The Steel Guitar Forum

I was very fortunate to acquire a 1934 Rickenbacher Frying Pan last year. Since receiving it, its appeal has only grown on me; I have been playing it a lot.

This past weekend I helped my friend Robb Lawrence clean out a storage locker in Ventura county and move all the stuff down to San Diego. Spent the night in La Jolla at his Mother's house, where the topic drifted to Frying Pans. Robb pulled out his Frying Pan, which had the indignity of being painted white many years ago. The coating was thick and quite unattractive, with traces of a possibly original white finish peeking out in various places. The strings were quite old, and I don't think Robb ever changed them after he got the guitar about 20 years ago. I tuned them up and got the little guitar to sing a bit for what must have been the first time in a couple of generations. Despite the old funky strings, there was still magic there.

It has both a tone and volume control, with the white flying saucer knobs, the tone being offset a bit slightly north of the jack. We speculated that the tone control may have been a factory mod sometime after the original manufacture. Is there any sort of timeline that exists for when features such as tone controls were added as stock items?

I'm really happy to have found a Frypan of my own and it has fast become my favorite, almost to the point where I don't need all these Gibsons, Fenders and Supros for fufillment.... note I said 'ALMOST'.... In the near future I'll probably consider letting a few go, but not the Slingerlands or the nicer Volu-Tones, heh heh....

Robb wants to carefully strip off the ugly repaint and try to preserve what he thinks is the original white finish underneath. I am not convinced that the white finish underneath is original however, I showed him where it looked like it could be Silver Duco under the white. A lot of finish has been forcibly scraped off the back already, leaving what looks like scrapes from a wire brush or something. If it were mine I think I would invest in a careful stripping or bead-blasting, then a careful polishing of the bare metal followed by powder coating. It could look good in white, although my Frypan has maybe 95% of its original Silver Duco finish on the back and perhaps 70-75% on the front and I like it better in its stock state.

Not that the restorations and reproductions that have been pictured here on the Forum don't all look great in their shiny polished bare metal state; mostly they are stunning. However I am still partial to the original Silver Duco finish, nicely yellowed by time to a happy Greenish-Gold, or should I say Goldish-Green?

Thoughts and opinions are most welcome!

What might your Volu-Tone collection consist of?

Hi Ray, I currently have seven Volu-Tone guitars, three in the natural wood finish as seen on my avatar photo, two in white pearl finish (one of which appears to be a prototype), one in black pearl finish and one that is faced with Rosewood all the way around and bound with black/white/black binding. Also three of the small amps, none of which are working. I do plan on resurrecting one of the original guitar/amp combos sometime in the coming year, strictly for historical purposes. However, there are more pressing projects in line that need to be completed first, notably a Slingerland 401 model Songster with Spanish neck, undergoing restoration at Blue Guitar in San Diego (hopefully this will be complete in time for the museum display at Deke's Guitar Geek Festival).

Also in the closet are several Stella lap steels and two electric Spanish guitars (all with the Stella horseshoe pickup), a Dobro All-Electric, about a dozen Gibsons of various models plus a Roy Smeck Recording King and a Kalamazoo, two Fenders (an early Champion and an Organ Button model), three Epiphone Electars (a model M and two Century models - the M has the horseshoe and the Centurys do not; one or both Centurys may be offered up for sale very soon), a half dozen Supros, but only two Rickenbackers, the A-22 and a bakelite Bronson Golden Melody (had a '50s wood body Rick as well, but traded it towards the Frying Pan). Some of these guitars were featured or mentioned in previous threads and later on I will no doubt feature others; but for this thread I prefer to concentrate on the Rickenbacher Frying Pan. Many people that I have shown it to have never seen one and are quite amazed.

BTW I want you to know how much I appreciate your posts on this forum, both for the history you touch on as well as your dedication to the instrument. More in 2012! Happy New Year.

Nice story, but Pictures, please, Peter!!
Remember pictures are worth a 1,000 words.

