The Steel Guitar Forum

Many years ago I saw a player named Jim Beam use a broom handle to get a fairly convincing dobro sound. Sometime after, I sawed off a broom handle (pine, I think) to see if I could replicate that sound, but what I got sounded more like a banjo, with a lot faster decay than what's on Stu's clip.

I could see the utility of sounding like a banjo if I could do that really fast picking, but the dog I have in that particular fight is a little super-annuated for such new tricks. Dobro might be do-able, though, and if I could avoid having yet another stompbox in the chain, so much the better.

I wonder if a bar made from harder wood than pine might get just a bit more sustain

When Buddy designed the Match-Bro, he said he played his steel with his phone and thought that a plastic bar (with a brass insert, for weight) was headed in the direction for getting a dobro tone.
I was at his house when Goodrich sent him a prototype with under 10 EQ sliders, to come up with the final EQ settings for the 'Bro.
I took it upon myself to go to a music store in Madison and rented a 30 band EQ, to help him make the final settings.
He gave me the next Match-Bro that Goodrich sent him.
It is now in Hiroshima, Japan.

Broom handles come is many materials, not just wood! I've seen all plastic ones, as well as plastic-covered wood and metal ones. When I want to do my "ersatz banjo sound", I usually use a Sharpie pen, although I have other non-metallic bars in my stash. Since I normally carry a Sharpie in my shirt pocket, it's just quicker and easier to grab that in the spur of the moment.

Stu had a lot of tricks in his bag. I can remember him playing the trumpet intro of the "Ring of Fire" song by Johnny Cash, and he had me looking all over the stage for those trumpets...no kidding! (That was back in the early '60s, long before any type of processors were available.)

Those metal broom handles really suck when it's cold and no gloves.