Frank Ford’s Tapered Hawaiian Steel

This tapered Hawaiian steel bar was crafted from solid stainless steel by our own Frank Ford in his home workshop. He was inspired to make it by our pal Al Dodge, who was looking for a replacement for his favorite vintage steel that was dented and dinged by decades of hard use. “I was just learning to do machine metal work at the time, and the tapered shape with a rounded end seemed like a challenging new project,” Frank says. “Since Al’s original was in rough shape, as were most of the other vintage tapered bars that turned up, I decided to make them of stainless steel, a material that can take a lot of abuse. Al liked the one I made, and before long he asked me to make up another or two for his Hawaiian guitar students.”

Since that time Frank has made these steels in small batches, 100% by himself from raw material and we’ve offered them for sale from time to time here at Gryphon. These days, Frank doesn’t have much “spare time,” so the availability of these bars will continue to be limited.

Material: solid stainless steel

Length: 3.1”

Diameter of big end: .80”

Diameter at small end: .63”

Taper: 0.067” per inch

Weight: 5.5 oz.

There’s a concave recess in the big end so you can grip it with your thumb for slant bar technique.