The Steel Guitar Forum

I would also like to learn the history of the guitars with this decal on them. I have seen a couple now and just purchased one that was a closet guitar and seems completely original and unrestored..... But maybe not.

Hey Mark where did you find that one if you don't mind sharing?

Steve Lamb or Jim Smith might know the answer.

But you got me curious. I would like to know too.

Herb, I currently own Ron Elliott's custom built EMCI. It was one of six custom made guitars. One of them was made for Buddy, one was made for Curly Chalker, Sarah Jory, Ron, Jimmy Day. And there is one out there I don't know who else. The EMCI and MCI were great guitars. Bobbe Seymour said they were the "BEST SECRET IN NASHVILLE!"

I was fortunate enough to acquire that guitar in a trade with another owner locally about four years ago.
It has been an excellent guitar for me. And the tone is like a hot knife through butter.
The guitar also has the welded frame on it, also.

Tommy Shown

Bill, sorry mate my MCI is not for sale -- I am currently refurbishing it though, and will post it up once I get the job finished. I completely stripped the guitar out of everything and dismantled the changers as well, then cleaned, sanded and polished every last item as I am going... so far I nearly have it all back together, just a couple of things to do, including replacing the old 2 button neck switch which is a bit shot -- and taking up too much knee lever rod space under the guitar hehe ... 30 years of gunk and oxidisation take a bit of work to remove !!!
The guitar is a 9 pedal and 8 knee lever setup, so I am looking forward to playing it again - I have also installed Telonics pickups in it, a 409 in the E9th neck and a 206 in the C6th neck, and adjustable lower return springs from Michael Yahl.

Hi Bill: I put an add on kijiji up here this past fall not expecting much, and got a reply from an older gentleman that had retired from playing. I recently searched 'EMCI' in the for sale section of the Forum and there is another one with that decal on it. At first I thought maybe the last 40 or so that Gretsch built (as the story goes that I read) maybe had a different decal installed on them, but I don't think that's right either. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this interesting history. Mark

Mine has the welded frame and was built in Arlington, Tx.

Tommy that other custom EMCI might be the one that Gary Carpenter had. I don't know where that guitar is. But I remember it well. The first time I heard it was in 91 or 92, Gary had it working with somebody in Ft Worth. At that time it didn't even have an EMCI flag decal on the apron. I meant to ask Gary last time we spoke what happened to that guitar, but we talked about Rains instead then I forgot to ask him about the EMCI.

I saw Sarah with hers sometime back in the early nineties.

I certainly never knew that Jimmy Day had one.

I also thought that Red Rhodes had one.

Post pictures of yours. Would like to see it.

Paddy, Steve Lamb explained to me why the range expander was different. I don't remember everything he told me. I recall thinking it had higher end features as in polished and maybe something different about the pedal board.

Maybe you can enlighten me. I've comepletely forgotten what little I knew about the range expander specifics.

This one isn't mine, but I wouldn't mind if it was...
Wood necks & original 705's...pretty sweet.
Ok...so it's not an E MCI...but it's still pretty cool.

Yea Buddy!!! Skip I wouldn't mind having that one myself. That first one I had was black. Man oh man I miss that guitar.

I bought an MCI D 10 years ago, up in Syracuse for pretty cheap. I turned it around really fast, tacked I think $200 over what I paid and sold it within a very short time.. I was a nice enough guitar, but seemed a lot like a Carter underneath from what I recall.. Also, it was black, but didn't seem to be Mica.. more like some sort of cheap plastic type of material. I didn't feel the love, and only had it a very short time.
Not sure what the body was covered with, but it didn't seem like Mica.. Did these guitars ever use a different material over the wood body?... bob

The Carter and MCI are very similar guitars, espicially if you are looking at top side. I've owned several of each and from top they look just alike with a few subtle changes. After all, Bud Carter built them both. I've also had the Range Expander and an EMCI and from my personal point, I think the regular MCI's sounded better or mine did anyway but the welded frame guitars stayed in tune better. MCI's instead of having just a hole to fasten end plate to body, had a slot in end plate which gave them some tuning stability problems.
Also the little rubber O rings to hold rods to bell crank were a disaster in my book but they worked. You could tweak the guitar to where they wouldn't slip out of bell cranks and throw them suckers away.
I still say that the best tone that Buddy Emmons or Ron Elliot, and several of other guys that played them had were either MCI or EMCI guitars. I was very new to steel guitar world then so may not have known tone if it hit me in the face but I remember back in late 80's how great those guitars sounded.

