will cover a variety of useful topics not covered elsewhere on this site.

Polishing discusses which types of materials to use when polishing and/or cleaning your steel.

Some useful tools for maintaining your steel are shown .

Pickup replacement techniques as well as topics relating to volume pedals such as pot noise and replacement are discussed.

We also provide links to other sites containing topics we think might be of interest to you in maintaining and using your pedal steel guitar.

Some of the topics covered will include:

Finishing (jeweling) of metal necks

Non- destructive fretboard removal

Preparation and polishing of aluminum

Removal and replacement of laminates

This section contains downloadable owners manuals, technical manuals, and wiring diagrams for various steel guitars.

All of these manuals are in Adobe PDF Format.

You will need the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader.