The Steel Guitar Forum

Does it go under fretboard? Finger supports? I can't imagine it does because I imagine it would affect the tone.

It does.

Some say formica kills tone. Others, including Paul Franklin, say formica contributes in a positive way to tone. I love the tone of my formica covered steel.

"Some say formica kills tone."

Tell that to all the black mica PP players.

I dun thin so Lucy!

Formica?

What about Wilsonart?

Fred justice told me that Mica guitars tend to have a brighter sound than lacquer guitars that tend to be a little warmer tone...both sound just great..one is not better than the other..just different.

The difference in tone between mica and lacquer guitar will also be due to the cabinet wood.
Birdseye maple or flamed maple or figured maple sound darker, generally, than straight or simpler grained or rock maple. Non-figured maple is usually what you find under mica.
There may be a few more examples, but I can think of only two guitars where Emmons used solid birdseye for a cabinet. Generally, Emmons used figured veneer over harder, bright sounding straight grain maple for its lacquer guitars. Using the stronger straight grain maple allowed Emmons to make lighter cabinets than other manufacturers. Also, the special way an Emmons D-10 cabinet is put together and the function of the parts of the guitar also allowed Emmons to make lightweight cabinets, and why it was so important that Factory authorized repairs were limited to Brian Adams and Mike Cass. Being an Emmons collector, I see freshly restored push pulls that need to be redone. The infamous Emmons Wraparound restoration video that was/is on the Carter site is one of the problems. Charles Reece, bless his heart, had no clue how to put together an Emmons. The video proves it.

Long story short:
Pretty maple dark and fat.
Straight grain hard maple bright and clear.
Generally

RSally interesting stuff...

Chris if I add a knee lever to my PP myself, and it woks well is the value of the guitar diminished because Mike Cass didn do it? What about changing out the pickup?

If you use the right parts, it should be fine value-wise.
I doubt pickup changes would have an effect.

I have to agree with Fred Justice on this issue because I have owned 3 mica and 3 lacquer with undeniable brighter tone for the mica and darker tone on the Lacquer.

Larry Behm wrote:Chris if I add a knee lever to my PP myself, and it woks well is the value of the guitar diminished because Mike Cass didn do it? What about changing out the pickup?

If you use the right parts and do it correctly. If you were adding knees to a 1964, I doubt you know what the knee levers should be.

I was talking about putting together a cabinet, and understanding the role of cross shafts, control panel necks and so many other parts that serve different roles on an Emmons than say a Zum or a Sho-Bud, for example, which are basically cabinets with parts added to them. The example I gave was the Charles Reece and John Fabian video where they completely messed up that guitar. I knew from watching the video it needed redoing. Watch the video -- their errors are glaring. When I bought that guitar from Fabian (Emmons Number 5 764005) I had it sent directly to Mike Cass.

Yes, changing pickups would diminish value, especially if the pickups were the first five styles used by Emmons.

The pickups are doubtless* part of it, but Danelectros are the brightest 6 strings guitars known to humans, and they are very Formica in nature.

*Lipstick pickups will have signal at 30 KHz.

Like Murphs

It is interesting to me about wood and tone. I've had multiple conversations about it with many knowledgeable folks and Bud Carter stands out as one of the very best informed of the group as it turns out he did a ton of research in conjunction with a university quite awhile ago. He spoke of the difference in grains- both in width and straightness as well as "tilt" and the effect on tone and sustain and basically sustained Chris's allegations that straight grained wood makes for a brighter guitar- all other things being equal (which they never are). So just when I think I've got it all figured out (this was years ago)- I had JayDee play a BMI that I had in the shop and we were both totally knocked out by the tone and we removed the tuner side end plate and the wood was particle board sandwiched in mica. Go figure .

Amen to that Paul S.