Anybody played a Rogue Jersey Lightning Lap Steel?

[Alexa Gomez]

Hi Craig,

I have a white Rouge Jersey Lightning and it's not just a bargin, but a really nice player. The stock pickup's pretty good, too, although I upgraded to the current GFS Dream 180, so now it sounds "dreamy"

Alexa

[Craig Stenseth]

Thanks for posting the picture, Alexa!

Now the Musician's Friend site has red for the same price. I better sell something first...

[Doug Beaumier]

Craig, you may have seen this posted a couple of months ago? ...it's a video I made using a Jersey Lightning lap steel ----> CLICK

[Craig Stenseth]

Now the white ones are $100 at Musician's Friend ...

[Don DeMaio]

Ron, that link you're giving for Dynalp has been busted for months now. Maybe the company is too.

Don

[Damon Walker]

I've modded several for re-sale and they were all big hits with customers. $150.00 for the basic instrument isn't going to buy you a premium lap steel, of course, but these are much, much better than some of the $70 or $99 ones of the past. Since I'm finished with my limited run of modded Jersey Lightnings, here is my overview of this steel and what you can do to mod it into a fairly nifty instrument, and for relatively little money.

For one, it has a decent humbucking pickup (BTW, it measured 16k ohms on my meter) so there's no urgency in pickup replacement if you'd rather play than tinker. The overall construction is well-done for this price-point and although (as Tom said) the cut for the nut looks pretty substantial, I don't think flex or sustain issues are that big of a deal -- just don't drop it on its headstock and you'll be fine. It certainly holds the nut solidly and the guitar seems to handle larger gauge string sets very nicely.

As Alexa showed (great idea, A!), the P-bass cover is better so you can make pickup adjustments easier, but it also enables better right-hand postioning for muting/blocking ... and I like the way it looks. I added the P-bass cover on all the ones I modded and re-sold, as well as the one I kept for myself. The perfect placement for this cover (as shown in Alexa's post) is such that the old holes are covered, always a plus.

It has been mentioned that the knobs might be somewhat in the way, but I didn't find them too off-putting. However, I found some that fit the usual mini-pots that were roughly the same diameter as the old knobs but not quite as tall; plus, they were chrome with black pearl tops -- snazzy! You can find those on eBay.

I like replacing the pickups, even though the stock 16k ohm humbuckers are decent enough. I prefer humbucker-sized P-90 pickups in this lap steel, and I used Duncan Phat Cat pickups (neck position, they are 8k) but changed the magnets because the stock A2 magnets, while giving a sweet tone, didn't have quite enough "oomph." (And BTW, the plastic humbucker mounting ring that comes with the Phat Cat doesn't fit as well as the stock one on the Jersey Lightning, so use the stock one or you'll see some "daylight" into the cavity on one side).

I bought an assortment of bar magnets -- different alnico grades, available on eBay -- and I ended up using an unoriented A5 (rough-cast/unpolished) on the bridge side, and a rough A2 for the side of the pickup facing the neck. The unoriented A5 magnets definitely have more "oomph" to them (compared to A2, obviously) but have a sweetness that is somewhere between the more common, polished A5 mags and the alnico 2's ... very nice. I measured the gauss levels of the rough A2 bar mags and they were higher than the stock polished A2's in the Duncans ... interesting!

An alternate combo that would keep things on an even keel, tonally (not too much of an EQ shift, so to speak) might be an A4 on one side and an A8 on the other for even more output ... or two A8 magnets if you really want to burn the barn down and go all "David Lindley" on your amplifier. I've really enjoyed the tone of the rough unoriented A5 mixed with rough/unpolished A2 magnets for the Phat Cat magnet combo used in these Jersey Lightning mods. I suspect Alexa's GFS "Dream 180" pickup also sounds dandy!

For any that might be interested in the mag mod, all you need to do is unsolder the two spots on the underside of the Phat Cat pickup and gently pry the cover off the pickup ... just enough to slip the old magnets out and replace with new ones. One side has the lead wires, so use that end as the "hinge" or pivot point to remove the old magnets (don't yank on or stress those lead wires). If the wax from the potting holds the old magnets a bit tight, a little bit of hot air from a hair dryer (10" away, or so, not too much) will loosen 'em enough so they'll slide right out. Don't go wild and partially de-pot the pickup ... although, that might not be such a bad thing! Many pickups are potted too much/too long (I pot mine for a very short time), but still ... best just to use enough heat to remove the old magnets.

As per standard P-90 design, the correct magnet polarity is to have the same polarity facing inwards, towards the polepieces / screws -- in the case of the Phat Cat neck pickup (modded for lap steel), the NORTH side/edge of both bar magnets facing inwards, towards the adjustable polepiece screws. Addiction Fx marks their magnets with a permanent black marker on the north side/edge, so you don't need a polarity tester to keep things straight.

I replaced the stock mini-pots with a somewhat better quality of mini-pots (Alpha) -- both 500k ohm -- but the stock ones seemed to be fairly OK and weren't awful. Bear in mind that you need a slightly longer shaft mini-pot because some of the 500k mini-pots you'll find are the really short-shaft ones that will be a tad too short (especially if you want 500k linear for tone). I found the stock pots to be pretty good, spec-wise (and the taper seemed OK) ... so you might consider just removing them to shield the cavity, then popping 'em back in ... but definitely upgrade the wiring. You'd be able to find any number of knob styles you like that will fit the stock pots.

