Rus-Ler Steels History?

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 29 Aug 2010 3:42 pm

I just pulled the trigger on the Rus-Ler U12 steel that Tom Lulias had for sale on the Instruments For Sale section. We talked on the phone today & he told me he thought Rus-Ler was built by a person who worked for Zane Beck & then went out on his own. Does anybody out there know more about the history of Rus-Ler steels? I did a search & found a lot of comments about the guitars but not much about their history. Lots of compliments on the construction & tone of Rus-Lers. Also found out that Chuck Back of Desert Rose steels bought the companys' parts stock when it went under. Maybe Chuck knows more & will hopefully chime in. I'm just curious to know more. Thanx!>>>dg

Bob Lawrence · Post by **Bob Lawrence** » 29 Aug 2010 6:37 pm

Quote From: Danny Kuykendall, Fullerton, CA, USA

"Larry, I own the first Rus-ler made by Russ Russel back in 1975 in Phoenix, AZ. Russ was a ZB employee who started his own company in 75 and made his first guitar from what appears to be ZB parts. My father purchased this steel that year, and from players who have looked at the steel, they all say it's basically a ZB. Thought you may want the info. I will try to find the serial #.
Danny K "

Source: http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/004696-5.html

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 30 Aug 2010 9:45 am

Bob: Thanks for the info,I appreciate it! Anyone else have more?

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 30 Aug 2010 4:02 pm

Well, I can't give you the years, but,
Harold Flynn bought most, if not all of the RusLer parts after RusLer went under and used a lot of them in his "Flynn" pedal steel. It was a great sounding steel with a new type changer.
Fred Layman, I think, bought the Flynn Co. after Harold died and inhereted all the RusLer parts.
Chuck Back bought the parts from Fred and started making the "Desert Rose" pedal steel. He used a fair amount of RusLer parts in his original steels. The up to date Desert Rose steels carry a slight resemblance with the RusLer steels. They are a wonderful playing and sounding steel.
I think the facts are correct, if not, chime in.
BTW- I still have my 1976 RusLer. It's an S-11 with 5&4. All black with MOP inlays. It still plays and sounds as good as the day I got it. Never a breakdown, totaly reliable.

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 30 Aug 2010 10:24 pm

Thanks,John!Very interesting,hopefully Chuck will see this & tell us what he knows.If the Co. started in 1975 & Tom thinks the one I'm getting is a 79-80,then maybe it lasted at least 4 or 5 yrs. Glad to hear another good comment about the construction & reliability of Rus-Ler steels. I'm really stoked to be getting one! Keep that info comin',folks!

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 31 Aug 2010 11:01 am

Norm Hamlet played one with Hag for quite awhile David. I always loved the look of them. Have fun!

Fred Martin · Post by **Fred Martin** » 31 Aug 2010 12:12 pm

Had some thoughts about buying that steel too. They are coming up for sale less frequently all the time. Jerry Bartee played a 12 string for a long time in Az. And he still has it. They were heavy but had some tone that is hard to duplicate. Fred Justice played the fire out of a 10 string and may still have it. Several are still around Arizona.

I know a lot of them had some real ornate pin striping and the ends were polished in a pattern. Dont tnink I ever heard a bad word about them except they were heavy.

I worked with one of Russ's nephews in Alpine, Az and he helped in the shop in Phx. Mostly talked about the hookers and other folks coming in to the shop to visit. Sort of a social hub I guess. He thought Russ moved to Missouri or Arkansas and might have got himself kilt back there, I dont know.

What I liked about Chuck Backs first guitars were the old Rus-ler pedals with the flowers. Im easy impressed I guess. Also there is a Flynn guitar in Payson that had a beautiful fret board with roses on it. Dont know if that came from Rus=ler parts or not.

Norm Hamlet packed his around a long long time so you know they are built tuff.

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 31 Aug 2010 2:37 pm

Bob: Thanks,I did not know Norm played one. If it's good enough for Norm,it's good enough for me. Fred,thank you,too. I'll trade weight for tone anyday. It can't weigh much more than my LDG in its' Anvil case

. This is starting to get interesting. I'll do some more searching on the web tonight. Meanwhile...keep it coming!>>>dg

Al Miller · Post by **Al Miller** » 31 Aug 2010 3:18 pm

I know Danny Sneed played one up until at least 93 or 94 not sure after that . he sure could bring the Cream to the surface on it though.. i never did like the looks of em much they looked like a coffee table

/ but after lookin at a few real old ZBs they kinda grow on ya.. at any rate Danny is a member here i bet if you shoot him a P.M. i bet he could tell ya all you wanted to know about them .
Boo Miller

Tom Mortensen · Post by **Tom Mortensen** » 31 Aug 2010 5:41 pm

I owned 2 of them.
I wish I had Ol' Bleu back.

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 31 Aug 2010 5:54 pm

I spoke to Mr.Hamlet and he still has that green D-10 RusLer. A friend of mine, years ago, bought an identicle one to Norm's and he still has his. They never were really popular on the east coast or Nashville, for that matter. I don't know why. I had the first one in the north east, in 1976. They were or are very ZB sounding with the tripple tap pickups and the solid body construction. But, they are more user friendly with bell cranks, pull rods and an all pull changer.
BTW- the rose fretboard on the Flynn steel is THE fretboard from RusLer. The fretboards and pedals on the original Desert Rose steels were RusLer, also.

