The SP2 Shubb Dobro & Steel Guitar Steel's design suggested by Peter Grant, the extra mass (for tone) and double cutaway (for control) make this a versatile bar for various styles of resophonic and lap steel guitar.
Shubb guitar steels are designed by musicians with the special demands of today’s playing styles in mind. They offer unique design features not found on any other bars, including cutaway ends for improved control, and a semi-bullet tip which facilitates movement across the strings.
Shubb-Pearse steels are machined, not extruded, so the playing surface has a true radius. Made of brass for warm musical tone, and heavily chrome plated (not nickel) for abrasion resistance.
California Dreaming
The Shubb Capo company began in California in 1974, when Dave Coontz and Rick Shubb collaborated to design and produce their fifth string capo for banjo. Before that, Rick Shubb worked as a professional 5-string banjo player and teacher, and Dave was an auto mechanic and a banjo student of Rick's. One night at his lesson, Rick was talking about his dissatisfaction with existing methods of capoing the fifth string. Rick described an idea that he had for a fifth string capo that operated on a lever principle, so that it would provide sufficient pressure for a good tone, and ranted about how he couldn't get anyone in the music products trade interested in making one. Finally, Dave Coontz said "if nobody else will make you one, I will."
The following week he came to his lesson with a fifth string capo true to Rick's description and drawings. It was roughly hewn out of aluminum, and didn't look like much ...but it worked well. Rick used it on a gig that week, and had some ideas for improvements.
For the next few months Rick would go to Dave's auto shop in Concord two or three nights a week. He'd arrive at 7 PM (closing time), they'd eat at the local Denny's, then work until midnight making improvements on their fifth string capo. Rick would test-drive it at gigs, and return with more ideas for improvements.
Eventually Rick was satisfied with it. It did the job for him onstage, and that was all he had set out to accomplish. But requests from other players prompted them to make a few more. Their course was charted the day they bought a small, second-hand milling machine and set about making a hundred units.
Around 1975 Dave moved from California to Iowa in search of elbow room. About that same time, Rick moved to Oregon in search of something or other. For the sake of continuity, they kept the address for the capo sales the same; that of Rick's mother's house in Oakland.
So for awhile, Dave machined fifth string capo parts and farmed in Iowa, Rick assembled fifth string capos and played in a bluegrass band in Portland, and good ol' Mom stayed home and shipped fifth string capos from Oakland.
Fast Forward to 2008: The Shubb assembly facility in California moved a few miles from Valley Ford to Rohnert Park, giving them more space and a chance to reorganize some procedures. The Valley Ford location remains in service as warehouse space and administrative offices. Also in '08 Shubb introduced an antique finished version of their capos, and the new Shubb Lite ...half the weight of the original capo.
Whatever new directions the Shubb Company might take, you can be sure that one thing will remain unchanged: The absolute dedication to the needs of the musician.
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