Gene Parsons Doing Fender 400 and 800 Restorations

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 13 Mar 2025 8:04 am

Gene got his first Fender pedal steel from Leo Fender back in the late '60's and still has it. He has done many Fender cable guitar restorations over the years and is now offering that service to folks who are aficionados of this mechanical system for steel guitars. He manufactures/installs knee levers, services changers, polishes metal parts and adds pedals.

Contact Gene directly through his website stringbender.com if interested or contact me and I'll get the message to him.

flaherty steel 007.JPG

flaherty steel 004.JPG

flaherty steel 010.JPG

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 13 Mar 2025 11:32 am

Dennis Montgomery · Post by **Dennis Montgomery** » 13 Mar 2025 5:25 pm

As someone who played a 400 for many years and added my own knee levers, these look beautiful! Much nicer than my $50 worth of odds and ends from the Home Depot hardware aisle

Chris Templeton · Post by **Chris Templeton** » 13 Mar 2025 9:58 pm

My favorite Fender player, Sneaky Pete Kleinow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMeFHAaZ_gE

William Seeders Mosheim · Post by **William Seeders Mosheim** » 14 Mar 2025 7:54 am

So cool! I have a Fender Tele with a B-Bender Gene installed. His work is incredible. Such a sweet guy as well.

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 14 Mar 2025 12:52 pm

Chris Templeton wrote: 13 Mar 2025 9:58 pm My favorite Fender player, Sneaky Pete Kleinow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMeFHAaZ_gE

Gene was in the Burritos with Pete and played with him for quite a few years. I hear a lot of Pete in Gene's pedal steel playing. There are some recordings with both Gene and Pete playing their Fender pedal steels (Gene plays an 800).

Chris Templeton · Post by **Chris Templeton** » 14 Mar 2025 3:11 pm

I had two Fender 400's, one with pedals and knees and the other I had used for parts and was a non-pedal, with a C6th on it.. Since it only had legs, I tried putting it on top of the other and sat for pedal steel and stood up for lap steel.
Lee - Thank Gene for turning me on to his lawyer, Larry Johnson Esq., via Stephen Barncard. He got me my design patent for a concave neck for stringed instruments: https://patents.google.com/patent/USD98 ... oq=D980899 .
I think it would be a great for double bass and smaller hands. For classical guitar, it puts the thumb directly behind the neck, where it's supposed to be.
Many guitarist fretting hand thumb rides up the side of the neck and even on to the fretboard. A concave neck doesn't interfere with this technique.
Buddy had me shop back 2 guitars back to Sierra when he went back to a keyed guitar. He said the reason was because people were used to seeing a keyed guitar, though I suspect it was because it was a pain to change strings.
Ned Steinberger designed the second compensated bridge and the raised fretboard for my Tapper and he said how difficult it was to change public opinion about guitar designs. His double ball end strings to quickly change strings is genius, but it didn't revolutionize the whole guitar industry.
I attached pics of my classical and electric prototypes. Not the drill holes to check for the truss rod depth.

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 20 Mar 2025 9:13 am

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 7 Apr 2025 8:52 am

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 28 May 2025 2:49 pm

T-T-T

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 24 Jun 2025 9:36 am

Mark Perrodin · Post by **Mark Perrodin** » 24 Jun 2025 11:23 am

sent you an email Lee

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 25 Jun 2025 12:34 pm

Mark Perrodin wrote: 24 Jun 2025 11:23 am sent you an email Lee

Gene said he will contact you regarding the knee levers.

Thanks

Lee Rider

Paul Strojan · Post by **Paul Strojan** » 25 Jun 2025 7:37 pm

Had a nice visit with Gene today.

Lee Rider · Post by **Lee Rider** » 25 Jul 2025 12:07 pm

The Steel Guitar Forum