Blanton preparing to fly again

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 10 Dec 2019 8:03 am

Jerry,I'll try and get over to Jon's in the next few days and do some noodling on the guitar so Jon can post something for my dumbass,My computer beats me up every day!

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 12 Dec 2019 12:44 am

Hopefully I will get to Jon's place today and record a sound clip,We've got a bunch of snow,so on go my spikes on my shoes!

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 12 Dec 2019 11:15 am

This is Stu messing around with the Blanton before we packed it up and he took it back home. Casually recorded with a Zoom H2 in front of a Quilter Micropro Mach 2 12HD (clipping a bit) with just a touch of verb & delay in front.
There is no rhyme or reason to the demo of pickup settings which are on two pots with no switch. Just some random stuff. The blending of the two pots makes for a fairly infinite amount of variation although we didn't really delve into that. I'll guess that the pickups are out of phase/polarity since the full-on combination creates a very thin output (if there is such a thing as polarity when you are combining a single coil and a humbucker.....this is an area of confusion for me.)

Anyway, here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/jolt12/stu-schulman-blanton-demo

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 13 Dec 2019 5:56 am

Interesting range of tones. Thanks fellows.

Tiny Olson · Post by **Tiny Olson** » 13 Dec 2019 4:08 pm

It's very cool that you're bringing the Blanton back Stu. Last time I saw one being played in person was in the early 80s. It was Skip Jackson who played for The Kendalls. We did quite a few shows with them back then. Skip and his Blanton sounded great.

Hope you're well man and have fun with this project.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 13 Dec 2019 11:45 pm

Tiny,Jon did an amazing job on this Blanton,My health is good,Maybe in a few months I can visit?

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 14 Dec 2019 12:21 am

Tiny,Jon did an amazing job on this Blanton,My health is good,Maybe in a few months I can visit?

Dave Hepworth · Post by **Dave Hepworth** » 14 Dec 2019 9:20 am

What a great sounding guitar.Is the tuning Uni...it has elements of C6 and E9 in the sound clip.
Cliff White in the UK made steels with the infinetly adjustable bell crank too.

Jack Hanson · Post by **Jack Hanson** » 14 Dec 2019 10:02 am

Tiny Olson wrote:Last time I saw one being played in person was in the early 80s.

The aforementioned Don Richmond brings his out with some regularity. Although it's usually set up in his studio, he played the Blanton on a couple numbers last summer on the Showmobile at Cole Park in Alamosa. Sounded awesome through his Twin Reverb.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 14 Dec 2019 12:16 pm

Jack,I used to lift a Blanton D-10and a twin reverb up two flights of stairs into my apartment in Austin...ancient history.

Tiny Olson · Post by **Tiny Olson** » 14 Dec 2019 12:25 pm

We do need to visit Stu. Either way,,, you drive up here or I'll drive down to your area.

I'm driving down to Lake Katrine in the very near future to see Bob Brocius. He's been having pretty serious health issues for several months now and I gotta' go see him.

Glad you're well and we'll keep in touch about getting together. I never was able to find where I hid the Emmons String Machine we talked about.

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 14 Dec 2019 1:59 pm

Dave Hepworth wrote:What a great sounding guitar.Is the tuning Uni...it has elements of C6 and E9 in the sound clip......

Dave -- not Stu but.... it's straight 10 string E9. Stu's throwing in some voicings with the 9th string on the bottom. That's probably what turned your head. Lots of colorful stuff comes out of that.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 15 Dec 2019 1:12 am

Dave Hepworth,I knew about the British steel manufacturer and Blanton both coming up with the same bell crank design,before the internet"great minds"I forgot the name of the British guitar?

Dave Hepworth · Post by **Dave Hepworth** » 15 Dec 2019 2:22 am

Hi Stu
Cliff White was a great steel maker.He made everything including the legs and pickups.They had a great tone.His steels were just called " WHITE".

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 15 Dec 2019 5:34 am

I love the execution of the swivel. Everything serves to make the pulls so smooth and efficient. I was fortunate that guitar was in good setup. I did not need to figure out how to make the finer adjustments that I know so well on a more conventional all-pull. Everything it needed was in the bellcrank tweaks. It would have required some studying to find the other adjustments.

The one issue that seems insurmountable is the lever stops. They are steel against steel and are rotational. I have no proper photos so I can't illustrate it but when you hit the stop, you can then dig in a little further. The holes that cross shafts run through allow the shafts to move under the extra pounds of force and the stop itself permits this movement. It's a problem and I'm not going to be tackling it.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 16 Dec 2019 12:56 am

Tiny,Me&Fooch Will visit Bob Brocious today at the Lake Katrine facility,I'll try to call you later today.

Rich Upright · Post by **Rich Upright** » 16 Dec 2019 9:41 pm

Hey Stu; I jammed once in Eagle River...place called "Tips". Ever hear of it? Someone put something in my Yukon Jack that night...1 drink & I was tripping & puking through the streets of Anchorage all night long!

BTW please say "Hi" to Fooch for me.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 17 Dec 2019 12:22 am

Rich,I spent too many nights playing at tips,Backwards it spells "Spit"one time the owner was so drunk that he walked up on stage drunk and kicked over my Strat and broke the neck...he wound up buying me a replacement neck,A few drunks lived upstairs,What a place,I'm supposed to get together with Fooch,An Chris"Tiny Olson in a few days,Maybe Jon Light will join us "photo op"

David Laveau · Post by **David Laveau** » 10 Mar 2023 12:41 pm

Stu Schulman wrote:somewhere around 1977 Jerry Blanton built an SD-10 4&4 with 2 pickups

Freaking cool...

Is it basically the same parts with a space for the second pick up machined into the steel piece?

John Hyland · Post by **John Hyland** » 10 Mar 2023 2:06 pm

John or Stu. Just a deviation. What holds the finger mech in place after a string is removed. I don’t suppose the is a picture of the fingers?

Justin Griffith · Post by **Justin Griffith** » 10 Mar 2023 2:28 pm

The knife edge holds them on. Return springs keep them mostly in place. Sometimes you have to pull them up a tad if you bump them. No big deal.

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Blanton preparing to fly again

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