Looking for guidance on a 60's vintage Airline lap steel

Dougal Ingram · From: Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Hi all, this is my first post here (greetings from Canberra Australia).

After a lot of searching, I've recently acquired my first lap steel - an original Airline from the early '60s ('63 I think but I could be wrong). I'm loving the string-through pickup tones through a Vibrolux Reverb - both clean and cranked.

I've been playing guitar on and off for about 50 years now (I suddenly feel old Whoa!

), and have played acoustic and electric bottleneck in the past, mainly in Open G/A and Open D/E. I'm thinking I'll stay in these tunings for lap steel at first and progress to other tunings down the track.

I've got some questions about this guitar and would greatly appreciate some assistance and opinions from the collective wisdom here.

It's currently strung with 12-52 flat wounds which are ok but a bit slack in Open D/G given the very short 21" scale length. Would a set of 13-56 flat wounds make enough of a tension difference for these tunings or do I need something heavier?
The pickup is missing one of the rear screws. Does anyone know of a replacement source and/or what gauge/thread size I should be looking for?
The pickup and volume/tone pots are working well enough, but I want to "get under the hood" and do some selective desoldering to measure the component values out-of-circuit. I've replaced plenty of guitar pickups and controls before and have built pedals and amps, so I'm confident in my own ability but I'm wondering if there are any known pitfalls or standard procedures in removing the pickup?

Thanks in advance and I'm looking forward to contributing more here as I dive down the steel guitar rabbit hole!

Cheers,
Dougal

D Schubert · From: Columbia, MO, USA

I used to have one just ike her. Good sounding steel made by the Valco/ Supro/ Dobro factory in Chicago. As I recall, I used 0.016" and larger, nickel plated set intended for resonator guitar. Tuned to open E or hi-bass G.

I can't tell you the size for the pickup screws, but you might look a for an imperial (not metric) grub screw intended for automotive or mechanical use, and see if you could find a match.
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GFI Expo S-10PE, Sho-Bud 6139, Fender 2x8 Stringmaster, Supro consoles, Dobro. And more.

David Venzke · From: SE Michigan, USA

For string gauges, a number of people on the forum use this string gauge tension calculator: https://tension.stringjoy.com/

Maybe you will find it useful.

As far as the missing/broken screw in the lower half of the pickup, those are wood screws and along with the two larger wood screws at the end of the guitar help hold the bridge/pickup assembly in place. The "missing" screw is most likely broken off down near or at the body.

Once you've removed the strings, you can remove the one surviving screw and match it up. It should be a #6 wood screw (maybe a #5??) that's one inch plus in length. If you want to match the existing one, you'll need an oval head phillips. The two pickup screws that are closer to the fretboard are machine screws that only thread into the lower plate.

When the four wood screws are removed the plate simply lifts free from the body.

Good luck and welcome to the forum!

Dougal Ingram · From: Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Thanks for the assistance, much appreciated. The string tension calculator is a great resource and now bookmarked.
If anyone is interested, I just found this link which details a refurb/restoration of a 1948 Supro and goes into super detail on the electronics.

D Schubert · From: Columbia, MO, USA

Now I see the missing screw. It's not one of the magnetic pole pieces. I didn't catch that earlier.
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GFI Expo S-10PE, Sho-Bud 6139, Fender 2x8 Stringmaster, Supro consoles, Dobro. And more.

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