Double and Triple Neck 8 string lap steels

Louis Bouchier · Post by **Louis Bouchier** » 19 Jun 2012 12:19 pm

Hey all.

I was wondering who here owns Double or Triple necks? Fender/Gibson seems to of made a bunch of these back in the day. I regularly check eBay and it seems that these come up quite a bit.

To who ever owns them. How do you find them? do they play well? I would love to get my hands on one.

Billy Tonnesen · Post by **Billy Tonnesen** » 19 Jun 2012 1:27 pm

Are you talking "Lap Steels" or are you including "Consule Steels" which must have some kind of a Stand or Built in legs ? A three neck "Lap Steel" is almost impossible to correctly play sitting on your Lap, especially the neck cldosest to you. Any three neck is usually very heavy if it was built right. I had a three neck "Barder" Steel built for me in 1945 and had to have a chrome tubular stand to set it on. A two neck "Lap Steel" can be played on one's lap but most players opted for Stand. Here is a picture of my old "Barder" without it being on a Stand.

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 19 Jun 2012 2:24 pm

I have single, double, and triple Fenders... the triple plays the best, it's just more solid. I got my double and triple off of eBay, paid the going rate of about 1200 and 1600$.

They come around here, not that often... and they are snapped up quickly. They're cheaper here, that's why they go so fast. You can go blue in the face trying to get around all the pedal steels for sale here... personally I'd like to see the lap/console/resonators broken out into their own category, there's 10-20 pedal steels for sale for each non, and the nons are usually newer stuff sold by makers.

The best thing about buying an old Fender is... you're getting a guitar made by the same folks that made the 100,000$ guitars, and you're only paying 1/50th of the price.

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 19 Jun 2012 2:59 pm

Stephen Cowell wrote:You can go blue in the face trying to get around all the pedal steels for sale here... personally I'd like to see the lap/console/resonators broken out into their own category, there's 10-20 pedal steels for sale for each non, and the nons are usually newer stuff sold by makers.

Shhhhh... I like it how they are hidden among all of the PSG's since many non-pedallers will never even see them.

Steve

Louis Bouchier · Post by **Louis Bouchier** » 19 Jun 2012 3:58 pm

"Billy Tonnesen"]Are you talking "Lap Steels" or are you including "Consule Steels" which must have some kind of a Stand or Built in legs ? A three neck "Lap Steel" is almost impossible to correctly play sitting on your Lap, especially the neck cldosest to you. Any three neck is usually very heavy if it was built right. I had a three neck "Barder" Steel built for me in 1945 and had to have a chrome tubular stand to set it on. A two neck "Lap Steel" can be played on one's lap but most players opted for Stand. Here is a picture of my old "Barder" without it being on a Stand.

Yeah I meant lap steels. Although I didn't think that there are triple neck pedal steels....haha. Yeah I would love to get one. Those Fender triples and doubles look really slick.

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 19 Jun 2012 10:47 pm

Louis Bouchier wrote:
"Billy Tonnesen"]Are you talking "Lap Steels" or are you including "Consule Steels" which must have some kind of a Stand or Built in legs ? A three neck "Lap Steel" is almost impossible to correctly play sitting on your Lap, especially the neck cldosest to you. Any three neck is usually very heavy if it was built right. I had a three neck "Barder" Steel built for me in 1945 and had to have a chrome tubular stand to set it on. A two neck "Lap Steel" can be played on one's lap but most players opted for Stand. Here is a picture of my old "Barder" without it being on a Stand.

Yeah I meant lap steels. Although I didn't think that there are triple neck pedal steels....haha. Yeah I would love to get one. Those Fender triples and doubles look really slick.

In the old days they were just called "steel guitars" or "Hawaiian guitars." Billie's point was that when they reach a certain width they do get too big for your lap. A double or triple neck with legs would be called a console steel. Now if a double or triple neck is on a stand you might not want to call it a console steel- in the old days it would just be "a steel guitar on a stand."

The only solution I see is for us here in the non-pedal forum to reclaim the name "steel guitar" and let the PSG-ers add the adjective "pedal" to their name.

Steve Ahola

Thomas Temple · Post by **Thomas Temple** » 20 Jun 2012 5:45 am

Louis,

Checking Ebay I came across this "gem". It appears to be a bit rough but I am sure well worth checking out.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Fender- ... 0908329898

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 20 Jun 2012 5:52 am

Note that the guitar is posted as a lap steel.

Norman Evans · Post by **Norman Evans** » 20 Jun 2012 3:48 pm

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1954-Fender-Blo ... 0468225266

Here's a nice looking one.

Norm

Ray Montee · Post by **Ray Montee** » 27 Jun 2012 8:22 am

STEVE: Altho' I got badly flamed for making that same suggestion a little over a year ago, I agree with you 100%.

They are all nothing more than steel guitars.......

Some have pedals added........

Michael Kienhofer · Post by **Michael Kienhofer** » 27 Jun 2012 4:01 pm

I don,t often post other than to ask many Questions
but here is my newly acquired Steel.

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 27 Jun 2012 9:17 pm

Stephen Cowell wrote:Note that the guitar is posted as a lap steel.

If we look at it from the other side of the coin I think that we could all agree that a pedal steel would not fit comfortably in anyone's lap.

I was just reading that some people consider a Great Dane to be a lap dog...

The Steel Guitar Forum

Double and Triple Neck 8 string lap steels

Double and Triple Neck 8 string lap steels

A bit rough

Great suggestion!

1955 Fender Dual Pro