Just wanted to add that there were about 4 of those floating around this area in late 80's and early 90's. Two red ones, a black one and a maroon one and those guitars made the rounds around here and always sold for $1000. Think I owned one of the red one twice and The late Jack Matthews owned a red one and a maroon one. The latter got burned up in a club fire here in town in 92 I think. It was the best sounding out of the bunch. A friend still owns the black one and don't know where the red ones went.

Ron Elliott's guitar is red with a gold eagle on the front of it and it has the flag EMCI logo on it, And at the other end there is another flag that says it was custom built for Ron Elliott's. There is a YouTube video of Ron playing the guitar at the Super Jam, in 1990 at the Convention in St.Louis. Ron had an American Flag over the EMCI logo, the flag has been removed.

Ron sounded great on that guitar.

Henry, interestingly when I pulled my Rangexpander apart, all those little rubber rings holding the rods in place were still in pretty good shape - surprisingly after 30 years. I only broke one getting them off the guitar -- but I think I will replace them all with new ones when I re-rod the guitar in the next couple of weeks.

Bill, I don't think there is too much difference between the Rangexpander and the later EMCI, apart from slightly different pedals ..my Rangexpander has a plain pedal surface and the EMCI's tended to have a slotted surface on the pedal ... and the pedal bar is extruded so the pedals fit into, and slide along a rounded channel in the back of the pedal bar, separated by a nylon spacer between each one. Both share the welded frame of course. The earlier non welded frame guitars were a different beast altogether I think.

The little o ring keepers are kind of "on the cheap" but that's part of keeping the cost down and less weight. But...it works. Personally, it's a pretty fail safe method.

In my experience none of the mci or emci guitars I've had had any tuning issues, cabinet deflection and minimal if any hysteresis. One minor hysteresis issue with the emci, but I corrected that.

I started making some custom bell cranks that use a threaded barrel swivel with a 3/32 hole for th pull rod. I still have a bunch of them. My idea was to get rid of the o rings. Going to straight rods.

The MCI with the cheap plastic etc. sounds like maybe one of the Waco made guitars.

The top side of the carter does look a lot like MCI however they are dimensionally different as I recall but I dont remember the numbers. It's been 18 years since I sold the Carter d10 I owned. Bob Rains discovered those differences when we did some work on it in his kitchen one Saturday.

MCI were very reasonable in price. The d10 I bought from Steve was only $1200. That was in 1994 I think. They are appreciated in value. Average MCI D10 I wouldn't expect to get for no less than $2200 - $2400 now days.

Jon Widgren has one right now that is loaded, 9x8 I think for $3k.

I got a little pkg. of 10 #6 or 7 o rings at the hdwe. store for just a couple bucks. I re-rodded a bunch of stuff on my recent RangeExpander and re-used all of the originals except I think I broke 1. The others looked to be OK.

Viton composition might be stronger... or HNBR auto ac O rings, but I think those are just more resistant to chemicals and heat which isn't really an issue on steel guitars.

We began using them with 134a refrigerant several yrs. back. The first ones were green. Then there was blue, red etc. I don't know what the differences are. I believe these were all metric in size.

Hey Paddy, can't believe those things were still good. They usually dry rot but good idea to put new ones on. I just didn't like them because of looks but they do serve the purpose. Are you going to play it in Dallas but your Zum sounds awesome my friend.



Bill, if the screws remain tight in those little slits you won't have a problem but I had one that were partially stripped out and guitar just wouldn't stay in tune if you moved it at all. I finally put new screws in different place and solved the problem. Very bad design to me. Don't know why they just didn't have one hole in them but I'm sure there is a reason., lol

I think the last ones I used were viton. They were a little more robust i think.

The orings and hooked pull rods are a bit fussy when you start to really load the guitar up with alot of changes. requires some planning to keep everything straight and pretty.

Hi Henry yes I will be in Dallas but not bringing my Zum with me this year, just jamming in the Telonics room I think so I will probably borrow one of Dave's guitars :-}
Look forward to catching up mate

Here's pics of Buddy playing the same EMCI with 2 different logos on it. So I'm guessing the flag came later and it was changed?

That looks like Jeff Newman standing next to Buddy in that second photo

That's Jeff, he put the towel or what ever of Buddy's head and Buddy never missed a lick. I was there, lol.

Herb Steiner wrote:The bigger question might be: "What happened to all the guitars from Ben Jack's steel guitar museum that John Birkhead bought, and where is John Birkhead?"

I went there in 1979 or 80? Was invited by Bob White to stop in and see his club where he played with his sons in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Was there a couple of days and spent many hours in Ben Jack's museum.
The steel I remember most was an older Fender that had been beautiful engraving all over the chrome parts and had been converted into a pedal steel.
Can't remember now how many pedals it had, but was done so well it looked like it had always been that way.