Scheerhorn Bars Stainless vs Chrome

[Chris Schlotzhauer]

I want to buy a Scheerhorn bar for Dobro, but wow, they are pricey. What is the difference between SS and Chrome? Any tone difference on bronze strings?

[Bob Stone]

Bars are a matter of personal preference. While I prefer hard chrome for electric lap steel, I like stainless for acoustic reso. It's not quite as noisy as chrome and has a prettier tone, in my opinion. The Shubb Swallows bars are a less expensive alternative to the SS Scheerhorn. I really like the wood handle. Here's the link.

http://www.shubb.com/gs/

[Fred Kinbom]

Another good alternative to the Scheerhorn is the E.G. Smith stainless steel bar. About $45 when I bought mine. I have since gone over to bullet bars 100% though. Two words: Tribo-Tone!

[Lynn Oliver]

You'll need to try both. I feel more drag from stainless steel, at least as compared with the smooth Bradley brass/chrome bar, and brass/chrome tends to sustain more. Of the Tipton-style bars (Tipton, Scheerhorn, Bradley, Lap Dawg etc.) I think the Bradley is the most comfortable.

[Joey Ace]

I have been using a Scheerhorn SS bar for several years, for my reso playing, bronze strings.

It fits my hand perfectly.
It sounds a good as any other bar I've tried.

I've never tried the Scheerhorn Chrome, but used to use Dunlop 905 Chrome Bars. They sounded just as good, but the chrome would start to wear off after a year or two.

That resulted in bare brass areas that caused drag.
Basically the bars had to be replaced annually.

That's the reason I went SS with the 'Horn.
It's as good as new after much use. The $85 I paid for it has been justified by not having to the annual replacement cost.

FWIW, I love BJS bars for PSG, and am looking forward to their new dobro bars.

[Harrison Withers]

I have two Gary Swallows bars, a custom tigerwood with a rounded nose and a shubb version. By far the most comfortable bars I own, but I do prefer the sound of both nickel plate and chrome plate. Seems brighter to my ears, now if I could only get gary to make me a chrome plated version.

Harrison

[Jordan Sayers]

I've got way too many bars for somebody who has only been playing for 15 months. I like the E.G. Smith as far as those types go (stainless, really great bar, better than most of the one's I have) but nowdays I use the Broz-O-Phonic almost exclusively.

I LOVE the tone I get from the bullet bar FAR more than any of my other bars.