The Steel Guitar Forum

David -- Several years ago when I was involved in amateur radio, a lot of folks made various pieces of equipment AND they then made a list of the commercially purchased parts they used to make it?? bridge, pu, tuners, nut, etc. Any chance you could do this for the CT-Steel-1 ??? (CT=cookie tin) That...

FWIW -- %20 is a space character.

So if I searched for "blah blah" it would be fed to the search process as "blah%20blah"

Clair

Clair, here are some other important resources: ... Billy Hew Len-The Hal Smith Archives mp3. I guess you can see my bias. I've spent about an hour searching (and I'm good at this) and came up virtually empty handed. Found one CD at amazon, but has an orchestra behind it. Was not expecting this -- ...

Hi James --
Thanks for that link -- had not run across that site??

It sure looks interesting. It also appeals to me because of the western/country slant (no pun intended). And, given my most un-robust finances, by the month sounds do-able. This is a keeper.

Clair

I'm both a verbal and visual person--but when it comes to learning the lap steel, I find the visual to be incredibly helpful -- sort of a "teach me to fish and I'll go off and fish!" There are some nice slants in Blue Hawaii that seem to come quite naturally to me. The two things I work on...

I'm glad I found you and Doug -- I'm all set -- and I just today ordered Cold Cold Heart to get in on the sale and save my meager bucks.

I must say, the DVD technology helps those of us who live in the boonies for sure.

I thought I would organize my experiences in case it might help others. Mind you, we're all different so I'm annotating my recommendations so that you can consider the source (me!). The top of the heap is just that, the top of the heap for me. So, I'll put my very short, "This is all you need l...

Hi Stephen-- Open G Open D Open A Open E Has tunes and licks for these tunings in notation and tab. The songs are real (not made up) Down in the Valley, Midnight Special, etc. Looks to be a decent beginner book. There's also a CD with it. It's not for me, as I'm strictly C6 -- if you can figure out ...

A Gretsch Eletromatic is pictured on the cover of Hal Leonard's publication: Lap Steel Guitar by Johnnie Helms. It's a much later model than the one you show and not MOTS-covered. Gretsch is on the pickup and Gretsch Electromatic at the top of the tuners. Bridge cover is a plain rectangle, though th...

I will be getting The Magic Steel Guitarist -- what a wonderful piece of history you have made available. I've been looking at it (your avatar) and wondering about it.

thank you

Steve --
Thanks for the pic -- haven't seen one of those before -- because you shot it straight on vertically, the fretboard has the look of a necktie -- cool.

Pictures? Please -- want to see everything while I'm learning!

Thanks.

Eddie --
Thanks for the Vaugel link; I'm sending on to a sculptor whose web site I just finished. She does some figurative work and I think she will find it interesting.

Also, thanks for your kind comment on my own site and of course, thanks again for your music.

Eddie -
Very nice to listen with my first cup of coffee -- a good wake up -- I very much liked Happy Blues as well.

thanks!

Well, right now this is a topic near and dear to my heart. My "new" lap steel was shipped from California on the 12th of January and it's still not here (Vermont). Sigh. Hope it doesn't turn up as a kit! lol

Hi Mike -- Nice site -- look forward to its growth! Also enjoyed reading your blogs on tunings. Just a note, which you probably already have discovered. The hover color in your CSS for the menu is the same as the background color, and therefore invisible! (At least this is what I'm seeing in the lat...

Thanks to all you westerners for the "invites" but I can't afford to go anywhere I can't drive to and even that is iffy given my 11-year-old Chevy! -- which of course is why I asked the question I did!

Good one David -- a real class. You are lucky! I expect great things come May!!

And right now I'm not, my dream machine has not yet arrived and I'm getting squirrelier by the minute. Sigh.

In my not so distant past I rebuilt, moved, repaired, and tuned pianos. Up here in rural Vermont many of my customers' pianos were old uprights. Everything else being fairly okay, bass strings were often problematical because of the heavy windings with decades of accumulated dust. Or just plain not ...

I made an earlier version of this for me and it helped a lot. I prettied it up a bit for SGF. Obviously the chords I chose to diagram are subjective. If you want to fiddle with it to make your own version, I can send you the Excel/Open Office file if you email me. But, here's the pdf for C6 tuning o...

Rich - thanks -- gives me hope.

If I'm teaching summer, I could afford probably half of it, but if I'm teaching summer I couldn't go! lol

At least I know there's some life in the near east!

Clair

Tom -- I looked at your images and they are wonderful! When I win the lottery and get into binge buying of lap steels, in the one from you I need you to put in, for the dark wood, that African wood they use to make high end clarinets -- I've forgotten it's name, but it's on odd one! 'Course I'll hav...

Saw this post today: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=198978 About a "camp" in Texas. Why are these always West of the Mississippi? How about one around Concord, NH -- it's New England Central for sure? (I'm in Northwestern Vermont, so I'm not asking for one in my back yard! ...

Welcome to the Forum, David. Glad to see another New Englander here! And your machine is beautiful. I'm waiting, not well, for my "new" National Dynamic to arrive. Your machine is truly elegant, as is mine --- nothing beats Art Deco design for sheer droolability. Would love to hear how you...

David - et al. Yes, indeed. I look forward to the day when I feel capable of writing tab -- it will come. But for now I rely on others to learn. I'm also working on re-learning a bit of bass --- I was moving right along a few years ago when I began to have serious trouble with my left hand (bones an...