I've refurbished six frypans so far. If they have been painted ( mine was a dark green !) I use stripper on the casting, and sand/polish it from there. On some I had to TIG weld holes shut, that were likely used to hold to a stand or ?
I did a long scale 30s vintage frypan for a forum member, that had the factory black wrinkle finish, which was coming off. The factory didn't polish the painted castings, so it was rough & needed a lot of sanding to get it smoothed enough to polish. It did come out nice though.....
Alan Akaka wants me to do one that he has, which is painted he said, so stripper is the way to go.

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If it were mine I think I would invest in a careful stripping or bead-blasting, then a careful polishing of the bare metal followed by powder coating.

I wouldn't powder coat it because I think the coating will dampen the resonance of the metal.

I wouldn't powdercoat it because they have to cook it afterward.

Michael: Thank you, very much. E-mail sent. It's been said before, but I am very appreciative of your sharing of all those historical artifacts!

Don: I'll post pictures very soon.

Bill: Thanks for your input. I've only seen one in crinkle finish, and come to think of it, that may have been a photo in a book or online... I recall the story of Doc Kauffman taking the crinkle finish K&Fs home to cure in his oven, grin.

Chas: I met you at last years Geekfest (I was running the camera in the back), and before that at the Lap Steel Show at Jim Palenscar's place. Your steel creations are whimsical and wonderful, and I presume your imagination is vivid Powder coating is usually very thin, not sure but I thought it was much thinner usually than enamel paint or lacquer finish. You may have more experience with this. Now I'm wondering how the polished bare metal examples sound vs. the unrestored ones, like mine, that have most of their original finish ?
We gotta hang out sometime. Do you have any Frying Pans?

The best sounding frypan I've heard is owned by Hal Smith, which was one of Dick McIntire's (sp) and is the black wrinkle finish. Log scale I believe....

That one is indeed a sweetie.
...and I've heard log scale is indeed the best!

Peter...
Mailed this AM...
MLA

I wouldn't powdercoat it because they have to cook it afterward.

Powder coat "cooks" at 400ºF, aluminum melts at 1100-1400ºF, so I don't think that's a problem. To get powder coat off, you have to bake it at 800º.

Peter, thank you, and you could walk from Van Nuys to Encino. I'm being overly sensitive to the metal resonating and it's entirely possible that powder coating it wouldn't make that much difference. I have a lot of metal instruments, that I've built, and on some of them, what I thought were small issues turned out to have big consequences.

From an aesthetic point of view, I've used powder coat to cover the imperfections. When it's bare metal, everything is on display. If you do powder coat, I've had good luck with Andrews Powder Coating, Inc in Chatsworth, 818-700-1030. When I used to build grip equipment, the boys were always trying to save money and they would go to the cheapo powder coaters whose work was on the level of "rattle-can".

I'm on a short leash, but you should invite yourself over sometime, since I'm socially retarded and I don't have any frypans.

I wasn't worried about it melting, but who knows how much it's going to move at 400º and will it stay there. I might be worried about nothing but originally they were painted and I think that's probably good enough.

Once stripped would it be possible to finish it in a black krinkle. Bill was saying that the best sounding one he heard had that finish and it is an original. Rick Aiello has a few of his fry pans with that finish and they sure are beautiful. Rick and Bill might know more about the process. Best of luck with your project.

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My thanks to all contributors to this fascinating thread. Please keep it coming!

Interesting items in the catalog; they call the early frypan pickup the "peerless pickup" ! They also call the frypan scale as 23", whereas it's usually not even 22 1/2", more like 22 3/8" I often wondered if shrinkage of the casting, from the length of the mold had something to do with that.

That picture of Pua Almeida is magnificent, thanks for this!

Those Pua pans are alive and well, one getting fine Waikiki action still today. Sure wish the man himself was able to be playing them.

Thanks for posting these Michael,can someone enlighten me on a few Frypan facts .
Which came first Hollow neck or solid neck and what are the tonal differences.
What are the exact scale sizes I often see 22" or22 1/2" or 25 and 26" listed what is the correct scale.
Cheers Kelvin

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