The Steel Guitar Forum

I have had two Dekleys, an S-12 and a U-12. I will find the right D-10 at some point for a price I can't refuse and if I'm lucky ... it will be red.

Just sayin' ...

Well, as fate would have it ... Even though my C neck is tuned C's and G's, with C,D,E,G on top, for power chords, I felt like I wasn't getting enough bottom, so I added a 7-string bass neck tuned with very low A's and an E.

Oooooh....I LIKE that color, Russ!!

But it's got too many strings. I only use 12.

Mike,

That red does look familiar.

Heres mine:
Was a closet case. Had it retored and put a keyless head on it. Tone and sustain for days. Got an S-12 also in dark walnut, all are slimlines and pretty solid.

Nice guitars guys. I guess "young girls have (not) picked them, every one".

Dale Ware had a nice Dekley D-10 at his booth at the Texas Steel show. I didn't see a price but I didn't see any Issues. Look to be in great shape for it's age. I don't think it sold.

Indeed, George!':D'

I don't know where all the Dekleys have gone but do know where one is. stevet

Guess I missed this the first time around! There is a musical connection between Dekley and Kaman Aerospace. Sounds like Kamam bought the Dekley property back in 1983, and the same guy who started Kaman Aerospace also strated the Ovation Guitar Co. We just don't know if he bought it for the music connection or just for the property.

If you do a search,
there's a link to an
interview with one of the
founders of Dekley on this site.
He mainly talks about the research
going into the design of Ovations.

For the short time that Dekley was in business it couldn't have produced too many guitars, so there is just a limited number of them out there. They were built to last, so I imagine that most of them are still around and functioning. Mine is one of them.

Thiel Hatt wrote:For the short time that Dekley was in business it couldn't have produced too many guitars, so there is just a limited number of them out there. They were built to last, so I imagine that most of them are still around and functioning. Mine is one of them.

Sorry, I don't know how I managed to miss this thread. I get reminded all the time about things I don't remember from the past, so Doug's memory is probably better than mine.

If I remember right, Dekley was producing guitars from about mid 1977-1983. For most of that time, we were making 30 pro and semi-pro models and 50 student models per month. I would guess we made somewhere between 2000-3000 guitars total.

I left the company and moved to Texas in 1980 to play full-time during the Urban Cowboy days. I still have my D-12 H&S Custom Signature Dekley to this day. H was for Larry Hilt and S was for me. We designed the SlimLine models and the added goodies for the H&S models like the one Steve Takacs posted.

I recently saw a Dekley D-10 for sale on Craig's List, Northern Michigan. I believe it was 1800.00 and looked really good.

Jim, I have a D10 slimline that I really like, just wondering what kind of pickup it came with, a single coil or other.

Gerald Smith wrote:Jim, I have a D10 slimline that I really like, just wondering what kind of pickup it came with, a single coil or other.

They all came with single coil pickups from the factory. I've seen a lot of them switched out afterwards though.

The first Dekley I viewed was at the Pembroke Picking Parlor in Mass where I bought my Sho~Bud single 10 with 3 pedals and one knee lever and I had another knee added.

As I remember, Bruce Cogburn (spelling?) who owned the picking parlor said the Dekley was easy to make changes on and had it's own sound. You have to wonder how many of these guitars are sitting under a bed or closet and forgotten about?