The Steel Guitar Forum

I've seen Fry pan guitars by Ric, Sho-bud, Excel, etc and a couple of home made ones, but I've never seen a Teisco Fry Pan. Doesn't appear to be very high quality, from looking at the pics.

Teisco Fry Pan on Ebay

I think it's wood painted gray to look like metal.
You see indications of it on the keyhead.

Steve Green wrote:I've seen Fry pan guitars by Ric, Sho-bud, Excel, etc and a couple of home made ones, but I've never seen a Teisco Fry Pan. Doesn't appear to be very high quality, from looking at the pics.

Teisco Fry Pan on Ebay

Rarely have the words "Teisco" and "high quality" been used to describe the same thing.

You know, it takes a high quality paint job to be convincing when it comes to greys!

But, the many Teisco's are top contenders for good sound from questionable parts, and they always look at least 'interesting'.

If someone wants to copy a guitar shape, may as well copy the first electric one (I did, twice!)

Did anybody else have problems viewing those pictures, or was it just my browser? I didn't know that Goodwill did eBay- it makes a lot of sense if something donated is, er, special. (I didn't want to use the word "valuable" in this case. )

Steve Ahola

That Guitar has the same Pickup and Tail Piece as my "Quality" 1954 Tiesco R1.

James.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kerrsteel#p ... b4FZCjKjOc

I have a Teisco with a built-in speaker. It's probably my favorite steel as far as tone is concerned. It has a powerful, clear pickup and sounds great clean and overdriven through an external amp. The internal amp sounds like an AM radio. There's a resonance that comes from where the strings are anchored behind the bridge because of the hollow cavity for the amp and speaker. It's a short scale and the bridge is higher than the nut. Sustain isn't great and palm harmonics are difficult. Overall, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. It simply has great tone.

I found this old comparison thread that I did with the Teisco. It has photos of mine.

HERE

While it may be an el cheapo MIJ geetar as any slide player will tell ya' if it has a Gold Foil pup in there it is one heck of a great find.

Merle Kekuku gets a beautiful Hawaiian tone on his Teisco with his wonderful playing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtkQj7O3 ... re=related

Scott Thomas wrote:Merle Kekuku gets a beautiful Hawaiian tone on his Teisco with his wonderful playing.

Merle's frypan was stolen during a flight to an important gig and he needed a replacement, fast. This cheapo Teisco is the one he snatched off the streets to insure the show, and happily continued with it to the end.

Bummer about the frypan. Thanks for the back story. I didn't know that was how he came by it.

This may be an extreme case of it being the player and not the instrument, but if he was happy enough with that little Teisco as a replacement to his frypan, it's a good lesson to me not to underestimate what can be done with "budget" steels.

Scott, that is exactly what I was going to add, but didn't. Glad you picked up on it.

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I doubt there are pix of a hefty 2x8 Teisco console, with a melted gumby shaped body w/wood grain veneer and the famed gold foil PUs. I had access to one for years, cheap, but never cheap enuf at the right times. I'll search endlessly to find that again, but I think the owner has died.

Our little 6 string friend went for well under $300.

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That's the conservative version, but probably the closest we'll see of the whack job I'm after.