Maple Leaf Music stocks handcrafted crystal and glass slides from Diamond Slides in England and Chris Sherwin Glass in Vermont. Each one of these slides varies in size, thickness, color, weight, and tonal quality. Please call (802) 254-5559 for sizes since each is custom made.
Diamond Slides
We've just received a shipment of these hand blown Diamond Bottleneck Slides. Each one is expertly crafted in England with crystal of varying hues, widths, and thicknesses. The shapes range from half slides to full bullets and the color variations are stunning. Priced at $38 each
So, how does the color of the lead crystal affect the tone?
- Clear, uncolored bottle glass will give a warm, smooth tone - albeit with slightly less volume than the other available color choices...good for electric slide guitar!
- Green bottle glass is colored using iron-oxides, giving an excellent 'all-round' tone with more of a tonal 'bite' and warmer sustain than clear bottle glass, and with a noticeably slight rise in volume levels due to the harder 'properties' found in green glass.
- Cobalt blue bottle glass is the hardest of all commercially available bottle glass, using cobalt oxide to provide the blue hue. Cobalt blue bottle glass will give the loudest volume of the three 'base' colors - the tone being best described as bright & 'spiky'!
Chris Sherwin Glass
Chris Sherwin Glass of Bellows Falls Vermont has begun blowing handmade resophonic guitar slides exclusively for Maple Leaf Music in the last year. His background in glassblowing goes back over 20 years. In addition to glassblowing, he also enjoys exploring a variety of media and materials, such as music, ceramics, drawing, painting, and woodturning/wood burning and is a true Renaissance man.