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Topic: What to Do with a Cheapo Galveston D6 |
Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 16 Aug 2008 9:47 pm |
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The Galveston D6 is great value for its money, and it immediately struck me as a quick and cheap conversion candidate.
So I:
[1] Fitted 8-String Grover Mandoline Tuners.
[2] Bult new bridges and nuts.
[3] Replaced the Pickups with GeorgeLs.
[4] Fitted through-the-body string anchors.
[5] Gave it a quick respray to get rid of that hideous paint job on the fingerboard.
I left the electrical circuits alone. The longest part of the job was waiting for the paint to dry.
Here are some before and after shots, showing an unaltered Galveston compared with my conversion.
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Steve Cunningham
From:
Atlanta, GA
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George Piburn
From:
The Land of Enchantment New Mexico
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Posted 17 Aug 2008 6:52 am edit
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edit
Last edited by George Piburn on 20 Jun 2012 4:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
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Gary Stevenson
From:
Northern New York,USA
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Posted 17 Aug 2008 5:47 pm
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Very nice Alan! Just shows what can be done when you treat it as a ready-made body and make necessary changes to bring it up to speed.   |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 17 Aug 2008 8:25 pm
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Thanks George. Praise from you is praise indeed. Yours are some of the best lap steels out there.
How does it sound ? Well, it didn't sound so bad with the original pick-ups, but the GeorgeLs really transform it. It's difficult to describe the sound: I'll have to record something on it.
The scale length is unchanged at 20 3/4 ins. I use threaded rod or tube because it holds the strings well and allows you to change the string spacing to whatever you want. I'm using the same spacing as on a Fender Stringmaster.
The nuts are made of ebony, topped with threaded rod. The bridges are made with chromium-plated pipe. I use a tube cutter to score through the pipe to create grooves for the strings. You have to be careful no to score too deep or you go right through the pipe. The final cut does go through the pipe and cuts it to length. Inside the pipe is a threaded rod with washers held in position with nuts. This distributes the weight evenly across the bridge.
Costwide, it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense unless,like me, you can pull parts out of your box of spares. The Galveston costs about $140, the Grover tuners about $60, the GeorgeL pickups about $120 used. Then there's rod stock, nuts, bolts, string anchors, cans of paint. But then, what D8 lap steel can you get for less than $350 ? Plus I end up with two sets of adjustable bridges that I can use on some other instrument. I forgot to mention that I changed the plastic pot and volume knobs for Fender-type,
I thought of putting a Hipshot Trilogy on one of the necks but there wasn't room.
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Jeff Strouse
From:
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
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Posted 19 Aug 2008 11:02 am
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Very nice mod Alan!  |
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Rocky Hill
From:
Prairie Village,Kansas, USA
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Posted 19 Aug 2008 5:38 pm
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Nice mod, but was there a particular reason for putting the string ferrules in upside down.
Rocky |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 19 Aug 2008 6:24 pm
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| Rocky Hill wrote: |
| Nice mod, but was there a particular reason for putting the string ferrules in upside down ? |
The string retainers are at the back. I cleaned up the appearance of the top by using tuner grommets. They're the grommets that came with the mandoline tuners. Because of the slotted peghead they weren't necessary there. They are inserted the right way round. The end that goes into the cavity is splined.
Last edited by Alan Brookes on 20 Aug 2008 6:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Rocky Hill
From:
Prairie Village,Kansas, USA
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Posted 20 Aug 2008 4:08 am
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Ok, I see now. The picture is deceiving, I could tell the cavity looked a little large. makes sense if you used tuner grommets.
Rocky |
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