Basically, my steel guitars are parts value only (tell this to the seller who‘s trying to sell a heavily tinkered with early post war guitar on eBay for ages. I could use its fretboard and pickup, if only to more thorougly botch mine. He wants serious money though.)
This would be my pick, not least because putting it together was such an unexpectedly bloody lot of work.
ГавайÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ñлектрогитара was built at the Moscow Experimental Fabric of Musical Instruments in the 60s. It is a (fairly exact) copy of Resonet Arioso from Czechoslovakia , which, combining designs of two American models, would become the most advanced European lap steel guitar for decades to come. Now the Soviets, instead of using two coils, wired Stringmaster style, installed a double bar magnet PU with multiple coils like those from headsets and telephone receivers, giving a very pleasing, warm fuzzy tone.
Craftsmanship was quite sloppy then, crappy tuners, bad wiring, even the nut was unevenly cut, which gave me the idea of converting one into a seven-string, if I was recutting the nut anyway. And coming from a country where even your everyday beater has seven strings, why not? (and this is exactly where the original tuners went along the way – to a Leningrad acoustic that had completely unusable units. Russian machines have a wider post spacing than Western ones, so replacements are hard to find).
Interestingly, while instruments in domestic collection mostly are in mint condition, those that made it across the Iron Curtain are pretty beat up. So was this one, all varnish stripped, I#m glad that a prvious owner repaired the shattered in six pieces plastic fretboard. I upgraded the saddle and tailpiece. And yes, both plexi covers are missing.
Unfortunately the original pickup isn‘t working anymore, so I fitted a very unexciting Asian humbucker that was about flat enough under the cover. It sounds better than expected that way.
built by Tim Scheerhorn, in 2005, out of quilted maple. I am the second owner, Tim was the first—this was his personal ‘show’ guitar.
the real deal 
