The Steel Guitar Forum

My JB frypan goes a full fret out of tune on all strings during the winter here in Queensland Australia where overnight the temperature can drop 15 degrees.
I like to practice early morning with headphones on and a backing disc so I have to retune or wait till the room warms the guitar up and comes back in tune. I have tried putting the guitar near a heater but the tuning goes wacko Any suggestion please
Thanks Barry S

Yep thats what they do,in Melbourne I have the same issue but once at room or stage temperature no problem very stable.
Cheers Kelvin

Have you considered placing your guitar beneath the covers at the foot of your bed for 'overnight temp. control'? Sounds like it might be interesting to have in a television studio with alternating HOT LIGHTS and COLD Air Conditioning.

The Bakelite Ric I purchased from Queensland that arrived here in the states with a broken neck, since repaired, has no tuning problems whatsoever. It's been my favorite for several years now.

my thought is it's not difficult to qickly tune up a lap steel...6 or 8 string. nor is it hard to quickly adjust my dobro to the next out of tune guitarist at a jam. to me it's just some quick tweaking, no big deal. nothing like trying to fine tune a pedal steel. that's what i think anyway. i have a bakelite ric which needs to be adjusted regularly, but that's just the nature of the beast.

Thanks for the replies fellas. I like the suggestion of taking the fry pan to bed Ray but it would be competing with my my bedmate( my wife)and her hot water bottle which is that hot (the hot water bottle not my wife)the strings would probably scream with pain and the poor frypan would double up and end up around my head like a neck brace. On a more serious note I have tried tuning it but as the room where I practice warms up I have to keep adjusting it which I find annoying and time consuming and cutting into my limited "trying to play" time so I mostly switch to to one of the other wooden steels I have.The weather is starting to warm up now so I wont have that problem. As a new member I was looking for an excuse to try posting an thought somebody could come up with some simple solution.Whilst I love the sound of the frypan I find it difficult to play as the volume control knob is right where my wrist is mostly and I find blocking and harmonics hard to do on that guitar.Anybody else have that problem or is just my technique? Thanks Barry S

I remember reading that Buddy Emmons used to warm up his pedal steel with a hair dryer when he would set up in the cold.

Thanks for the tip Erv. A hairdrier wont be to hot and just might do the trick. I'll give it a try tomorrow morning.

Interesting input from Ray about his bakelites tuning stability.
I sold all of my bakelites (a couple to Ray) and kept my 2 Rick frypans strictly because of tuning issues with all my bakelites and the relativly rock solid stability of the frypans.
I wonder how the Rick frypans compare to the various Jerry Byrd frypan models for holding tune?

Jerry said they were better, but still could go off. Weren't they milled billets instead of castings?

The trick is to stay in the shade when playing outdoors