Guitaripedia

Every guitar has a story.

James Trussart

SteelCaster

A Telecaster shape in hollow steel, left outside to rust on purpose, so no two could ever match.

A new SteelCaster body starts its life outdoors. For several weeks it sits there and rusts. Then someone stops the rust, sands it back, and seals it under clear satin, because James Trussart wanted a new guitar that showed up with a history.

Introduced
1983
Type
Solidbody electric
Class
Production
Read the story · 3 min

All guitarsMore James Trussart

James Trussart Deluxe SteelCaster with antique silver paisley-engraved steel body on dark ground
Photo: Mariecapron / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0Deluxe SteelCaster isolation; paisley-engraved steel body and f-hole visible.

The short version

  1. 1980

    A builder begins

    Trussart is building. The Steelphonic, a different model, will take him almost ten years.

  2. 1983

    The first SteelCaster

    By one magazine timeline. The same piece also says the mid-’80s.

  3. 1984

    A repair shop in Paris

    Repairs, and experiments.

  4. 2000

    Los Angeles

    The shop moves to L.A. Some date it to 2001.

  5. 2007

    The Deluxe

    A sister SteelCaster with an f-hole debuts.

  6. 2009

    About 300 a year

    The whole shop’s count, guitars and basses, all models. A baritone joins the line.

  7. 2026

    Gold, and a car ad

    Trussart says he made two gold-caged SteelCasters. The first went into a Cadillac LYRIQ ad.

Side A

A1

Left out on purpose

A new SteelCaster body starts its life outdoors. It’s a Telecaster outline, but it’s made of sheet steel, and for several weeks it sits outside doing what steel does. Then the corrosion is stopped, the steel is sanded, and a clear satin coat locks in whatever the weather wrote on it.

Billy Gibbons gave the finish its name: Rust-O-Matic. It’s not supposed to come off on your hands. It just looks like it might.

“I wanted to make a guitar that came with a history and a slight element of neglect, of decay, so it had a personality of its own.”

That’s Trussart. Most builders spend their lives fighting what time does to a guitar. He started by inviting it in.

A2

The fiddler who started with a violin

Before the guitars, Trussart played fiddle with Zachary Richard. Whether that was the early ’70s or the late ’70s depends which of his own pages you read. There was a shop near Mirecourt, and one in Paris with Nicolas Petitbon.

He was building by 1980. The rest of the ’80s went to repair work and crazy experiments. His first metal instrument was a violin. His first steel on a guitar was stainless. Then came metal tops set into chambered wood, and only after that the steel guitars with names. One of them, the Steelphonic, took him almost ten years from 1980.

When the SteelCaster itself arrived is split. One magazine timeline says the first one was 1983. The same piece says the mid-’80s. Keep both. The shop moved to Los Angeles in 2000, or 2001.

A3

It isn’t a Telecaster

The outline is the trap. From across a room it’s a Tele. Pick it up and it’s something else.

The body is hollow sheet steel, a millimeter thick in 2009, with a light arch on the top and back. A block of wood under the bridge does the structural work; otherwise it’s a true hollow body. A standard body is solid front and back. There’s also a perforated one, full of holes, and the holes were only a look until they turned out to cut down feedback.

The neck is maple, bolted on, with a recessed steel cap on the headstock. Trussart reckons that plate helps with sustain. And it isn’t the anvil you’d expect: a SteelCaster weighs 7.1 to 8.1 pounds.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • 1 mm

    The thickness of the steel, in 2009.

  • Several weeks

    How long a body sits outside rusting before anyone stops it.

  • 7.1–8.1 lb

    What a SteelCaster weighs today. Hollow steel isn’t as heavy as you’d think.

  • ~300

    Guitars and basses the shop made in a year, in 2009. Every model, not just this one.

Side B

B1

What steel sounds like

One reviewer, playing an Arcane single-coil at the bridge and a humbucker at the neck through a Fender ’57 Custom Pro, called it akin to a Tele with more body. He heard it closer to a National tricone than to the muddier side of wood. That’s one guitar through one amp. It’s a good place to start.

