Steel Guitar Builder

Good morning y'all. Bent and a couple of you guys know that I've been building a couple more guitars this winter. I finished one of them a few days ago. I wound one of my regular style single coil pickups and used aluminum for the plates. Don't know whether it was that or whatever but that pickup hu...

Yes....we'll have to talk more about this back yard foundry thing in the spring. I'm hoping to try something. There's lots of info on the Net about how to go about it. It still baffles me that you can actually melt aluminum with propane heat but I guess you can. I've also got a big pile of scrap pie...

Yeah.... a narrow blade is good too to have. Bent, does it bother you that with the mill you're making a keyhead....and you sure waste a lot of expensive aluminum being reduced to chips? What would you start with as far as the piece of metal if you're going to mill a keyhead ?
Mac

Russ... that works to a degree. I sometimes have to use a jigsaw if I want to do an inside cut in a piece of aluminum. It's a nasty way to cut aluminum though....and I know 'cause I cut all the pieces for a D10 in 1962 with just a cheap scrollsaw. Use a woodcutting blade with not too many teeth but ...

Hi guys... I love the math solutions! For us folks that would rather do it a bit more simple there's a freeware program out there that I've used for a few years called WFRET. Just google that and you'll find it easily. You can download it easy as it's only about 2.9 meg. Before I found that my best ...

Keyhead rollers... If you're interested in trying those, get some used electric bass string ends. They're approx. 1/4" in diam by 3/16" wide with a 1/8" hole in the middle and made of nice brass. The groove of course is constant for each and is wider than even your biggest string but they work and s...

(singing)

Oh...a machinist he will be,
a machinist he will be,
Hi..ho, the Derry O,
It's great for us to see!


beautiful stuff Bent

Mac

Dave_M......damn you're a clever lad! I'm going to work through that copedent to see how it works, it looks so great! After so many years I feel a bit ashamed at making that old book. It seemed OK at the time but the times have really changed in the last 10 years in the steel business. I hope to fin...

Hi Dave-M.....welcome!

Great drawing. Ain't this an amazing site. Lots of stuff to share & learn.

All the best,
Mac

Dave....your work is amazing! Having done just a bit of it in years gone by I know what exacting and time consuming effort is required. Do you buy the shell pieces or cut your own? I've had some beautiful large abalone and pearl shells for years but never have got the nerve up to slice them up. Anyw...