My First Lap Steel

[rbrat]

This is my first attempt at a lap steel. I am pleased overall but there is always room for improvement.
Body-Red Oak
Scale-24"
Pickup-DiMarzio Humbucker (mid 70's not sure of the model)
Aluminum Bridge, Tailpiece & Nut
Planet Wave Locking Tuners
Finish-Black Lacquer
Volume & Fender TBX ToneControl (see link)
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/I ... art_1.aspx

[rbrat]

A few more pics

[azureskys]

Thats very cool , i like your design, you ll find that oak is a very good wood for building i us it alot on my pedel steel guitars , congrads on your first . Russ

[rbrat]

Thanks for the reply Russ. First time using oak but I had it in my shop so I used it. I did notice while building it seems to be a good tone wood. Not that it is the most important thing building electric type instruments but it can't hurt ether. The challenge was filling the grain, I used bondo pressing and forcing it into the wood. This resulted in a super smooth finish with some woodgrain telegraphing through the finish. I got about 20 hours in it and $100.00 in parts. I put Ernie Ball non slinky strings on it and keep breaking the 5th string at the tuning peg when trying to tune to C6. Any string recommendations out there? Got it tuned to an open g which sounds ok for now.
Rusty

[ljs]

Nice job Rusty! Looks Good!!

LaVern

[rbrat]

Thanks LaVern! Very simple compared to some of the fine work on here, but it will always be my first! Working on a sketch for a 8 string dbl now. It's loosely based on a Fender style.

[Bent]

Rusty, I must say that was excellent for a first! Keep it up. Post pics as you progress on the 8 string.

[ljs]

Looks pretty fine for a first one. Let me show you a couple pictures of my first lap steel. I call it a trash can lap steel because I found the the beginnings of it in a trash can at shop before I retired. The pictures aren't very clear, but if you look close enough you will see that it's pretty crude.

Front Body (Small).JPG (39.72 KiB) Viewed 2421 times

Well for some reason I can't load the other picture showing a full front view. I'll try andsee if I can get it in another posting.
LaVern

[ljs]

Let's try this.

IMG_0001 (Small).JPG (38.66 KiB) Viewed 2415 times

Well it did work this time, you'll just have to bend your neck a little. , or turn your monitor on it's side. Seems that I could not rotate it and then post it. Something to do with the width being too narrow. Well any way you can see how crude it is and though it doesn't look nice, it has character, and doesn't sound too bad.

LaVern

[rbrat]

LaVern,
This was one of the first photos i saw when i googled "home made lap steel" and inspired me to go for it. Not in a "I can do better than that" way but in a way that the basic form clicked in my head, my ah ha moment. i have a Regal sq neck dobro and thinking back i could have used it for my inspiration piece but it was actually your laptop that did it. one thing about this group is every steel on here can teach one something, if you only look. (hey i might use that lol)
How much of this is your work? or is it an heavy mod job? i like the colored dots inlay, decals?
thanks,