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Topic: Unusual tone bar |
Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 29 Mar 2016 9:08 am |
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Does anyone know where this may have come from? I want to put it on eBay but I don't know how to describe it.
It weighs 8½ oz. and the previous owner may have been using it for pedal steel, although I'm not sure it's really suitable for that.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Ian McWee
From:
Worcestershire, UK
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Posted 30 Mar 2016 1:07 am
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Looks very much like a home-made bar ~ not seen any bar like this offered commercially  |
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Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 30 Mar 2016 1:24 pm
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I take your point about the finish, Tom - that hadn't occurred to me.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 30 Mar 2016 2:22 pm
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I think it's a home made capo. I made one very similar years ago.
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LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 30 Mar 2016 3:05 pm
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So how would that work, Clyde? What holds it in place? Remember I don't play any lap instruments, only the pedal kind!
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Clyde Mattocks
From:
Kinston, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 31 Mar 2016 7:05 am
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You just slide it under the strings. It would have to be just high enough to put tension on the strings to avoid rattling. On the one I made, the bottom was lined with soft cork to avoid scratching the fretboard.
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LeGrande II, Nash. 112, Fender Twin Tone Master, Session 400, Harlow Dobro, R.Q.Jones Dobro |
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Bud Angelotti
From:
Larryville, NJ, USA
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 31 Mar 2016 12:53 pm
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Sadly, it is not magnetic - but on the upside I know more about cattle-rearing than I did this time yesterday.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Tim McKane
From:
North Carolina, USA
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Posted 1 Apr 2016 9:47 am
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Hi Ian
I sent you a pm |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 1 Apr 2016 10:08 am
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Presumably the hole in the underneath is to take a screw that holds the wood and metal together. Otherwise, it looks like a tripod mount. 
Hey, that's something I never considered before. You fix the tone bar to a tripod and then slide the instrument instead. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 1 Apr 2016 1:04 pm
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Worth a try I suppose, Alan. The "wood" is actually brass, somewhat tarnished as it lacks any finish as pointed out above. The screw is a #10 machine screw as far as I can tell without taking it out, which I can't easily and therefore shan't.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 9:37 am
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That's unusual. Usually composite tone bars are metal and wood. The wood is more comfortable and warmer to hold. The additional metal doesn't make much sense to me. It adds a lot of weight, and makes it less likely to slip out of your hand, but wood would be much better.
As I mentioned to you, I dip my tone bars in Plastic Dip, made for screwdriver handles, etc., then remove the rubber from the playing side. It makes them almost impossible to slip out of one's hand. If I had that tone bar I would do the same with the back side, to make it more comfortable to hold. |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 2:35 pm
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doesn't look at all strange to me.
looks like someone made sort of a stevens type bar thingie. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 2:47 pm
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| chris ivey wrote: |
doesn't look at all strange to me.
looks like someone made sort of a stevens type bar thingie. |
Maybe I should have asked "How unusual is this tone bar?" Then the answer would have been "not particularly". I'm ignorant of these kinds of bars (but not as ignorant as I was of cow magnets).
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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chris ivey
From:
california (deceased)
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 3:20 pm
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| i bet you'd learn alot of interesting things if you ever got to enter alan's music workshop. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 3:28 pm
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I know it - Alan was a big help when I was building my PSG
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Joe Naylor
From:
Avondale, Arizona, USA
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Posted 2 Apr 2016 4:25 pm Looks like
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Looks like a magnet they put down a Cow to find metal that may have been DE-magitized. But home made for sure
Joe Naylor
www.steelseat.com
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Joe Naylor, Avondale, AZ (Phoenix) Announcer/Emcee owner www.steelseat.com *** OFFERING SEATS AND Effects cases with or without legs and other stuff ****** -Desert Rose Guitar S-10, Life Member of the Arizona Carport Pickers Assoc., Southwest Steel Guitar Assoc., Texas Steel Guitar Assoc., GA Steel Guitar Assoc., KS Steel Guitar Assoc. (Asleep at the Steel) tag line willed to me by a close late friend RIP |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 5:23 am
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Well, Bud Angelotti said cow magnet but as it was not magnetic I concluded that it wasn't. But demagnetized makes more sense - playing steel strings with a magnetic object could be weird. But home-made? The brass portion is ground concave to the same radius on all four sides, which isn't exactly kitchen-table - unless it's also recycled from something you'd find around the farm?
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 5:51 am
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| It might have been made for someone with some sort of handicap, crippled hand, etc. |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 10:54 am
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| It actually looks like a combination of two tone bars. Was the part that was screwed on originally a tone bar in its own right? Is the underneath (in the photograph) smooth? |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 12:44 pm
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
| The brass portion is ground concave to the same radius on all four sides |
Time for more pics, methinks
I don't think the brass part was ever a tone bar and nor do I see what else it could have been in another life. Perhaps whoever made it, once they were set up to hollow it out to accommodate what I think we can now officially call the cow magnet, decided to do the other sides the same. It would certainly help anyone who finds a bullet bar tough to grip.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 3:43 pm
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| I suspect it was someone's attempt to make his own Stephens Bar, and he found it easier to use an existing bullet bar than to machine it circular on one side and hollowed-out on the other. |
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Bill Mollenhauer
From:
New Jersey, USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2016 5:30 pm
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| I did something similar with a Shubb #1 bar. I shaped and glued a 1/4 inch piece of wood to the top of the bar to make it a taller bar. |
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