Need a Slide!

[tfarny]

All the slide advice I've ever gotten was just to mess around with different slides and guitar setups and find something comfy for you. I think that's good advice. Personally I like open D, .012s, higher-but-not-too-crazy action, and the Dunlop Eric Sardinas slide - http://www.jimdunlop.com/index.php?page=products/pip&id=102&pmh=products/slides
I went through six or seven before I found this thing, and it makes slide a LOT easier for me.

I do think it's easier to have one guitar with a slide setup, instead of trying to learn on your soloist with .009s and shred-type action. Also, I can't play slide on my larrivee, it sounds terrible for some reason. I'm contemplating a dedicated slide acoustic now. Yikes.

 

[Graffiti62]

You may wanna keep an open mind on improvisation on this. When I was in college, I didn't have a whole lot of cash, so I improvised. I wound up with a couple of interesting slides out of simply scrounging around. My first one was a copper t-joint I picked up at the hardware store for maybe a buck at most. It was tall enough to cover all six strings, and it had an inside diameter that matched my ring finger really well. I had access to the art building at the time, and I used the polishing and sanding equipment in the jewelry lab to buff the seam off of the back and get it consitently smooth. Worked great as a nice, fast slide, but to get the slow slide swells, I do better with a heavier slide.  One other time, I was at an antique mall and stumbled upon an old glass medicine bottle. It had a nice overall height for slide, and was heavy enough. It set me back a quarter. To make it fit tighter, I was able to have a fraternity brother fill it with silicone rubber to make it fit tighter, with a dowel as a finger stand-in while the stuff dried. Worked great and I still have both slides to this day. You may wanna be creative--hit up rummage sales for odd stuff--just remember, as long as its smooth and you can get your finger in it, you're good as gold.

I believe that one of the Blues masters (Muddy Waters maybe?) used a socket joint for his slide - 3/16" or smething like that.

And back in the old days, the blues guys used to favour a particular bottle (contents drank of course  :icon_thumright: ) to scavenge the bottleneck which had a really nice contour to it. The hard part was cutting the neck off the bottle without shattering the whole thing.

I think Wild Turkey bottles have a similar contour to their neck ...... almost an excuse to down a bottle to find out if it's a good slide too!  

And I just checked the old faithful Wiki, and it seems that Duanne Allman used a Coricidin Pill Bottle as a slide on occassions. A small glass bottle.....anyone seen one of those bottles?

As did Gary Rossington and Rory Gallagher--Thank Coricidin for "Free Bird"

That's very similar to what I found at the antique store, but the one I have has thicker walls and is made out of pale blue glass. According to the article, reproductions are being made, and an eBay search showed something like 60 Coricidin items, with at least 3/4 of the items being the bottles. Looks like the going rate is anywhere from $2-$5--not horrible.