The Steel Guitar Forum

Inspired by Kurt's Turbo Steel, I'm trying to talk a friend of mine to make something similar; however, I would really like to read something substantial on the use of baffles and sound posts - which most modern makers use, and which is said to improve the sound/volume. Can anyone out there point me...

Loni, that's already been done by a Spanish classical guitar maker many years ago.

Kurt, I've just been browsing the forum and I've found out that you make the Turbo Steels commercially. Ignore my previous post!

Kurt, could you tell us about the woods you used, and the resonator - and about the sound, volume etc of the Turbo Steel, And, anything else you feel would be interesting to know! Just in case I have a go at doing something along the same lines.

Cheers

Thanks for all the replies. Kurt, your Turbo Steel certainly looks very interesting.

Thanks for the reply Alan, but I did say acoustic lap steel.

It would a lot easier to built a acoustic lap guitar with a rectangular box shaped body - but would it sound dreadful - i.e are those curved sides necessary for a great sound?

It surprises me that there are so many - relatively speaking - makers of Weissenborn type guitars in the States, and even in Australia - but, seemingly, few in the UK. Can anyone out there recommend any British Weissenborn guitar makers?

And don't forget, anything in open G tuning( bottleneck tuning) can be easily adapted to open D by simply moving everything down a string. For example, anything written in open G on the 1st string, play in open D on the second string; and anything played in open G on the 2nd string play in open D on...

I don't know if Tom has been mentioned here before, but his site is well worth a visit. I've included a link to his page where he discusses his various guitars. To learn about each instrument, just point the cursor at the image of the instrument.

http://www.tomdoughty.com/guitars.html

Hasn't our hero Bob Brozman got a Lap Steel Blues tuition dvd out. I would guess that he would cater for Open E/D tuning.

Jerry Douglas is featured on tonights( Sept 21/07) "Transatlantic Sessions" tv program on BBC 4. This is great acoustic roots show. I hope it also gets aired in the States.

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I live near Liverpool, UK.
I currently play an acoustic 6 string lap guitar and I'm contemplating buying an electric model but what are the advantages/disadvantages between playing a 6 or 8 string lap steel?