Magnatone Melodier Console Steel Set
with matching Magnatone PalTM guitar-stand amp
Gray-Silver Pearloid MOTS
DENNY'S NOTE: This Steel is constructed on a pearloid (MOTS) covered, hollow, trapezoidally paneled, deco cabinet with a tuning block of allen wrench keyless tuners at it's butt end. This set has the very rare Pal Steel Stand on the amp: A height adjustable chrome pipe similar to a microphone stand is mounted to a flange on the top of the amp and screws into a socket in the guitar's cabinet body, forming a stand for the guitar. Since the Steel and amp are both light, this stand idea is a bit "shaky" for my preference for a well-planted Steel; But it is much more stable than the snare-drum stand type lap steel stands. A couple of lead diving weights, or a padded brick, or similar weight to place in the bottom of the amp cabinet might very well stabilize the "shaky" nature of this stand idea while playing.
The amp is similar to the Varsity class with about 15 watts.
At lower amp volume / gain, the guitar has a rather hollow sound similar to National Resoglas or archtop electric guitars; But as the volume is increased on the amp, the amp's sound vibration increasingly transfers through the stand to the guitar giving the guitar ever more oscillating sustain; Quite interesting. A Player would darn sure get many inquires playing this Steel. And it has the good old Magnatone sound. I haven't spent enough time to learn this set's natures as well as I wish I could. The few reviews I've seen on the internet are quite favorable.
All 3 pieces in this set are in excellent condition except for the flocking on the grill cloth that blew off long ago as most flocking does when the amp is used.
The Steel plays well. I find tuning the allen nut tuners a bit to tight a ratio for my liking. I would make an allen wrench tuner with a wood or plastic screw-driver-type handle to get more leveral throw and thus a broader ratio for fine tuning.
