The Steel Guitar Forum

My old pal Eddie Burris called me tonight and said recently he had ran across a very old 6 string lap steel that had all wound strings. Anyone have any info on using all wound strings on steel guitar. He said there was no brand name on the guitar and no identifying numbers or marks. Jody.

Maybe someone tuned it an octave low?

Not only did they use low-octave tunings,but they also used to use really heavy gauged strings,tuned up very,very tight! Remember that back in the "old days" most standard guitar string sets were heavy gauges.Steel Guitar sets were not common,so people bought heavy gauge guitar sets to put on 6-string steels.
Back then, an .056 to an .060 was the norm for a big E on guitar. This is a far cry from the .044 E-string on today's standard guitars. Am I telling my age or what?
W.C.

Jody...
In 1958 (was it really that long ago?) I bought a new Gibson Multiharp. It was a triple neck 8 string guitar with 6 pedals coming out from the left end of the legs that worked only on the middle neck. The outside neck came with ALL BASS strings from the factory, and as best I can remember, it was tuned to a scale rather than a chord. I messed with it a little bit, then changed the strings to a more conventional tuning for the times. Anyone else have a Multiharp with the bass strings?


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Billy Easton
Casa Grande, AZ
Where the Sun Always Shines

I had a teacher once (for about two lessons) that had a D10 PSG (a home-brew) and he bolted a fender single-8 (non-pedal) on to the front of that guitar and wired it up with all bass strings. Never did hear him play it, but it sure was ugly looking....