Donny Hinson wrote:
Bill, with all due respect - that may be true for straight guitars, but I doubt it's true for pedal steels. By the time you bolt on aprons, endplates, a changer, a keyhead, necks, and 10 lbs. of rods, brackets, levers, and then hang a bunch of pedals on the front, there really isn't much tone or resonance left in the body of a modern pedal steel. I seriously doubt most players can even tell by the sound whether or not a steel's got plastic glued on, or it has finely finished beautiful wood.
I think looks and durability are the key issues when considering alternative finishes, and ( also with all due respect), I believe pedal steel makers are closer to cabinet makers than they are to luthiers.
It is true for wood, no matter what you make out of it.
As long as the guitar is made of wood, then there will be a factor involved in changing the sound of it and resonance of it by encasing it with plastic no matter what you bolt to it or hang off it.
Have you ever played a steel with no body?? I have played the skeleton steel that Jim Flynn makes. There is no wood in the structure around the neck, only aluminum. The guitar sounds TOTALLY different than a wood body instrument.
I can guarantee you that the wood body and the variations of body composites make a HUGE difference in the sound of the steel.
Having said that, one of the better steels I owned in regards to good tone and great sustain was an old BMI. The body was made of some kind of pressboard and mica covered EVERY surface of the instrument! Go figure?
Again I am not debating the intricate difference between the plastic covered and the all wooden guitar, I am only highlighting the fact that the acceptance of the plastic covered instrument is in spite of the sound and the appearance differences.