Pics of my D8 acoustic steel

Bernard Beck · From: Paris France

Now that I understood how to put pictures on the forum, here are some pics of my D8 acoustic travel steel. It's all maple, has 2 piezo pickups. I carry it around everywhere. My kids made me call it "the beckophone". The luthier who made it for me did a great job. His name is Dominique Chevalier and that's the explanation of the double moon logo, standing for DC. He works near Nimes in the south of France,

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Now here I am, jamming at the Long Beach Market in May 07, with this guy from the carrabean who's really incredible, knowing about avery country song from 1930 on. The lady playing acoustic bass is my dear friend Pattie, I was visiting her, we always have musical happenings going on whenever we visit.

Delvin Morgan · From: Lindstrom, Minnesota, USA

That really looks interesting, is your friend going to build more? The best I've yet, how does it sound?

Delvin Morgan · From: Lindstrom, Minnesota, USA

That is " the best I've seen yet"

Chris Walke · From: St Charles, IL

I have to admit, at first glance I thought, well that just looks like a box with strings. But as I looked closer at the pics, I realized that guitar really is quite beatiful. Very clean looking, and there's something about the fretboards I really like - I think it's that it just sorta appears on the body, lines & dots only, no change in wood or appearance. Cool logo on the headstocks, too, and nice use of it as the soundholes.

I'd also love to know how it sounds. Any chance you can post a soundclip?

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

When I think of amplifying acoustics, I always wonder about feedback. Having any problems? Also, I grew up in Long Beach. Where was the jam photo taken?
_________________
Amor vincit omnia

Thomas Ludwig · From: Augsburg, Germany

Looks very nice. I like it.
What scale length ?

Thomas

Bernard Beck · From: Paris France

Ok, here are more infos : The picture of the jam is taken at the open air market of Long-Beach.
About the "box with string" quote, it was kind of my idea at the start. I wanted an efficient double neck, light, acoustic steel, with no fancy things on it so that the price of this one of a kind instrument would be reasonable.
As I started to discuss the idea with the luthier, he was interested in it. I came up with the idea of the trapezoid shape with no curves. He said that indeed it would be very much simpler to build.
When I decided to definitely spend the money on the idea and have it made, than he really got his mind working for technical things. The main difficulties were :
1) The bracing inside. He had to invent it to hold 16 strings tension, and that's a lot
2) The fretboards, I did not think it would be complicated, but since it is directly on the wood, it was. Finally he had the idea of the ebony inlays, that is what the black frets and dots are. He had the idea of the slope alignment of the dots from pictures of old steels

He really did a beautiful job. The 2 heads with mandolin tuning machines are beautiful little pieces of sculpture. We had a long talk about "the hole". After letting down the idea of a center hole, we went to F-holes, and I must say I am very proud I had the idea of the moon-holes which are exactly his logo. The finish is great too.
It is a 22.5" scale with the string spacing of my stringmaster.
OK, that's long enough, I'll have another post about the sound and the user's comment.
Bernard

Bernard Beck · From: Paris France

Now, the user's comment :
1) about feedback. Well yes when I'm too close to the amp I get feedback. But any start of feedback that I had while being amplified was settled right away with palm blocking.
2) about the sound : you can see that the bridge is at the tail of the instrument instead of being in the middle af the table. Therefore, acoustically, it is not a strong instrument. But remember it is a travel instrument. When you play it picking style, it it's got a sweet sound, but when you start strumming it seriously, well you get something really interesting. Amplified, well all the blues players I jammed with loved it.
Now, if someone gives me simple instructions to post a soundclip, I gladly will do.
3) about string tension, I had to put lighter gauge than on my stringmaster. I have a C6 neck (low to high : A C E G A C E G) and an E7/6 (low to high : E B D E G# B C# E) with I sometime put to a 6 or 7 string in G. Since I use .011-.039 on the C6 and .014-.046 on the E7/6, I had no problem, and it stays well in tune.
4) the dimension (22.5" scale, over all around 30") is perfect for travelling. I have a homemade gigbag, it fits very well in overhead cases in planes. I must say that last time I was at LAX airport, the security guy really looked at it closely with his X-Ray machine. After 5 minutes I finally told him, that's a steel guitar, a little bit special, he said, yeah, I can see that, and that was it.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

I built two acoustic lap steels a couple of years ago. They have pickups on them but they can also be played acoustically as I built them with hollow bodies.

On this instrument I didn't build a fingerboard. My idea being that your hands cover the fingerboard while you're playing so you can't see it. Instead I inserted brass pins as fret markers, which are positioned so that they're not covered up.

This one has double courses, like a mandolin or 12-string guitar.

Bernard Beck · From: Paris France

Now Delvin, concerning your question about the luthier buiding more of these instruments, I shall ask him. I know that if he does it will only be on special order. I'm pretty sure he keept all the shapes that he used for the n° 1.
I'll let you know more about that after I call him.
Bernard[/quote]

Keith Wells · From: South Carolina Sea Islands

Bernard that is a fascinating guitar. Very well done indeed, thanks for posting.

Thanks also for taking me back to the streets of downtown Long Beach. I enjoyed a few street jams there back in the day, glad to see it's still happenning.

Alan, your acoustic steels also are amazing. If fact all your guitars are amazing.

Bernard if you have any luck posting the sound clips -- I'm there.
_________________
-- Keith

Wayne Cox · From: Chatham, Louisiana, USA * R.I.P.

Very creative and beautiful work on all of the above,but since I have played acoustic steels before, I have to ask, how do you keep the front neck quiet while playing on the back neck? I have my own solutions but would like to hear your ideas.
~~W.C.~~

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