Show us your Williams steel guitar

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 10 Dec 2017 11:14 am

Fine instruments. Hardly any keyless, which shows how conservative the market is.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 10 Dec 2017 11:57 am

Interesting observation Ian. The keyless system being one of the main features was a huge selling point for me and was the main reason for my wanting one. I'm just wouldn't be interested in a keyed version of these guitars.

Seems strange to me that the trend of late with Williams guitars is toward keyed pegheads.

Here's one that I used to own.
28 Â½ long. About 35#...splits, gauged rollers, unique cantilevered bridge rollers that never broke strings, adjustable knee flags vertically and horizontally, what's not to like.

It became a victim of economics and went to a fine gentleman in cajun country. I wish I could have found a way to keep it.

It is a 400 series but a great guitar and beautiful eye candy with the ebony lacquer and MOP inlay.

Jeremy Threlfall · Post by **Jeremy Threlfall** » 12 Dec 2017 6:16 pm

A year and a bit old now, just coming into its own ...

Steve Berthel · Post by **Steve Berthel** » 13 Dec 2017 7:18 am

Here is my 2010 SD-10 Williams. Fantastic instument!

Pat Heller · Post by **Pat Heller** » 13 Dec 2017 7:35 am

I've seen Max's Williams, and believe me the picture doesn't begin to do it justice. Not only looks good, sounds great also. P.H.

Tim Heidner · Post by **Tim Heidner** » 13 Dec 2017 1:36 pm

How many of you have raise helper springs on your Willies?

Jeremy Threlfall · Post by **Jeremy Threlfall** » 13 Dec 2017 6:29 pm

not me, don't need 'em

Jeremy Threlfall · Post by **Jeremy Threlfall** » 18 Dec 2017 6:03 pm

Clyde Lane · Post by **Clyde Lane** » 18 Dec 2017 6:24 pm

Mine is a 400 series. I've owned it for almost 15 years. Recently had the changer on the money neck upgraded to 700 series. Great guitar.

Mikiya Matsuda · Post by **Mikiya Matsuda** » 21 Dec 2017 12:12 am

Here's my 600 series D10, which sadly I'm letting go since I don't play enough pedal steel these days.

If you're interested, here's the link to the ad...
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=325182

Jeremy Threlfall · Post by **Jeremy Threlfall** » 21 Dec 2017 12:22 am

that's a very similar theme to mine

nice

Ian Sutton · Post by **Ian Sutton** » 26 Dec 2017 9:56 pm

Darvin Willhoite wrote:Here's two I used to own and kinda' wish I still did. Bill and his son build some NICE guitars.

Darvin, was the blue one a 400 Series 8x8 (don't have the SN handy)? If so, that's my current number one. I've owned her for about 3 years now.

Ron Hogan · Post by **Ron Hogan** » 27 Dec 2017 7:44 am

There is a Williams Facebook page if interested.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/259458119 ... =bookmarks

Fred Rogan · Post by **Fred Rogan** » 22 Jan 2018 9:00 am

Fred Rogan · Post by **Fred Rogan** » 13 Mar 2018 6:24 am

Just got this SD-10 - translucent black with a Franklin on 4. The Lace Alumitone is the best sounding pup I have ever had.

Cameron Parsons · Post by **Cameron Parsons** » 13 Mar 2018 6:34 am

Thatâ€™s beautiful, Fred! Still enjoying mine; so much, in fact, I have another one on the way!

Fred Rogan · Post by **Fred Rogan** » 13 Mar 2018 6:37 am

Thank you Cameron. As you can see, I had to have two.

Dick Wood · Post by **Dick Wood** » 15 Mar 2018 9:27 am

Here's one of the few close ups I could find.

George Crickmore · Post by **George Crickmore** » 11 Jul 2018 12:08 pm

Here is mine.

John Goux · Post by **John Goux** » 17 Jul 2018 12:33 am

I think my Williams S12 in Midnight Blue is the prettiest steel guitar Iâ€™ve ever seen.

Having said that, Iâ€™d like to see them develop some better looking finger boards. Iâ€™ve got white on gray, and it fits my dark blue wood perfectly. However, colored markers are helpful above fret 12. As I scan through these photos Iâ€™m reminded of how much better looking the colored fingerboards are from Emmons, Zum, Fessenden, Rittenberry. Iâ€™d like see Williams fingerboard designs that are equal to their stellar wood work.

John

Barry Coker · Post by **Barry Coker** » 17 Jul 2018 12:09 pm

The William 400 series guitars had Yellow, Red, Green and Blue markers and at 12th all four. Don't know why they changed.

Ron Hogan · Post by **Ron Hogan** » 17 Jul 2018 1:51 pm

You have a choice now. Color or black and white.

Ron Hogan · Post by **Ron Hogan** » 7 Aug 2018 12:39 pm

I took delivery today on my new Williams D10 8&6 700 series..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coPnXskWLKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAi4FnkEjRY

Stephen McClurg · Post by **Stephen McClurg** » 2 Jan 2019 12:39 am

Fantastic little guitar Mr. Rudolph has created.

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 2 Jan 2019 3:17 am

I've had this since September - I think I may have posted it on a thread about keyless guitars, but here it is now on this one. It's 7x5 B6/E9 uni. I've had to change a couple of things. Bill hadn't allowed for the Day setup and positioned the left knee levers too far to the left (I sit quite far to the right as well) but it was no big deal to move them.

Non-uni players skip this next bit!

It's only a 3up/3down changer and I need 4 raises on string 9:-

A pedal to C#
D lever to D
P8 to B#
CKV to B# (as well as lowering 5 to A#)

To get the 4th raise, he had bridged over to the first lower hole to deliver it as a split tuning. Unfortunately, to keep the rodding neat he chose the A pedal raise to do this, which meant that I could not then raise 5 to C# and 9 to D at the same time to get the 13th chord I'm used to. So I rerodded it to put the split on P8 where it causes no trouble - not as neat, but who's going to see?

None of this is intended as a criticism of Bill Rudolph, who has created yet another beautiful guitar with engineering quality to match.

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