My first (homemade) steel

[Jim Hoke]

First time I got the steel bug, I was in college. I took my cheap Harmony acoustic and drilled two holes in the headstock right behind the nut, under the B and G strings. (I tuned to open E, with E on top.) For pedal rods I ripped all the pages out of two spiral notebooks (my folk's college money being well-spent). I laid the guitar across two chairs and then ran one end of wire up thru the hole on the guitar head, bent it over the string, and ran it back down thru the hole, twisting it around itself. I wound the other end of the wire into a loop, or stirrup for my foot. I did this for both B and G# strings. AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, pulling B and G# down to the head gave me an in-tune C# and A. Voila - I was able to get THAT SOUND! I could actually go, "Da Durt - Duurrrinn". Using a hrmonica for a bar, I was IN BIZNESS. The wires would break after just a few pulls, so I'd sacrifice other school spiral notebooks, rabidly tearing out pages about Mozart and parallel fifths: "Music History? Heck, I'm MAKIN' music history". "Music Theory? Let's put it to work". Soon I'd bought a ShoBud Maverick. The reat is history... Anybody got a similar story?

[Mark Edwards]

I traded a cowboy hat for my first steel guitar. When I got into looking at steel guitars I went to the only place in Fort Worth that sold them "Lambs Music" I spoke with Steve Lamb and advised that I would like to take steel lessons and somewhere down the road buy a starter steel. I took my first lesson didn't even own a steel went home and became very frustrated. (like playing football without the ball kind of frustrated). Anyway I was managing a family owned hat shop in downtown Fort Worth at the time they had been in business for 100 years. I couldn't come up with the 475.00 that Steve wanted for this little ZB starter steel, at my second lesson with Steve I asked him if he had or knew of anyone who would rent/allow me to pay out a steel, and he said he did not but then he got this strange look on his face and said don't you work at a hat store. Then he said I'll tell you what I'll trade you the ZB for a hat.

I go back to the store and tell the owner what type of opportunity I have in order to be able to buy this steel. We had Stetson Cowboy hats that retailed for 425.00 I asked the owner if I could pay out one of the Stetsons, make it for Steve to which he said I could. I called Steve and asked how he would like his hat shaped, He wanted the Gus crease from Lonesome Dove and the brim cut down by an inch to which I did. At the end of the day I took the hat to Lambs Music Steve looked at it and I walked out with a used single neck Red plastic covered ZB student model. Took it home and as they say the rest is history. A hat for a steel. Or maybe a steel for a hat.

Later down the road I was able to afford a very nice GFI double neck birds eye maple blue trim.