Steel Guitar Builder

Thank you. So as not to hijack this thread about widths, I will PM you with more detail. However, this, my first, is made of 1/4" Purple Heart, with Maple veneer slotted on edge into it for fret markers, Stewmac Curly Maple binding, and MOP dots.

That was the only photo I could find of insert routing. After this photo was taken, I drilled and chiseled out a slope sided hole in the center of each to accept the raised part. I will say that I had a heck of time, and some tense moments trying to actually fit all this hardware into a 1" thick bod...

You can just face mount the leg inserts to the bottom of the body, but I think the preferred way is to flip them upside down, and rout a shallow round hole to receive them. I made a 3' router template by slicing a 3/4" piece of pvc plumbing pipe, then tracing around it on a 3/4" thick piece of plywo...

I've so far finished one single 8 console, and I spent over a year obsessing over different designs and dimensions before I finally decided I had it close enough that I would have few regrets once it was built. I ended up using 8-1/4" width for the body, which is 1" thick, to which I attached a 3/4"...

Thanks, Guys. I follow all of your posts, and learn a lot from them. For an instrument that is basically about as simple as it gets, there are an amazing number of factors and details to be worked out when actually building one. Getting to share your combined knowledge and wealth of experience is wo...

Okay, here it is. This is my first McGregor steel. It's taken me a while, but I've finally gotten to play something I built. The body, fret board, and bridge are of Purple Heart. The neck, fret lines, and fretboard binding are Curly Maple, and the Keyhead is Cocobolo. Mother of Pearl dots. Brass nut...

I also like brass. Harder than aluminum, but still fairly easy to work.

WOW!!!
Thank you for steering me to this.
Halfway through the first video, I had to make myself stop it and bookmark it for later. Otherwise, I will get nothing else done all day. This is a treasure!

I am also be interested in seeing what you come up with. I would like to have 8 and ten string aluminum key heads without a nut. This would allow the option of using different materials for different tones. As I don't own a mill, I've been thinking of trying my hand at making some out of Cocobolo. I...

Keep trying.
Wanna see.