Joe Gore, a former Guitar Player editor, plays with bare fingers and credits the steel against his chest:

“I love the combination of ultra-articulate attack and full-bodied sustain.”

The pickups have changed over the years: Seymour Duncan Antiquities in 2003, Alnico II Pros in 2007, a hand-wound set from Rob Timmons in 2009, Arcane Inc. single-coils now, with TV Jones Filtertrons and others on the options list.

B2

Danny Harvey owns three

At Summer NAMM in Nashville in 2008, Danny B. Harvey, of Headcat with Lemmy and Slim Jim, played a Paisley SteelCaster in Trussart’s booth. He’d been playing Trussarts for three or four years, he said, and owned three. Two years later, same booth, same player, he had a perforated-back one.

Plenty of famous names get hung on Trussarts, and most of them belong to other models. Tony Garnier’s is a bass. Charlie Sexton’s is a SteelMaster. The Clapton story is about a ResoGator. Gibbons’s own is a silver six-string, model unnamed. Amadou Bagayoko had a personalized SteelCaster by one account, and a gold guitar Trussart built for him by another.

B3

No two alike

In 2009 a guitar took about two weeks once the parts were on the bench, and the shop made about 300 instruments a year, guitars and basses together.

Sometimes they go further. In 2026 Trussart said he had made two gold-caged SteelCasters. The first went into a Cadillac LYRIQ ad.

You can order the same outline, the same neck, the same pickups as the next player. You can’t order the same weeks outside. Every finish is its own, and every SteelCaster shows up already carrying a history nobody else’s has.

Put this on

You’ve read about it. Now hear it. Here’s what this guitar sounds like, and what to listen for.

  1. Danny B. Harvey · 2008

    SteelCaster demo, Summer NAMM

    Nashville, in Trussart’s booth. Harvey plays the Paisley SteelCaster and talks about owning three.

    Watch it on YouTube

  2. Danny B. Harvey · 2010

    SteelCaster at NAMM

    A perforated-back SteelCaster, single-coil at the bridge, humbucker at the neck. The SteelMaster in the same booth is a wood-bodied guitar, so watch which one he’s holding.

    Watch it on YouTube

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • 2008

    Danny B. Harvey

    Paisley SteelCaster; perforated-back SteelCaster

    Of Headcat, with Lemmy and Slim Jim, and the Lonesome Spurs. Owned three Trussarts by 2008 and had played them for three or four years.

  • Joe Gore

    SteelCaster

    A former Guitar Player editor. Plays with bare fingers and credits the metal against his chest.

  • Amadou Bagayoko

    A personalized SteelCaster, by one account

    Another account calls it a gold guitar Trussart built for him, without naming the model.

  • Billy Gibbons

    A silver Trussart six-string, model unnamed

    He named the Rust-O-Matic finish. Nobody has put a ZZ Top song on a SteelCaster, and this story won’t either.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Hollow sheet steel, rusted outdoors and sealed, on a Tele outline — James Trussart’s SteelCaster, not a Fender and not a wooden slab.

