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quote:

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Steel players do it without fretting

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http://www.waikiki-islanders.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Bob

[This message was edited by Bob Knight on 15 January 2004 at 04:02 PM.]

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Sho-Bud ProII
"there's been an awful murder, down on music row!"

As far as tightwaddishness, why not try one of the "Bullet Bars?" They're only $25--since that includes shipping it works out to only a dollar more than ordering an Ernie Ball--and they've been getting good reviews from people here. Half the price of a Cryo and a third the price of a BJS...

I have the same 25$ "home made" bars for 24 years. ( They ARE really good bars..) I've played a couple thousand gigs with them easy. Refinished them more than a couple times.

It wasn't til recently that I bought a new dense coating SS Bullseye Bar. ( check accolades )

Now I have one less thing to blame for "sloppy playing"..

No reason anything this side of a deep well 5/8 socket won't work.

Treat yourself well. You're a good person dog gone ya..

EJL

You can feel and hear the difference with these bars.

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Tommy Minniear
www.ntsga.com

quote:

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I mean,you would think stainless is stainless,chrome is chrome etc.etc

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Actually, there are many different types of stainless steel ... and within each series are multiple grades.

Some Stainless Grades

For example, Pearse bars are made of 440 stainless, heat treated (hardened), then cryo treated ... Extremely high quality.

Same goes for Chrome plating ...

Hard Chromium Plating, refers to the process of electrodepositing a thick layer (0.2 mils to 30 mils or more) of chromium.

Hardness, wearability, corrosion resistance and lubricity (low coefficient of friction) are the hallmarks of hard chrome.

BJS bars are hardened (heat treated) steel which is then hard chromed. Again ... extremely high quality.

Decorative Chromium Plating refers to a different process, whereby a thin layer (sometimes 50 millionths of an inch) of chromium is deposited for appearance or non-tarnishing purposes.

Black Chromium is a specialty chromium coating, which has a black color instead of the usual silver color. It is used in solar panels and for aesthetic reasons.

The "big gun" of chrome plating is Thin Dense Chromium. TDC is the premium coating on the Bullseye bars. Many companies offer TDC ... I had 3 Jim Burden stainless bars done a few years ago by Meadville and I have a Bullseye .... Outstanding quality.

Hope this helps ...

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www.horseshoemagnets.com

[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 16 January 2004 at 09:14 AM.]

Also, I think it's a 7/8, and I get cramps in my hand sometimes. I am considering an upgrade to something higher quality and a little larger size.

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

Usually with my old high quality stainless bars I can't feel much string drag. Heck I've used them for 24 years.

Last night I was going over that specific B/C pedals down going two frets down and playing the 543 string combination. Without looking very hard, I thought I was feeling a lot more "string drag' than I ought to. Usually I don't feel it at all. THEN I realized I was using my regular SS "old bar". I changed to the Bullseye, and felt NONE.

Honestly, I wish I'd have changed to this years ago, as this coating process has been around in oil field and military applications for years.

How long it will take to "wear throught it"? I dunno. According to the test and spec sheets, a LOT longer than "chrome plating". It seems to handle sandy high velicity/pressure oil through valves and use in high speed helicopter rotor bearings better than anything they've found so far. I'll certainly post it when mine shows wear. It hasn't in 6 months of hard playing.

Click Here

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Lee, from South Texas
Down On The Rio Grande

Listen to basilh and Bob Knight, those John Pearse bars are the way to go.

You might also check out the link from Lee Baucum about Bobbe Seymours theory on dis-similar metals, Seymour knows what the hell he is talking about when it comes to bars and strings.

I am currently using a Pearse Thermo-Cryonic bar and the Ernie Ball strings that came with my new Carter and I am as happy as a Pizmo Clam. The Pearse bar is stainless and the E.B.'s I am guessing are nickel.

The Pearse is a bit shorter and lighter than the BJS, and warmer sounding.

I also have larger BJS bars, a 15/16" and a 1". All three sizes of BJS have different tones. I could probably get rid of the two bigger ones now and not miss them, although the 15/16" may prove useful in the future.

Like I said in the thread Lee Baucum linked to, I had just purchased a 1" Dunlop stainless bar, and my opinion of it is that it would make a good weapon. The grade of stainless is just too soft. I also have a Dunlop 7/8" chrome, that came with my first steel. It's okay, but a high-quality bar actually adds something to the tone.

Jim, if you mean that your Pearse bar literally has no bevel on the butt end, there may be a problem; at least I can say that the bevel on mine is comparable to my other bars.

However, I should mention something that happened when I bought my Pearse bar several months ago:

I had to special order it through a store that doesn't do much business with Pearse, that never handled any of their bars before. The store went ahead and ordered an extra one to have on hand for future sale.

When the bars arrived, I tried them both out and found that they both had a small ridge all around the bar, right where the nose joins the cylinder. Because the ridge was on both bars, and was fairly regular, I thought that might be normal, perhaps something to do with the mysterious cryonic treatment.

So, I took one of the bars and tried it for a night, only to find that the ridge caught slightly on the high strings. I decided I couldn't live with that without at least calling the company, which my dealer did the next day.

The lady at Pearse said the ridges were definitely not normal and offered to take the bars back. It turned out that the entire batch of bars they had on hand were flawed in the same way, so I had to wait until they got a new batch.

Bottom line is that they corrected the problem without complaint, but I feel like I should at least mention the problem, in case someone else runs into the same thing with a Pearse bar.

I saw Bobbe Seymour play close-up several months ago and, believe it or not, he was just using a 7/8" Dunlop bar. (I'm pretty sure it was chrome.) If you read the linked thread, you'll see that he's more concerned about how the bar and string materials match up than about which chrome bar to use. Maybe since he has a primo push-pull, he doesn't worry too much about the differences between chrome bars. Maybe he prefers the Dunlop's smaller size and weight.

Or, maybe he hasn't really spent much time with a BJS yet. I suppose that's possible.

He also was just using a little Boss delay pedal for effects, into a Peavey amp. In a way, that was most interesting, since I was basically just hearing Bobbe and the Emmons guitar. Not something I'll soon forget.

[This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 16 January 2004 at 05:42 PM.]

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?