The Steel Guitar Forum

But the thing is, James, that there is a persistent theme found among the Forum community that disparages all Sho-Buds from the mid-70's on as essentially low-quality crap, on the basis of their containing pot metal. No one disputes that lever brackets that can snap off are poor quality, nor as far as I know does anyone dispute that they are pot metal. That, of course, leads to a dim view of pot metal as cheap, cheesy material in those who learn about that.

In that context, your earlier post in this thread says:

Hexagon era 'buds were full of potmetal. The hex shafts themselves are steel, and the mounting brackets to mount the hex shafts to the wooden body are aluminum. The pullers and knee brackets,and straight knee levers and finger radius, keyheads, changer housing, and endplates are pot metal. The pedal bar is aluminum channel, the narrow pedals are pot metal.

Then in response to my question about changer housings, keyheads, end plates and pedals, you say:

There are different grades of casting quality, by whatever someone wants to mix up. All aluminum castings are not created equal--there are different grades of aluminum, depending upon purity.

Which seems to suggest that those parts are actually cast aluminum, albeit you suggest of lesser quality. The articles on pot metal mention aluminum as at most an incidental component of pot metal. And you say

there's a huge difference between cast pot metal and cast aluminum.

Given the opinion widely and justifiably held that "pot metal is crap," it would be unfortunate to disseminate the idea that there is more pot metal in later Buds than is in fact the case. That's why I've been asking for clarification of what you're saying.

(NOTE: I was writing this while James was posting the previous post.)

Yes, You and I posted at the same time. HA! Brint, castings had different formulas and % of alloys. Some of this (or much?) was experimental. The more aluminum is decreased, the lessor the quality--no? It's all great, until it breaks, huh? Bottom line, if you have a bud and it sounds great to you, then it IS great, and you should enjoy it. Don't over polish your castings, you may regret it. Don't want much pot metal? Stay with the earlier buds. They are what they are.

I had the first Super-Pro that we introduced at the Naam Show in Chicago in 77, I sanded fingers #3-4&5 every time I changed strings, I used Wet or Dry #400? green sandpaper,Then hand buffed with Mothers polish, I played that guitar almost every week for 16 yrs,I finally replaced all the fingers I received from Gene Hough at Gretch.