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Chandler Industries, famous for their vintage-influenced guitars and Real
Tube effects, has introduced a new line of lap steel guitars. These lap
steels are a combination of the best of many different steels. The bodies
are similar to the Weissenborn guitar in shape; the pickups are influenced
by the Gibson Charlie Christian pickup; the bridge is influenced by the
Fender lap steel line; the fretboards and overall decoration recall the
National/Valco/Supro line of the 1950s.
I had the opportunity to visit the Chandler offices this week and to play
some of their guitars. I may end up selling some of my other lap steels
to buy one of these. They are really, really nice. Paul Chandler and Rich
Hoeg have a good idea of what a lap steel should be and have built a
beautiful line of guitars.
Models offered include the following:
Model RH-2 - solid Honduras mahogany construction, through body stringing,
art deco/pearl fingerboard, one CC-90 custom lap steel pickup, volume and
tone controls. The one I saw had a Surf Green body with pearl fingerboard,
matching pearl pickup, and pearl bindings. It was the best "rock and
roll" steel guitar I've ever seen. The pickup has plenty of punch, and is
very even throughout its tonal range. Gibson style speed knobs make it
easy to change tone and volume settings.
Model RH-4 - semi-hollow body Weissenborn style, one CC-90 pickup,
tortoise binding, koa wood fingerboard (the one I saw was korina wood),
volume and tone controls, natural finish. This guitar was beautiful. The
semi-hollowbody imparted a certain woodiness to the tone that sounded
different from the RH-2. I could see this guitar fitting in well with a
band that used mostly acoustic or electro-acoustic instruments.
Model RH7 - baritone lap steel with extra long (over 30") scale length,
tuned to low C. Solid maple body, fully body binding, through-body
stringing with acoustic style bridge. Two CC-90 pickups, art deco/pearl
fingerboard. Unfortunately they didn't have any available at the time I
visited.
There are many additional options available, including your choice of
pickups, body binding in peall, tortoise or ivory, the addition of a
Hipshot "Trilogy" bridge (which allows different tunings to be applied),
and the following custom colors:
Surf Green, Fiesta Red, Dakota Red, Two Tone Sunburst, Black, Three Tone
Sunburst, Cherry Sunburst, Honeyburst, Transparent Red, Blond, Transparent
Blue, Olympic White, and Black Holosparkle
More information can be obtained by writing to them directly:
Chandler Industries
370 Lang Road
Burlingame, CA 94010
(415) 342-1490 voice
(415) 342-9692 fax
--
Brad's Page of Steel is at
http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/steel.html
More than you'd care to know about acoustic and electric lap steel guitars
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