The Steel Guitar Forum

hey, I paid $1880 for my Fingertip and my Compactra on Ebay. Not trying to gloat , but show that deals exist.

Here's the ABM page JB mentioned, it's the inside back cover of ABM's complete and fairly large catalog of musical instrument parts.

Curly Chalker with Sho-Bud and Compactra...

Buddy Emmons with Sho-Bud and Compactra...

Michael Lee Allen wrote:Here's the ABM page JB mentioned, it's the inside back cover of ABM's complete and fairly large catalog of musical instrument parts.

Yeah, similar to the brochure I have, only mine in German only.
Thanks for sharing.

My ABM catalog is undated, sixteen pages total, bilingual German and English. They make a full line of guitar tailpieces, vibrato units, bridges, jacks, even a page of banjo parts.

Here's a pair of early fingertip keyheads we made for a project. They use brass string ball ends for rollers. The project we are doing is bringing this fingertip back to original form. It's no secret anymore that it is the Lightening bolt seen in the pics of the above post. I have started a thread and here's the link for these new fingertip parts:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 65#1901765

TIP: A good way to clean the underside of a guitar (If it's stripped down, of course), is to use Orange Hand Cleaner--it lifts the grease and crud easily, yet does not harm the finish. I think it works very well.

What a sweet old guitar that is

Very clean machine!!

Well I have managed to dig up yet another Fingertip guitar. This one looks to be an early one, in need of restoration seems to have some very nicely figured wood in the cabinet. It is missing a few parts, one pedal Rod, knee lever, wiring and switches, but seems to be fairly solid overall. It looks like someone has put the later style pickup housing's, and pickups on the guitar. The serial number is interesting 6-111-111 still not quite sure how to date these yet.










The guitar has very nice maple wood grain on the top It also has the early style fret boards with wide fret marker lines.



The pickup mounting plates, and the pickups, are from a later style fingertip, the missing screws from the back plates have no screw holes drilled into the guitar below them. The pickups appear to be from a later style like a professional.





The string pullers are the old flat back style.






The guitar has, Ten cross shafts for pullers, but only nine pedals, and has only one cross shaft for a knee lever. This will require some rearranging, but it looks doable. It should make an interesting restoration project.

Way to go Bob. Looks good now but I know she's really gonna be a beauty when you get done with her.

Stunning! The Maple is outrageous, and the Rosewood has wonderful color!

James Morehead wrote:Saturday, I basked in Shobud Fingertip tone, as projected through my Fender Vibrosonic, as well as 100 degree sunshine. Nasty 35 mph wind at our back sides--our sound probably carried on up to Kansas. Glad I had an extra George L cable for my hat!

James:

You ran the stop sign

No Carl, I stopped first-----kinda!

Here's a link to the thread about my new parts I am making for Fingertips.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 65#1901765

Here's a couple pics:

Oh yeah

James,
With work like that, you don't have to bragg...It shows. Love the way you staggered the 5 & 6 keys

BF

"Love the way you staggered the 5 & 6 keys "

Bill, that's the way they were on the earliest Fingertips. Here's an oldie, so you can compare, and see how accurate, and beautiful, James' work is!

Here's a link to the thread about my new parts I am making for Fingertips. I guess I forgot to put it in my post above.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 65#1901765

Thanx for the kind words, it's a labor of love, and these particular parts will be going on the Lightening Bolt.

John B., I simply love that style keyhead--it's got to be my favorite Shobud keyhead for looks and simplicity.

Hey John Billings, I love the pics of that perm you have. Interesting about that keyhead on it, there are only grooves for the strings. How well does the string return on that sort of configuration? I'm sure it led to the use of rollers, but I wonder how good/bad they actually played? Anyone have experience with this?

Well James, as you know, no pedals came with the guitar. But, considering all the great music that was recorded on these guitars, I assume it was not that big a deal, although rollers were an improvement. A little Nut Sauce, and I'd assume there'd be no more of a problem than there is on six-string guitars, doing bending, etc.. The open strings sound better than open strings on a roller guitar.
Here's a couple pics, before and after, of the keyhead in question;

Had one with a similar keyhead, a small can of 3 in 1 oil was a must to keep in tune...Bill