Do bars wear out?

Alex Cattaneo · From: Quebec, Canada

How often do you change bars?

I'm having dead spots in the upper register and I wondering if it's the bar, the guitar or the technique.

Carl Kilmer · From: East Central, Illinois

Alex, I've never heard of a bar wearing out, unless it has
scratches or has been dropped on concrete or something.
My favorite bar, I got back in the 70's. It's still like new.
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aka "Lucky Kay"--Custom built Rittenberry SD10 3X5, Walker S/S, NV-112, and Hilton Pedal

Bobby Snell · From: Austin, Texas

Inexpensive chromed bars will wear.

Since we spend a lot of time holding on to the thing, it's worth some investment. Search on the forum for bar information...there's lots of good posts with pictures. Very Happy

Larry Baker · From: Columbia, Mo. U.S.A.

I change bars after I've been thrown out of the others 3 times!!!!!
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Mullen G2 SD10 3 & 5 The Eagle
NV112 amp===Earnie Ball V.P.

Stephen Cowell · From: Round Rock, Texas, USA

Well, the bar certainly can't lose enough mass to be noticed... so we're talking about the surface? If that was the case, you should be able to spin the bar and bring another part of the surface to bear (unless you've worn a ring around it!).

As a matter of course, you should have more than one bar available (stages sometimes have holes in them). I'll bet you that it's not the bar, however, for the reasons I've outlined above.

If it was a string height problem you'd be able to fix it by pressing down harder with the bar... this normally is only seen at the nut end, since you don't have to press hard when in the middle even with atrocious string height problems. This would also tend to fix worn-out bar problems (non-even edge) and would again be more evident down at the nut end (where the strings give much less).

Try the bar on one of your other steels... try another bar on your PSG. I'm assuming you still have the problem on the PSG... so it's not the bar. Look at string replacement, loose bridge, other loose parts (the pickup being loose can cause problems with certain notes). Try moving the amp, different amp, no amp (listen acoustically)... cancellation can happen due to environment, etc. Change the tone controls around, etc. It's probably not the bar.
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Too much junk to list... always getting more.

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

The Sacred Steel bar I use has been my bar of choice since 2003 and it's worked well on all three of my steels, but it works really well on my Jackson BlackJack Custom-"Black Diamond"

Brett

Curt Trisko · From: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

I think I've had similar problems after switching to a different brand of string. Besides having a string go dead, I get some rattling of the strings when I pick them with a little bit of force. Pushing down a little on the bar helps, but I don't think it's an acceptable solution.

Ned McIntosh · From: New South Wales, Australia

The bar shown below could be said to have seen better days, but the player still sounds great using this bar. It belongs to Mike Tyne, who was steel-player for the legendary Australian singer\songwriter Slim Dusty before Michel Rose went on the road with Slim.

There's maybe half a million miles of Australian roadside dust gone under that bar but Mike Tyne still sounds great using it. Worn out? Some might say so.
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The steel guitar is a hard mistress. She will obsess you, bemuse and bewitch you. She will dash your hopes on what seems to be whim, only to tease you into renewing the relationship once more so she can do it to you all over again...and yet, if you somehow manage to touch her in that certain magic way, she will yield up a sound which has so much soul, raw emotion and heartfelt depth to it that she will pierce you to the very core of your being.

CrowBear Schmitt · From: Ariege, - PairO'knees, - France

This from Ed Packard concerning the Zirconium & Chrome bars

Chrome :

Zirc :

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