Body
Hollow steel, single-cut Tele outline. Wired (December 2009): sheet 1 millimeter thick; bodies then stamped in France. Solid front and back, or perforated. Light arch; wood block under the bridge (MusicRadar, 2007). Depth in inches unpublished. Mix flagged.
Neck
Bolt-on maple, ’62 or Fat ’52, recessed steel head cap. Stain: Tobacco Red, Grey, or Vintage Blonde. 2003 review guitar: Hawaiian koa.
Fingerboard
Rosewood or maple; ebony optional. Factory radius 9". Narrow-tall #6105. Factory page does not print a fret count. Guitar.com’s 2016 Deluxe and named dealer cards print 21. A 2007 Deluxe option list printed compound-radius 22. Do not average.
Scale
25-1/2". Guitar.com’s 2016 Deluxe also prints 648 mm. Mix flagged. Baritone offered; that scale unpublished here.
Pickups
Arcane Inc. single-coils standard. Humbucker, Wide Range, P90, Ultratron, and TV Jones Filtertron Classic, Powertron, or Magnatron optional.
Hardware
3- or 6-saddle vintage bridge. Factory prints Tone Pro and Kluson tuners. Bigsby and B-bender optional (Vintage Guitar, May 2018).
Electronics
Volume, tone, 3-way on the 2007 MusicRadar review guitar. Coil-split pull on the 2016 Guitar.com Deluxe and on later dealer cards. Factory page prints no schematic.
Finish
Rust-O-Matic, or paint, nickel, engraving, gator. Clear satin over the rust.
Nut
1-5/8" (Vintage Guitar’s 2018 tester: 1.625"). Guitar.com’s 2016 Deluxe prints 42 mm at the nut, 52.8 mm at the 12th. Mix flagged.
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current typical = Los Angeles SteelCaster (jamestrussart.com/collections/steelcaster-1, fetched 30 September 2026). Catalogued here as a solidbody electric. The object is hollow steel. Factory base $5,191 with a G&G case and a signed certificate. Shop cards print $0.00 — not a checkout. Weight 7.1 to 8.1 pounds. Dunlop 10–46. Made in America. Lefties offered. Sisters (Deluxe, SteelTopCaster, SteelDeville, the bass) are below, not this table. Not a Fender Telecaster. Standalone.

Construction

The job was a Tele outline that would not be wood. Hollow sheet steel. A maple neck bolted on. The rust is the finish, stopped on purpose, then sealed.

When the name starts is split. Total Guitar via MusicRadar (12 August 2014) prints first SteelCaster 1983, Paris repair shop 1984, Southern California 2000, baritone 2009. The same piece’s prose puts the first steel guitars, “including the Steelcaster,” in the mid-80s. Vintage Guitar (Phil Feser, October 2003): a builder since 1980. Trussart to Blues.gr (15 October 2013): from 1980 it took almost ten years to finish the Steelphonic — a different model. Premier Guitar (Tessa Jeffers, 9 January 2013): the rest of the ’80s was repair and “crazy experiments”; the first metal instrument was a violin; the first steel on a guitar was stainless; then recessed metal tops on chambered wood; only then the named families. French Wikipedia says those metal guitars were first made in Louisiana, citing that profile and a chez.com page. Premier does not put a SteelCaster in the bayou. Keep 1980, 1983, and the mid-80s. This plate starts in 1983. A magazine timeline, not a shop ledger.

He had been a fiddler with Zachary Richard. Short About: the early ’70s. Longer About and Blues.gr: the late ’70s. French Wikipedia: tours through France from 1974, then a shop near Mirecourt and one in Paris with Nicolas Petitbon. Los Angeles is 2000 on his site and in MusicRadar, 2001 on French Wikipedia. Keep both.

“I wanted to make a guitar that came with a history and a slight element of neglect, of decay, so it had a personality of its own.”

That is Trussart, on his own About page. Billy Gibbons named the method Rust-O-Matic (Trussart; MusicRadar; Tony Bacon, Guitar.com, 18 February 2021). The body sits outside for several weeks. Corrosion is stopped. The steel is sanded. Clear satin locks it. Gator is alligator hide pressed into the steel: the site says several days in water; Wired (December 2009) says a bucket for a few days. Keep both. Vintage Guitar (May 2018): the rust is not supposed to come off on your hands.

Not a Fender Telecaster. The outline is the trap. Wired’s shop piece set a Deluxe next to a ’52 Tele, and a caption dated the Broadcaster to 1949. That year is wrong. Fullerton’s slab is ash or alder from 1950 (fender-telecaster). This is hollow sheet. No Fender SKU.

MusicRadar (Dave Burrluck, 28 November 2007): a standard front and back are solid sheet; the “holey” mesh was a look until it cut the feedback. Edges fold over the mesh. Top and back take a light arch. A wood block under the bridge is the structure. Otherwise it is a true hollow body. His review guitar weighed 8 lb. Wired: steel 1 millimeter thick, bodies then stamped in France, engraving often done once the steel reached L.A. Mix flagged against the inch spec. The current page says Made in America. Don’t treat the 2009 France stamp as a 2026 drawing.

