The Steel Guitar Forum

From time to time, terms such as "Wrap-around" or "fat back" have been used. Might you enlighten this uninformed west coaster? THANKS!

Sure, Ray. I'll give it a shot.
The wraparound is the original Emmons push-pull neck/changer design. In a wraparound, the changer axle blocks (sometimes called pillar blocks) are directly attached to the body. There is a cutout in the neck so that it surrounds the changer itself. I believe this design was used from the get-go ('64) until sometime in '66. This was followed by the bolt-on changer which was made until '67 or so and the cut-tail changer in '67 or '68. The vast majority of push-pulls were mfgd after that and were of the cut-tail style. Many Emmons connoisseurs feel that the earlier models had better tone due to the wraparound or bolt-on configurations.

'Fatback' (aka flatback, fullback -- not to be confused with the halfback or the tailback ) refers to the shape of the back apron. The early Emmons originals had a cutout in the lower side of the back panel that began an inch or so from each end and curved upward and across to give the player more knee room under the guitar. I believe that the early guitars were cutout -- through about '69 -- and fatback after that.

Hope that helps explain. All this info is courtesy of conversations and explanations from the experts -- Mike Cass, Bobbe Seymour, Herb Steiner, John Lacey -- oh yeah, and Buddy Emmons.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 25 December 2002 at 06:43 PM.]</p></FONT>

Love my '72 Emmons..........had no idea what all of the Forum experts have been referring to in various posts. THANK YOU very much!