Rogue-RLS-1 Pleasantly Surprised - Awesome Bang for the Buck

[George Piburn]

I was asking recently for some measurements on the Rogue RLS-1 and decided to buy one real quick to take my own measurements and to scope them out.

The thought was to give it to my grand kids or to use as a student piece.

To my Pleasant Surprise It is "For what it is" completely Awesome.
They have addressed numerous little details to the betterment from ones I saw 10 years ago.

Right out of the Box, $99.99 bucks included shipping - padded gig bag, 3 legs - recessed sockets. I got this one from Amazon.

It came with:
Adequate Strings Gauged for C6 tuning
New designed Fretboard seems solid with raised fret lines and markers, easy to see.
21 Scale is amazingly Accurate. All I needed to do is loosen the strings - re set the Bridge Saddles all the way back to 21" from the Nut.
The Spread at the bridges was about .400 and the nut about .360
The Nut is plastic, but seems as close to Bakelite as any contemporary plastic material I've ever seen.
Paint Job is very nice and no boo boo's.
Tuners are plenty good enough for the price point, no need to change them, much better than the older models.
The legs are actually made to be legs , -- yes , medium quality compared to heavy duty , but plenty good for easy duty.
Every thing about it seems better than ever .
No Hums or buzzes , nice chrome dome knobs, chrome pickguard plate - solid jack, all nice and tight to the deck with plenty of hold down screws.
The Guitar part bridge unit is nice beefy metal, much more solid than those bent metal types.
The Bridge will easily handle open E or D heavier strings.

Over all for a LOW COST lap steel this one has it all.

About up grading , yes you can:
Loose the Bridge & Nut , - add 2 pieces of 1/2 angle and get a 22.5 scale with little effort or destruction of the piece.
GeorgeBoards Parts Sells Angle Brass and 22.5 peel n stick Fretboards for under 30 bucks, and some easy labor on the users end.
We are designing a 21 scale peel n stick fretboard as I type this review.
Easy to up grade the tuners to numerous choices.
New Strings to your prefered gauges, all I did was reposition them around the cross shafts to get better pulls.

[Dale Foreman]

I bought one at a pawn shop for $65 and I was also very surprised. I bought it just to keeping the muscles working and blocking exercise. It was pretty dirty when I got it but I took it all apart and cleaned it with some of my motorcycle cleaner and polished the chrome with Mothers and it looks brand new. Even had picks, bar, and gig bag! I'm very impressed with the tone as well. I plugged my Lil Izzy in it and use it in my little Roland Cube and it sounds bad ass! I have it tuned C6 and hold tuning quite well!
Dale

[Steven Albrecht]

I just got me one also for 50 at music go round, I had to sell my pedal steel for medical bills (really sucks) but this will suffice till I can afford another pedal, pretty decent sounding steel but think I am trying to get the same sounds as I did with my pedal steel, works ok with our band for now