Sho-Bud Maverick Pedal Steel, Birdseye Maple, with Case

Single neck, three pedals and one knee lever, which is the standard Maverick arrangement.

Birdseye maple body with the Sho-Bud front apron badge reading Nashville, Tennessee. The finish carries playing wear. Legs, pedal rack and rods are present and the changer moves.

We have not had a steel player sit down and set it up, so the tuning it is currently in, and how close the pedal and lever stops are to where a player would want them, is not something we are claiming. Come and put your hands on it.

The instrument, its legs and pedal rack, and the case it is photographed with.

The Maverick was Sho-Bud's way in. Nashville built it for players who wanted a real pedal steel rather than a lap steel with ambitions, and kept it to one neck and a small pedal count so the price stayed reachable. It is the instrument a lot of steel players learned on.

A pedal steel is not a guitar with pedals on it. The pedals and the knee lever retune individual strings while you are holding a bar against them, which is where the sound comes from, and none of it is obvious from a photograph. Three pedals and one lever is enough to play the standard country vocabulary and not enough to get lost in.

Birdseye maple on a Maverick is worth looking at in person. It photographs flat and it is not flat.

Pickup only. We are not shipping instruments yet, so this one is bought here: 215 East Lewis Street, third floor, Livingston, by appointment.

Right for somebody who has wanted to learn pedal steel and does not want to start on a student instrument that fights them, or for a player who wants a light single neck for sessions and does not need a double.

Not right as a first instrument for somebody who has never played one. A pedal steel takes both hands, both feet and a knee, and it is worth sitting at one before buying it. You can do that here.