My New Toy!! Valco Alkire Eharp!!

[michael murray]

Mellow Greetings Brethern and Sistern.

Thanks to Brother Barry, I am now the proud and delighted owner of the above. Some of you may have witnessed its deliverance in the "For Sale" sub-forum.

I didn't really need it but I got so sick of the constant bickering with myself that I had to have it.

Brother John did not exaggerate about its potential. It is a Tone Monster. Crank it up and it will blister your paintwork. Wind it back - sweet and mellow.

And it is truly a thing of beauty. Even if you never plug it in and play it, just hang it up and look at it.

I have a couple of grumbles though. Neither of which are directed at the above-named Brethern. The tailpiece is a a length of aluminium U channel. The nut is cast aluminium. Aesthetically and stylistically spot on. Why didn't they make a tailpiece like that? How difficult? How expensive? Apart from the aesthetics, what might it have added to tone and sustain? I may pursue this idea.

The tuning and string gauges. Barry, who I believe is a Pedal player, had it in C6. It has, I understand , a standard set of C6 pedal steel strings on it. The bottom string is a C with a 68 gauge string there. It doesn't really work. I'm not a very experienced player, so it might just be me. However, and I'm not sure about this so feel free to correct me, Mr. Alkire's original tuning had an E on the bottom string. Solution? I will buy new strings and put it in E6.

I will post some Eharp Porn soon.

Many thanks to Barry and John.

Michael

[BanjoTom]

...in case you're curious there's a bit of info about Eddie Alkire's original tuning system for the Eharp here:

http://www.dvanet.net/alkire.html

Beautiful guitar, how're you getting along with it?

Tom