The neck is maple, not metal, with a recessed steel cap. Burrluck called that plate patented and credited it, in Trussart’s view, with sustain. The current page says patents pending. Keep both. Radius is not one number. Factory now: 9". Feser’s 2003 tester was koa, 7¼", Dunlop 6150. The January 2007 Deluxe sheet said 7". Burrluck measured one 2007 neck at 19.8 mm at the first fret and 21.4 mm at the 12th — millimetres only, mix flagged. Later dealer cards print 9.5" and 10". Do not average.

Pickups moved with the years. Feser, 2003: Seymour Duncan Antiquity. Burrluck, 2007: production Alnico II Pro, bridge APTL-1, neck APTR-1 — Evan Skopp said they were not Antiquities. Wired, 2009: Rob Timmons hand-wound the signature set. Current standard is Arcane Inc. Vintage Guitar’s May 2018 tester — Arcane single-coil at the bridge, humbucker at the neck, into a Fender ’57 Custom Pro — was called akin to a Tele with more body, closer to a National tricone than to wood mud. One review guitar. Not a spec.

Not the sisters. Harmony Central (24 January 2007) debuted the Deluxe as the f-hole guitar: Duncan Alnico II Pro, 7" radius, $4,218. Robb Report Collection (December 2007) uses that f-hole to split it from the SteelCaster. Burrluck, the same season, called the Deluxe a thinline Tele-style sister. Guitar.com (Chris Vinnicombe, 29 November 2016): f-hole, perforated back, 21 frets, 25.5" / 648 mm, pull-tone coil-split. Some later cards stamp “Deluxe” on a guitar with no f-hole. Keep 2007. SteelTopCaster is alder or sugar pine under a metal lid (Vintage Guitar, May 2018). SteelDeville is the single-cut. Steelphonic took until about 1990. The bass is a bass. Wired (December 2009): about two weeks once the parts are on the bench; about 300 guitars and basses a year, from around $4,000. That 300 is the whole shop in 2009. Not a SteelCaster census.

Players

Joe Gore is the witness on this model, not a session log. Former Guitar Player editor. On Trussart’s About page, about the SteelCaster: “I love the combination of ultra-articulate attack and full-bodied sustain.” He plays with bare fingers and credits the metal against his chest. A quote. Not a record.

Danny B. Harvey. Premier Guitar, Summer NAMM, Nashville, 30 June 2008: he played the Paisley Steelcaster in the booth, said he had been on Trussart’s guitars for three or four years, and owned three. Headcat, with Lemmy and Slim Jim, and the Lonesome Spurs. NAMM 2010, same player, same booth: a perforated-back Steelcaster, Arcane Tele at the bridge, humbucker at the neck. The Steelmaster and Steel O Matic beside it were alder-body guitars. Different models. Which records are the Steelcaster is unpublished here.

Billy Gibbons named Rust-O-Matic. His note on the Blues.gr page is a “silver 6-string,” model unpublished. Do not pin a ZZ Top side on a SteelCaster.

Amadou Bagayoko. French Wikipedia: a personalized SteelCaster, with a Guitarist demo. The Times (14 April 2025): “a gold guitar, built for him by James Trussart,” model unnamed. Premier Guitar’s builder profile puts Amadou & Mariam on African-engraved Trussarts, not on a model. Keep the SteelCaster claim and the unnamed gold guitar. No song on this plate.

The borrowed names are other guitars. Tony Garnier, Blues.gr: “on a Steelcaster bass,” in the sentence about Dylan’s band. Four strings. Charlie Sexton, same interview: a SteelMaster, “or one of his other Trussarts.” Eric Clapton, via Doyle Bramhall in that interview: some J.J. Cale songs on the ResoGator. Dylan “playing my guitar” is unnamed. Leave it off. Do not hang a Telecaster hit here either.

