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Topic: my new lap steel |
Nigel Stanley
From:
London, England
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Posted 4 Mar 2004 8:25 am |
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I thought people might like to see my first attempt at a lap steel.
It's made from a solid (and pricey) chunk of English sycamore. This is apparently very similar to maple.
The 'fret' board is made of stained walnut veneer, with the 'fret' and fret markers routed with a dremel. The bridge and nut are both made of brass rod, and the tuners are straightforward Klusons. It has a 24 inch scale.
The pick up is a George L, and there's a volume and tone lifted from a bass guitar - I need to upgrade these at some stage.
If anyone is interested I can upload another picture showing the stepped profile in more detail.
I like the asymmetric shape, but my original thinking was this would make it easier to turn it into a double neck.
I have to say that it sounds pretty fine, though not quite the way I play it!
The two main mistakes I made were:
1) to make the headstock too narrow for the first step from the nut. While the structure makes it very strong I needed to add some extra washers to the machine heads.
2) the dremel router wandered a little and the fret lines aren't entirely straight. One needed filling, and recutting.
You can see pictures at this[url=http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX?50@44.VNPjafwukgA^0@.ee81b71/0] Musicial Instrument Makers Forum post[/url]
Nigel
London UK
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Rob Anderson
From:
Sherwood, Wisconsin, USA
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Terry Farmer
From:
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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Posted 4 Mar 2004 3:26 pm
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| Very nice, Nigel!!!!!!! Feels good to fabricate your own instrument, don't it? |
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