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 1 Sep 2010 9:49 am

Thanks guys!

I appreciate the input. Boo: I will get in touch w/ Danny.Hopefully we can get him to post what he knows here so everyone that's interested can see it. Tom: You looked very happy behind Ol' Bleu ! Thanx for the pic. If anyone else has pics,please post them. John: Now that I think about it I remember that green steel of Norms'. Had a lot of bling on it.

I just didn't know it was a Rus-Ler. Sure would like to hear what Mr. Hamlet has to say about it. Nice to know they sound similar to ZBs,I've always wanted one but was scared off by my lack of knowledge of their mechanics. Now,I guess I'm gonna have to start searching for a fretboard to go on mine. The steel I'm getting has a Sho-Bud fretboard on it,which looks pretty good. Does anyone have a picture of the rose FB??

Tom Lulias · Post by **Tom Lulias** » 2 Sep 2010 5:53 am

Hi David. I have the original fretboard that I will send with the guitar. It was broken so I replaced it with a Sho-Bud one. Thanks...Tom

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 2 Sep 2010 6:38 am

Thanks,Tom.The Sho-Bud fretboard looks pretty darn nice! Especially since I've played a 'Bud for 33 years. And Thanks for working with me on getting this beautiful guitar.

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 4 Sep 2010 12:28 pm

bump

Bob I. Williams · Post by **Bob I. Williams** » 5 Sep 2010 1:40 pm

]I have a very nice clean SD-10 Rus-ler 3and4 built in Phoenix. SERIAL# 0143. The pickup has been changed to a George L,the fretboard has been changed. I would like some feedback on this guitar including the worth. Enclosed is picture. Yes bOb will get a check if it sells. I also have an old ZB Serial# R.A.L. 11 which I will put in another post. THANKS BOB

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 6 Sep 2010 7:41 am

Thanks,Bob! She's a beauty. If memory serves me correctly that color scheme & decoration is a whole lot like Norm Hamlets' D-10. Still waiting to hear from Norm & Danny Sneed.

Hopefully they can tell us more. Thanks to all who have responded. I would sure like to know what happened to Russ Russell. Anybody have a clue?

Paul Redmond · Post by **Paul Redmond** » 6 Sep 2010 7:47 pm

I believe the guitar that Bud Isaacs played at Scotty's in the mid-1980's was a Rus-Ler. It was a S-12 with 3 and 1. Bud joked about not knowing what the 3rd pedal actually did, but that at his age, anything that "pushed back" was nice. He never used the KL and didn't even unfold it.
Harold Flynn's prototype Flynn guitar was basically a Rus-Ler with Harold's new "upside-down" changer installed in it...a changer for which he would ultimately receive a U.S. patent. That guitar had tone to the nines.
PRR

Jack Francis · Post by **Jack Francis** » 7 Sep 2010 7:31 am

The RusLer steels use the same 24" fretboard that Chuck uses on the Desert Rose...
but his are just black and white now. (The RusLer fret board had some red in the Roses.
I think they look just fine...and I had one of old RusLer steels.
Here's a picture of my Desert Rose fretboards...the pinstriping on my steel was done by the
same guy that did the original RusLer steels. (Butchr Tucker.)

Danny Sneed · Post by **Danny Sneed** » 7 Sep 2010 12:59 pm

Hi David,
Russ and the gang at the shop were always joking and having a great time. It was fun for everybody. When Russ worked for ZB he wanted to make some changes and I guess that didn't go over very well. So, he decided to build his own. My Rus-ler's under carriage was completely different from the ZBs. In the key head Russ used roller bearings. They worked great, but they made the string spacing wider than normal. Russ would go home at night time and build steel guitar parts. He could do anything except play steel. He couldn't play one note on a steel guitar. He would call me and ask me to come down to the shop and check out a guitar before he shipped it out. Miss Russ. Bye.

Bob I. Williams · Post by **Bob I. Williams** » 7 Sep 2010 2:41 pm

Hi Danny, I heard Russ died about six years ago. Maybe you can bring us up to date re: Russ. I'll make it a point to go up and see you at the Buffalo chip. Bob

Tom Mortensen · Post by **Tom Mortensen** » 7 Sep 2010 3:04 pm

Steel player, Mike Stewart, helped Russ a lot too.
Danny is correct, it was always fun to stop by Russ's shop.
Russ told me that Europe was his biggest market.
I don't know if that was his dream or reality.

David Griffin · Post by **David Griffin** » 8 Sep 2010 12:05 pm

Thanks for the posts,guys! If any of you or anyone else has any more memories of Russ Russell & Rus-Ler steels,please contribute.More pics would be nice,too.

Jack Francis · Post by **Jack Francis** » 8 Sep 2010 1:19 pm

Here's the RusLer that Jeff Newman traded to me for an old Tele...I sold it to someone on the Forum but can't remember his name...I've slept since then! $:\$

Danny Sneed · Post by **Danny Sneed** » 8 Sep 2010 8:27 pm

Here's a picture of one of my Rus-lers...many, many, many years ago.
Danny

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