Volume/Tone Pedal Mod?

[simon_f3]

Just wondered if anyone has ever bothered to modify a Fender volume/tone pedal to be more useful with pedal steel, and what their findings were? I mean the kind of pedal with volume adjustment in the conventional up/down direction, and tone adjustment by rotating your foot side to side.

I have one of these pedals which I used to use with lap steel, and I found for the 50s rockabilly sound I wanted I used the tone part of the pedal quite a lot. However, now I have sold up and bought a pedal steel, this isn't really required.

Given the involuntary vow of poverty that I seem to have made at some point in the past, I was thinking of modifying the pedal rather than buying a Hilton, to include the following features:
- move all jacks to the right hand side
- fit a Dunlop volume potentiometer (about £22, same ones as in a Hilton pedal, apparently)
- fit a switch to enable / disable the tone control

Has anyone done anything like this before? Or has any thoughts on whether it's even worth doing? In some ways I'd quite like to keep the option of having tone control in case I ever manage to get hold of a lap steel again in the future.

Thanks for any input!

[Danny Mitchell]

Sid, I think the Hilton doesn't have a pot, it's some sort of infra red setup. Is it Goodrich you're thinking about? And, afaik, getting the correct type of pot is absolutely crucial.
Is the tone side of the pedal detrimental to the steel? I could imagine throwing in some boo-wah type licks would certainly separate you from the pack. And, could the front loading problem could be mitigated to an extent by right angle jacks?

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Sid, I have a Goodrich low boy for 90 quid "as new" or a standard Goodrich in good working condition but not so pretty for 60 Includes delivery to Bulkington



I will not tell your wife...........

[simon_f3]

Thanks John - a standard Goodrich for 60 quid sounds like just what I need - I'll give you a call before the next Bulkington anyway, but please do pop that to one side for me
I don't think my legs are long enough to warrant a lowboy version