A couple of new slides from Ian's Team

[growler]

HI Folks
I received a couple of lovely new slides from Ian's team this week , both are fantastic , both quite different but excellent in their own right .

A ' Mike Dowling' Signature Mateus Rose model, and a blue ' Ultimate ' ; the Mike Dowling is the most comfortable slide I have ever owned, also a great tone from it, the Ultimate has got so much weight to it which was exactly what I was after

Thanks Ian , By the way I am going on a personal quest to track down one of those special really old Mateus Rose bottles that people have been talking about , I reckon I could find one in some old Pub sitting on some dusty display shelf .
When I find it I will send it to you .

I have photographed them on top of my new Busker ' Deco ' for you all to see


Regards Growler

[SoloBill]

Hi,
What's the difference between new and old Mateus Rose necks? I'd love to get a Mateus Rose neck that fitted my fingers but the current ones are just a little too narrow.
Bill

[growler]

Hi Bill
I'm just passing on information that I have read ........ I think i might be right in thinking that the old bottles have a slightly thicker , lighter green glass which is suppose to sound really good. Also I think I read that the necks are slightly longer enabling them to be cut a lot nearer the bottom of the neck where it is wider . I hope Ian can take over and assist me here.......... Christ Bill you must have bloody great big hands ? I thought mine were big I take a slide size 19-20 which is the size that Ian has made for me......... just had an after thought which finger do you use ........ I use the pinky

Regards Growler

[Deleted]

Hi Guys

Interesting. I have just got my Kevin Brown signature slide in a fetching cranberry red. I play on the pinky but tried this one out with the comfort notch. It makes a lot of difference to flexability.

Best place to find old Mateus Rose bottles are Jazz clubs

[growler]

HI Lukeslidwalker
Comfort notch ! ...... you might have answered my query, not knowing what the comfort notch is ..... is it that little semi circle that i have seen cut out at the bottom of the slide . If it is ! ......... theres me thinking that it is where the slide has been dropped and they have sent it on to the slide maker to get the chip ground out , thus saving a perfectly good slide

Regards Growler

[Mairena Red]

Hi Bill,

You need to get hold of the 1.5 litre bottle of Mateus Rosé. They are slightly rarer than the standard size and you have the added problem that you have to drink twice as much of the stuff to get an empty bottle As Ian may recall, I have ben trying to get some empty bottles from the manufacturer (of the bottles, not the wine) but this is proving to be more difficult than I thought. Apparently the Mateus people are not keen for their bottle suppliers to sell empty bottles as they are afraid of counterfeiting. Quite why anyone would want to make a fake bottle of Mateus Rosé is beyond me but hey ho, such is life.

Happy hunting,

All the best,

Joe (aka Mairena Red)

[Ian McWee]

Hi Guy's,

Glad you got the glassware Karl....nice piccies too ! The 'original' pre-'73 Mateus Rosé bottles had a different percentage of iron oxide added to the soda-glass, which gave it a darker green colour (a slightly harder, denser glass) than the present range of bottles. I've only ever worked on two of the 1.5 litre versions of these pre-'73 Mateus bottles in the last fifteen years (originally called the 'quart' size bottle) and both made fabulous bottlenecks - both in sustain, tone & comfort...these bottles would be perfect for a ring finger slider or a pinky slider with beefy digits.

The latest type of larger 1.5 ltr. Mateus bottle would also be fine for ring / big pinky slide players....but they're very scarce indeed & can only be obtained here in the U.K. on a special order from wine merchants to be shipped direct from Portugal. As Joe (and thanks for your continued help in getting these bottles for us Joe ) quite rightly states, bottle companies are very reluctant to part with empty bottles (....you want to try getting hold of a decent quantity of empty blue 'Harveys Bristol Cream' bottles direct from the Bristol Blue Glass Company - finding Elvis would be easier ) as they're very cautious about this counterfeiting problem!

By an amazing co-incidence, a recent thread about us started by a good friend in New Mexico on the I.G.S. forum brought up the questions of obtaining pre-'73 quart-sized Mateus bottles.....and a regular forumite has one as a table lamp !

Original pre-'73 smaller-sized Mateus bottles appear regularly on e-bay in the U.S. for a couple of quid - only problem tends to be that the seller won't ship overseas. On these pre-'73 Mateus bottles we usually chop the neck off at the shoulder, then skim & polish the lip edge flat to be level with the rest of the neck - this provides a straight sided, pre-73 Mateus Rosé 'double-cut' bottleneck with a slide length of around 62mm, and if you wear it 'upside-down' (with the lip end upwards) it fits snugly and gives you a bottleneck slide with a nice internal taper towards the tip of the slide.

.....now, where did i put me Anorak..... ;D ;D.....

Slide On!

Ian.

www.diamondbottlenecks.com

[wolvoboy]

hI Ian thanks for the new slide cant believe the difference in sound,its exactly what i needed
wolvoboy

[SoloBill]

Hi all,
Actually I have beautiful long slender fingers but 19 mm ID is a nice fit at the base of my pinkie (and between 54 & 60 mm long would be a nice size as per Michael's teaching DVD). Sounds like my fingers are much the same as yours Growler.

So, Ian, is it possible to have a standard Mateus Rose neck made with a 19 mm ID? Even made from one I send you? Even if possible, does that make it too thin?

Bill

[Ian McWee]

Hi Bill,

We've made up around sixty-odd of the 'Mike Dowling' slides from the Mateus Rosé bottles over the past 18 months, and i've only found around half a dozen or so that'll hit an internal diameter of 19mm - we can actually get a 19mm internal diameter by cutting further up the bottle neck, but naturally you'll lose out on slide length .

I'm expecting my latest batch of bottles to arrive at the end of this week (luckily folks i know tend to drink the stuff in warm weather ;D) so i'll chop a few up and see if i have anything that'll be useable for you.

Slide On!

Ian.

[fitchmeister]

Howdy

I got a slide made from a Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry bottle from Ian - it's about 19mm and sounds great.

Roj