Steel Guitar Builder

Awhile ago I mentioned in another post that I was making a single coil shielded pickup in a slightly different way. I mentioned that I have a lot of rectangular aluminum tubing that I use whenever I can for parts construction. The couple of pictures attached show my best effort to date with a REALLY quiet single coil. The coil is wound to about 14.5k and is totally enclosed in the piece of rectangular pipe that's 1-1/4" OD and 1" ID. (1/8" wall of course). Magnets come out the top. It is totally silent, even more so than the humbuckers I usually wind. Anyway....just thought I'd throw this idea in the mix, maybe somebody else could use this idea. If you're wondering about the body, it's black walnut 7/8" thick and the aprons are some beautiful tamarack pieces I had. Can't believe this walnut....man is it hard and heavy! I found half a dozen ancient boards in the barn of the 160 year old place we bought 5 years ago. We have lots of walnut but I'll bet these boards were sawed a hundred years ago. They are nearly 12" wide and over 1" thick and 9 ft. long. I wanted to get the board for this guitar top down to 3/4" but gave up at 7/8".....nearly wore out my planer!
Cheers,
Mac

That's an interesting idea, do you think using the tubing alters the sound characteristics in any way?

Well.....I don't know about any interaction the aluminum casing would have. The guitar seems to sound good to my ears anyway. Every guitar I've built (19) sound different. I guess it's always a combination of all the parts.....body, changer, nut, strings, pickup etc. that makes one guitar sound different from it's neighbor. This guitar is a keyless with a solid nut rather than rollers, and the sustain is really great.
Mac

Nice design on that pickup Mac.

I like it, it's a nice train of thought.