Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation from the 1930s until the 1960s. Kay was established in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, by Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet (founded as Groeschel Mandolin Company in 1890). Kay offered their first electric guitar in 1936 — five years after the Rickenbacker "Frying pan", and the same year as the Gibson ES-150. However, the Kuhrmeyer-owned Stromberg-Voisinet brand had produced the Stromberg Electro even earlier, in 1928, making the short-lived model arguably the first commercial electric guitar. The
Sill plate Sill plate A sill plate or sole plate in construction and architecture is the bottom horizontal member of a wall or building to which vertical members are attached. The word plate is typically omitted in America and carpenters speak simply of the "sill". Other names are ground plate, ground sill, groundsel, and midnight sill. Sill plates are usually composed of lumber but can be any material. The timber at the top of a wall is often called a top plate, pole plate, wall plate or simply "the plate". In historic buildings the sills were almost always large, solid timbers framed