My "new" bar

John Bushouse · Posted 29 Apr 2008 8:38 pm

I recently bought an old Oahu model 50-K guitar. As a 1938 Oahu catalog says, "This model guitar has been especially designed for the student. It is built for service, tone and durability."

Along with the guitar came a lot of extra info - a couple of catalogs, a lot of sheet music, two rusty fingerpicks + a thumbpick, and a bar. An Oahu Monel round bar, Model 125K if I reckon correctly. 2 7/16" long, 11/16" diameter, 4 1/2 ounces.

It's definitely a different experience playing with such a short bar. It's actually a little bit shorter than my index finger, so the back end doesn't even touch my palm when I play. But it's still long enough to do two-fret slant on stings 1 & 3, for example.

I now have three bars of roughly the same shape and diameter, but with 1 7/16", 2 3/4", and 3" lengths - enough to do a little comparison to find out which length is most comfortable.

Andy Sandoval · From: Bakersfield, California, USA

I've got one of those little bars too. It came with an Oahu Tonemaster I bought. It's just a little too small but pretty cool though.

Bill Leff · From: Santa Cruz, CA, USA

Jerry Byrd recommended a 2 3/4" bar, which is even shorter than the bar you are describing. He was able to do three-string split slants etc with this size bar.

Lots of folks on this forum use a bar of this length.

John Bushouse · Posted 30 Apr 2008 10:10 am

Bill, 2 7/16" is just under 2 1/2", so it's about 1/4" shorter than Jerry's.

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I have a couple of old Oahu round bars.

One is 5/8" x 2 7/16".
And the other is 5/8" x 2 5/8".

Bill Leff · From: Santa Cruz, CA, USA

John Bushouse · Posted 30 Apr 2008 3:16 pm

Yeah, I kind of felt bad pointing it out...

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