I went ahead and replaced both pots in each guitar because I was doing a complete electronics refurbish that included shielding the cavity and plastic cavity cover with copper foil that has a conductive adhesive backing (make sure of enough overlap so the cover's foil has continuity to the cavity's foil). I used a ground wire to the back of each pot instead of grounding to the foil ... and used isolation washers between each pot and the foil/surface of the cavity (no ground loops, please!). You could also cut away a small circle's worth of foil from just around each pot instead of using the isolation washers.

Worth shielding, since it's a P-90? Nice to do, but since the cover on the Phat Cat does a decent job of keeping the noise down, this shielding of the cavity may not be entirely necessary ... but it's a deluxe move!

And to top it off, I put in vintage NOS paper-in-oil tone caps ... mostly Gudeman .022 uF ones, but .033uF would also work well. I used quality coax cable from volume pot to new Switchcraft jack (stock jack was the chintziest component) and mil-spec Teflon-insulated wire to do the re-wiring (import stuff always has the cheapest, dinkiest wire). I installed treble-bleed mods, but since I keep the volume pot on 10 and use a volume pedal, I could have left that cap/resistor combo off of the one I kept for myself. I didn't use the 50's wiring scheme some use for humbuckers (instead of a treble bleed mod), just a standard/modern one-pickup/one vol/one tone wiring setup.

Hey, it sounds good! Just twenty minutes ago I was playing it through a Roland GT-5 patch (nice COSM modeling of an overdrive tone that is very David Lindley-ish) and it was a blast!! I honestly think this is one inexpensive lap steel worth doing this amount of modding. The mod cost per guitar was fairly low compared to the tone/quality benefit. Getting the Phat Cats at a good price definitely helped ... and I'm certainly keeping this steel!

[Michael Lee Allen]

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[Doug Beaumier]

Sounds good, Michael. I too removed the cover (handrest) because it gets in the way of blocking. Buying two at a time... why didn't I think of that!

[Michael Lee Allen]

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[Michael Lee Allen]

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[Michael Lee Allen]

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[Doug Beaumier]

Nice looking twins!

I always recommend these Jersey Lightning lap steels to new students. I've started at least six new students in the last year on these lap steels. They're a good value for beginners who want to try lap steel without investing a lot of money. And they sound good! I've played mine on a few gigs, and it works fine for me!

[David Stewart]

I got the red one. Detailed information about it, not noted in MF's description:

The box it comes in has "E/G" printed on one end. Presumably that means that the guitar is strung for E and G tuning. (The MF customer service people had no idea what the strings are or for what tuning.) The stock strings are round-wound, and don't feel very good.

The tone and volume pots are set up with tone on the high strings' side, volume on the low strings' side.



The color of the red one is really, actually a scarlet red, with the same kind of pearloid finish as the white. It is not the brownish red shade you see in the photos at MF. It is REALLY red, not a retro looking red-brown. (I would have preferred a retro red-brown color.)



Inside, it is very simple. The pickup has a sticker on it that says "Bridge." So you know what kind it is---a bridge pickup. It looks like a Gibson SG's humbucker.






I've seen concern expressed about the neck at the nut, that it is too narrow and may be a weak point. It is 1/2 inch from the nut slot to the bottom of the neck; that seems plenty to me. It doesn't concern me.

The fretboard is plexiglass with the frets and markers painted in a field of a darkish gold that does a nice imitation of wood. There are 29 frets marked, with "totem pole" markers. (There were a couple cosmetic imperfections--small dots of something--in the paint of the one I received.)

The back (or bottom) is covered with black felt, except where the electronics access plate is. It is a string-through design.



The lead jack is on the end of the guitar, on the right (high strings) side. A guitar lead is included with the guitar.



The guitar weighs 5 to 5.5 pounds. It is quite light.

The gig bag is a nice retro ochre and brown tweed look. It is foam with nylon canvas covering it and a brown zipper. There are no storage pouches on or in it.

[Doug Beaumier]

Nice... I had a red one and I recently gave it to one of my students. I kept the tweed bag though. It's a nice bag, and it holds my Gibson perfectly!

As I remember, the Jersey Lightning comes with a E tuning and thick wound strings. Same thing with the Gold Tones, E tuning at the factory. The big box music stores are little help when it comes to steel guitars. They don't know the first thing about the lap steels they are selling. The manufacturers probably put the E tuning on the lap steels because store customers (guitar players) would relate to that more than a 6th tuning.

[Brad Bechtel]

Thanks for the detailed review, David.

[Mark Lavelle]

I went for a red one a few months back. I really don't like having any part of the strings covered, but the corner of the bridge was a little rough on the palm. A bit of foam and a small spring clamp turned a problem into a comfy rest for the heel of my picking hand:



-- Mark

[Steve Ahola]

I went for a red one a few months back. I really don't like having any part of the strings covered, but the corner of the bridge was a little rough on the palm. A bit of foam and a small spring clamp turned a problem into a comfy rest for the heel of my picking hand:

I used a grinder to round off the corner of the bridge- and had one of those "oh holy sh*t" moments thinking I took too much off the top. Kinda holding my breath until I got the bridge remounted and strung up the 6th string to make sure it was okay. Whew!

I hadn't thought of using foam and a clamp.

Steve Ahola

BTW it looked like brass under the chrome plating.