[cantstopmyshine]

Hey everyone, i just had a question, just wondering if anyone had any experience with it. I did a forum search and couldnt find anything. I wanted to know if anyone has made a slide from an actual bottle, ive got a bunch of slides now made from all different things, but i always thought makin my own would be pretty cool. Any help would be appreciated, like where you got the know how or if its hard or not those types of things.

well thanks in advance

Nate

[guru of rock n roll]

JIM DUNLOP makes trhe best

[cantstopmyshine]

JIM DUNLOP makes trhe best

Ive got a little skinny pinky dunlop slide, i like it alot, my favorite one i have so far is a mudslide, i cant remember who makes it

[dadfad]

This is how I was told many years ago (by an old musician named "Sweet Louie") (and it worked, although it took me a number of tries to get it to do so) (A wine called Mateuse was "en vogue" among younger people back then, and I had all of my friends, who thought I was crazy, saving their empty Mateuse bottles for me!). Take an appropriate bottle, dip a thick piece of absorbant string (years ago almost all string was made of cotton which is pretty absorbant). Dip the string in lighter fluid and wrap it around the bottle-neck just slightly farther than where you want the break. Light the string, let it burn out then quickly dip the bottle in cold water. The neck will then come off ( ) (sometimes a few taps are necessary). If you're lucky the break will be fairly clean. You can smooth out the broken edge (and this is the best way) by rubbing it back and forth on a concrete side-walk, street-pavement or cinderblock. (Sandpaper, etc is much too fine and something like an electric-grinder will "spot-heat" the glass and chip it away as you try to grind it smooth, so rubbing it on concrete really is actually the best way.)

If you finally give up trying to get the semi-clean lit-string break (which I almost did give up, but luckily on what would have probably been my last try it worked!) you can also just start breaking the bottle away a little at a time with a small hammer until you get to the neck and then just keep on rubbing (and rubbing!) the broken-off neck on the concrete until you get it where you want it (which is how a lot of guys do it who have chosen to... "dabble in nostalgia" ).

In all honesty a good store-bought slide is just as good, if not better. Thirty-five or so years ago when I first got into acoustic blues slide you couldn't find slides in music stores (except for the very thin chrome-plated metal ones for electric-guitar you could occasionally find, which weren't very good for acoustic. In the words of Fred McDowell when I first showed him the slide I'd bought to learn with..."Hahaha! That'll never do!" and then he got an old un-plated steel deep-well socket out of the tool-box beneath his tractor-seat and gave it to me to use for a slide.) There was no choice back then but to make one from a bottle-neck or a piece of pipe or medicine or extract bottle (or a deep-well socket!). Nowadays as the country-blues and Delta-slide genres have gotten much more popular there's a pretty big selection of slides around to choose from, both good and bad. I have a couple of boxes of slides, many homemade and quite a few store-bought as well, made from all different kinds of materials and thicknesses and sizes, from glass to brass to solid gold. They all have their own feel and musical quality (a fairly short, medium thickness brass is usually my favorite). But I completely understand why you'd wanna try making your own. Good luck!

[cantstopmyshine]

Thanks dadfad, the advice was much appreciated, i kind of just want to do it for something to do plus ill get a new slide out of it anyways, thanks again dadfad im gonna get started on it right away.

quick edit*
what does a solid gold slide sound like?

This post has been edited by cantstopmyshine: 10 August 2006 - 12:02 PM

[dadfad]

Thanks dadfad, the advice was much appreciated, i kind of just want to do it for something to do plus ill get a new slide out of it anyways, thanks again dadfad im gonna get started on it right away.

quick edit*
what does a solid gold slide sound like?

Haha! It sounds like my brass one. A few years ago my wife (who like most wives I guess normally buys dorky sweaters, etc for husband-gifts) actually stole my favorite brass-slide (I thought I'd misplaced it) and took it to a custom jeweler to make a mold from and then sneaked it back into my music room. He cast it in solid 14k gold, polished it up, put it in a velvet-covered case, etc and she gave it to me as a Christmas gift. Probably the most thoughtful gift she ever gave me (if not a perfect example of excess consummerism! ) I think she got the idea when recently back then I'd bid on (and lost) a solid sterling-silver slide once belonging to the old bluesman Bukka White when it went up for sale at an auction. Anyway, I rarely use it. Like I said, it sounds the same as my brass one (and it's too pretty to get all scratched up! )

[adds]

I like a brass slide. I have one that was made for me by one of the blokes in the brass and woodwind shop at collage. It fits me perfect as it was made to messure and it tapers down rather than being just straight and one thickness. Thats just how i wanted it so he turned it that way for me.


Out of interest john how much did whites slide go for? Id like to have owned that muself.

[The_buffalo]

Out of interest john how much did whites slide go for? Id like to have owned that muself.

No kidding! I bet a lot of others would too - me included.

[dadfad]

Out of interest john how much did whites slide go for? Id like to have owned that muself.

No kidding! I bet a lot of others would too - me included.

I put in a ceiling bid on the telephone for $500 (this was before ebay got BIG).
I believe it went for around $2000 US. It was a small specialty auction-house in Toronto where I'd in the past bid on (and won) a string-tie pull previously worn by and belonging to Son House (with a doc-cert). ($275 US)

[dadfad]

I like a brass slide. I have one that was made for me by one of the blokes in the brass and woodwind shop at collage. It fits me perfect as it was made to messure and it tapers down rather than being just straight and one thickness. Thats just how i wanted it so he turned it that way for me.

About fifteen or so years ago I had a dozen slides made similar to that using a fairly soft leaded steel (12L14) and fairly thick which I thought was perfect for using on my National (which I use pretty thick strings on). I gave several away to guitarist friends, etc. (One of the fringe-benefits of being a senior-engineer/GM was just making up a blue-print, putting it through as a proto-order and out into the shop. Three days later I have a dozen of them turned, ground, polished and individually wrapped in anti-oxidant paper!) John Cephas still uses his. John Hammond Jr. lost his when his car was stolen (with two of his guitars in it). Honeyboy Edwards quit using his and went back to glass saying it was too heavy. There's also one crushed into the ground at Son House's grave, Mississippi Fred McDowell's grave and Robert Johnson's grave (where I did one of their tunes using the slide and then "dedicated" that slide to them by driving it into the ground with my boot-heel.) I still have two left. Good slides, if you like a heavy slide, but I've come to prefer the "bite" of brass a little more.