Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 14 Apr 2007 5:19 pm |
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This is a tip I thought worth sharing. For years I had trouble with those shiny, chromium-plated bars slipping in my hand when playing Dobro, then a few years ago I came up with this solution....
There are several brands of plastic dip made to cover screwdrivers, pliers, etc. Dangle to tone bar in the dip. Pull it out, let it dry, then repeat. Build up about four coats. When it's dry, take an Xacto knife and cut away the plastic on the playing surface. It comes off easily. The rest stays on because you've created a rubberized-plastic exact-fitting overcoat.
The bar shown was dipped about ten years ago, and I've played with it for hundreds of hours. Only now is it starting to wear off. After a while I'll just give it another dip.
The bar stays in my hand, and in all those years I've never dropped it. I'm thinking of doing the same thing to my pedal-steel bars, since the side nearest your hand never touches the strings. I haven't noticed any tone drop-off or muffling effect from the coating.
It comes in many colors. I chose black because it wasn't conspicuous. |
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