New Steel Guitar Website

[John Tipka]

A new steel guitar website at: http://www.juststeelguitar.com I hope it is useful for someone!

John

[Ron Simpson]

Aloha John,

Mahalo. It is a very well thought out and useful site.

Ron

[Mike Neer]

Nice web site, John. There's some good stuff to chew on. Folks, take John up on his tab offer!

[Michael Kienhofer]

Allready have

[Robert Murphy]

Just aquired a 1956 D-6 stringmaster. Thanks John

[Ron Yarboro]

The Steel Guitar Tunings page was helpful as well as the build section, thanks.

Ron

[Bill Creller]

Hey John! Nice site! Lots of info for folks without pedals.

BILL

[Doug Beaumier]

Very nice, John!

[Andy Barlo]

How do you get in touch with this guy? I tried the email link but it did not work. Some kind of encryption problem.

[John Tipka]

Thanks all for your kind comments. I truly hope the site is useful in the future. I brought back the Stringmaster page that my previous ISP pulled down without asking me. I have seen past comments on the Forum requesting pertinent information about the Stringmaster series of Fender guitars.

I have since remade all of the pages for the "juststeelguitar.com" site using XHTML and CSS to get all-browser compatibility.

I am currently working on the double neck construction page as well as creating tablature in Tabledit and/or Lilypond for those who have already requested it. (The Tabledit is more versatile than the Lilypond!!) Some tab has already been sent to Australia..... Is there a need for a concise Tabledit tutorial for the steel guitarist? I had the pleasure of helping Mike Neer with the tablature for his "Four Wheel Drive" project earlier this year and came up with the tutorial thought at that time. I'm just thinking outside of the box....

Thanks all,

John

[John Tipka]

Andy,

No encryption of any kind involved, just a plain and ordinary html "mail to:" link. It must be a configuration problem at your end as others have not had any problem reaching me via email..

As a longtime Linux OS user, I'm not familiar with that "other OS" and can't really tell you what to look for... Sorry!

Regards to you and Elaine and, hopefully, we'll see both of you at the Winchester Convention in July....

John

[Paul DiMaggio]

Very informative website John.I have a question about softwoods.Spruce is used for instrument building,guitars,violins etc.What inherent problems would there be in using it for steel guitar building?

[Roy Thomson]

Good work John!
This will be a very benificial site
for many of us.

Roy

[John Tipka]

Paul,

The only variety of spruce I would consider using is Sitka spruce because of its high strength to weight ratio and its tough elasticity. My experience with Sitka spruce was in building an airplane. However, I question its ability to hold fasteners (screws). I guess it depends on what quality of spruce you want to use. There are many varieties of spruce from that found now as construction lumber to the Sitka and Englemann spruce used to make music instrument tops. Price is a consideration together with how you want to finish the guitar. Spruce is an open pore wood that requires filling prior to application of a finish, but with proper filling will finish with a satin surface.I feel that spruce is too soft in density in the solid body steel guitar application.


You will pay a premium price for a slab of Sitka spruce wide and long enough to make a solid body guitar. I think better choices are more dense woods such as alder, hard and soft maple, walnut, ash, mahogany, cherry... Alder is a good choice because of its medium density, straight grain, fine texture, machinability, ease of working, fastener holding ability, and availability. All of the other woods I mention above are good choices too.

[Dave Kolars]

Hey, John... just logged on 2nite for the first time in a long time, following another link... Great site! And you're a Linux user? Cool... me 2... See ya at Winchester!! dk

[Brad Bechtel]

Good job, John! It's nice to see your Stringmaster information is available again. Best of luck with the new website.