Also known to play stays the maker’s list. The SteelCaster page names Gibbons, Robert Cray, Tom Morello, Billy Corgan, Pearl Jam, Marc Ribot, Metallica, and Joe Perry. Wired’s Deluxe review: Clapton, Gibbons, and Morello “slinging Trussarts”; Ribot “owns one.” A 2009 shop caption calls a perforated-top guitar with a kill switch a copy of Morello’s — a copy in the shop, and the top may be a SteelTop. Not “Killing in the Name.” No track invented.

Rarity

You can still order one. The Los Angeles shop is building them. Current production is small-batch custom, not rare the way a closed factory is rare. Every finish is already a one-off (Burrluck; Vintage Guitar, 2018). That is the point of the rust. It is not a census.

Trussart has not published a SteelCaster total. None invented. Wired’s about 300 a year (December 2009) is guitars and basses, all models. A shop-card number on the collection page (25030, 26052) marks one guitar. It doesn’t count a year. That is why a first-year figure is unknown.

What is actually thinner: Paris-shop examples from before the 2000 / 2001 move; one-off engraving; the Cadillac ad pair. Tim Lobely, to Guitar World / Guitarist (12 June 2026): Trussart said he had made two of that gold-caged guitar. The first went into a Cadillac LYRIQ ad and sold privately. The second was the NAMM piece. That “two” is what he told Lobely. Guitar World puts that guitar a little over 8 lb (3.6 kg). Sound Affects prints 8 lb 5.8 oz on #25036. Mix flagged. Not the factory 7.1–8.1 lb band. The collection page also lists other gold-caged cards (25060, 22077). Cards are not a census.

Value

Informal estimate, 30 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask vs sold labeled. One-off gold is not a comp. No invented medians. No factory count. Period prices are period money: Vintage Guitar, October 2003, $2,650 to $2,900 across the Steelcaster and the chrome “Steelpaul” he had in for review. MusicRadar, 28 November 2007, £2,794 / $3,790. Harmony Central Deluxe sheet, 24 January 2007, $4,218. Robb Report Collection, December 2007: SteelCaster $3,818, Deluxe $4,178. Wired, December 2009: they start around $4,000; the Deluxe review prints about $5,200, with a $5,191 line. Guitar.com, 29 November 2016, Deluxe £4,550 with the case. Vintage Guitar, May 2018, $5,191.

New street. The factory collection page still prints base $5,191, case in (fetched 30 September 2026). The same number Vintage Guitar printed in 2018. Individual cards on that page print $0.00. That is not a 2026 checkout. Don’t invent a MAP above the printed base.

Used modern. No Reverb Price Guide band isolated this pass. Flag: thin sold-comp access. Named asks, not hammers, still up on 30 September 2026: Reverb UK, 2010 Shiny Nickel, very good, £3,752.73 (Woodstock Guitars, Aarhus). That listing’s own text says weight 3600 g — grams on one guitar, mix flagged, not averaged into 7.1–8.1 lb. Its spec block prints #6105 and does not print a fret count; a “21” on the surrounding product template is not that card. Reverb UK, 2015 satin-black pinstripe #14052, seller calls it brand new, ask £4,490.81, plus a UK-page shipping quote of £898.25 from Rockshop in Auckland. Musician’s Friend’s used 2024 Deluxe URL returned 404 this pass. No price kept. Do not average the asks that remain.

Vintage / collectible. There is no separate 1950s market. Paris-made guitars are the early end, and no sold series was isolated here. The Gold Caged / CadillacCaster is one commission, not the model. Guitar World (12 June 2026) headlines $15,000-plus. Guitarist, June 2026, and Sound Affects print £12,999. Reverb Canada still asks C$21,263.37 on #25036 (brand new, make-an-offer; fetched 30 September 2026). A May 2026 shop comment says that guitar sold. No hammer in hand. Not a comp for a rusted Arcane SteelCaster.

See also

  • fender-telecaster — the Fullerton slab this hollow steel outline is not
  • travis-bean-tb1000 — aluminum through-neck into wood, not a steel body with a maple neck
  • zemaitis-metal-front — a duralumin plate on mahogany, not a hollow steel shell

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.