Here's all I know about it:

It belongs to my drummer who got it from his brother, who got it from an estate. It sat in a musty, damp basement for years (decades, actually), and was filthy, with 5 rusty strings on it when he gave it to me to play around with.

I put a set of 13-56 guitar strings on it, and tuned it to open E. Dick Sanft played it, and immediately asked "how much you want for it!?" He said it's one of the nicer old steels he's played. Looks like crap, but sounds heavenly. Very even and sweet "old-school" sound.

It's super lightweight and sustains forever. Not sure what the wood is, though. Dick and I both agree that it looks like an old Supro, and that the bridge appears to be from an old 30's era Gibson. Have no clue what the p'up is, but it sounds sweet, sweet, sweet, especially through my old Princeton Reverb. The nut appears to be an old, yellowed piece of ivory. The tuners are damn near frozen stiff, but I'm going to lube them, and see if I can't get them to turn more easily.

Any ideas? Thanks for whatever anyone can tell me. Oh, I haven't had the bridge or p'up plate off yet, but I will do that when I put a set of C6 gauge strings on it.

Thanks.
TJW

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

This is one of the most hefty, solid and nicer bridges I've seen. It's too bad they're not makin' 'em like this anymore!

Any ideas on what possible year or decade, anyway?

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loveridehd@aol.com
Carter D-10/C6 & E9, Ohau 6 string lap/C6, and two Resonators/open G

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Although I include info about Steels here, it is quite apparant to me that the tone I was investigating and like ALLOT comes from the pickup ...so I include some info about the pickups as well. The pickup is not of the Rickenbacher or modern pedal steel's warm and strong clarity, ...but is of an "old" warm and dynamic tone when played at normal lower amp gains, ...more dynamic (although compressed) as gain is increased. However, when you play them in a cranked-up amp, these pickups have a compressed / saturated sound character quite like they're being played through a Marshall tube amp regarless of what amp is being used.

The mainframe design of the Steel seemed to have been jobbed out ...probably from patented blueprints ...apparantly to supply an outfit called "Federated Teachers Service Corp". I also ran across some references for the Steel marketed by The California Teachers Institute (or some name similar). FTSC and CTI(?) were evidently music teaching and merchandising businesses during the era that door-to-door music lessons / instrument sales was popular and common. I got the impression that a few Steel Manufacturers were supplying this design for door-to-door sales; And might account for the slightly different "Harmony style" headstock on the subject Steel of this discussion chain. As far as "Gibson" bridge / hardware goes; Parts contracts moved back and forth between a number of guitar manufacturers, particularly during the early eras. Here's 3 references to the Steels I found in my files:

Gulden Co. (makers of Cellos, Violins ... and I seem to remember pianos mentioned as well but not sure). It seems they made a higher-end version of the design, using nice woods they were known for, and an archaic pickup made by Electrical Research Products who might have also manufactured the guitar design themselves too, or jobbed it. ERP shows up at the beginning of electric guitars and amps.

Epitome is the most common name I found as one of the brands for the design, marketed by the FTSC and CTI(?) outfits. Another example here. Each of the few Epitome's I was able to find pictures of, had the DeArmond "motel soap bar" pickup like the one subject in this discussion chain and not the ERP pickup the Guldens had. Each of the Epitome's also had the headstock with straight sides diverging from the nut, like the ERP example in this discussion chain. I did not run across the Harmony style headstock shown on the subject Steel in this disccusion chain. And with the other references to Harmony, I can suppose that Harmony might have jobbed the very near same design. Noteworthy in the subject Steel example is the output jack plate in it's unusual position I did see on other Epitome's ...including one I have.

About the DeArmond pickup on Epitome's:

The DeArmond "motel soap bar pickup" was common on a number of low-end Lap Steels of that era. Example here. They were also the pickup used by Harmony in the 1950's Stratotone models until around 1961 when it was replaced with slightly larger DeArmond diamond-grill-top pickups marketed, by Harmony anyway, as the gold (golden?) tone pickup. There were 2 diamond grill topped DeArmonds; One about the same size as the "motel soap bar", that I have seen mounted flat on guitars but also commonly elevated on a mounting plate that made it appear to float off the deck of a guitar. The other diamond grill top DeArmond had a slightly larger bezel-lipped mouting plate / cover and is familiar on Harmony's early Meteor and Rocket guitars. I find the "motel soap bars" to be warmer and more compressed than the sharper and more open tones of the diamond grill topped DeArmonds.

This model of Tonemaster might also be a take-off of the mainframe design of this discussion's subject Steel. I have seen that distinct treble bout to neck transition hump on some Epitome's. Notice that this Tonemaster has the National / Supro pickup / control plate assembly and might have been manufactured by Natl / Supro. ????

Aloha,
DT~

[This message was edited by Denny Turner on 30 July 2004 at 08:43 PM.]