The first one was a prototype, it was khaya ivonrensis or African Ribbon Mahogany, which made for a very warm tone, but alas the cavity wasn't big enough to hold the electronics I wanted to include, so I decided to employ a quarter sawn piece of terminalia superba or Black Limba or Korina that I had gathered in my travels, widely considered an excellent tone wood for stringed instruments
The fretboard is diospyrus celebica or Macassar ebony, with limba fret lines and MOP dots, I simply measured out, by hand, the locations and used a 1/16" solid carbide router bit to relieve the surface, this was my first time making an actual fretboard, the prototype had pencil lines right on the neck, derived using a tuner, this was also my first time using MOP which is a fascinating material, I chose a 24.5" scale
The bridge and nut were procured years ago from Rukavina Guitars in Montana, they were natural aluminum on the prototype, but I had them anodized black for the second build, they are a key component obviously and I'm grateful to have them, thank you and much respect to Mr Rukavina, who builds exquisite parts and instruments, he is also an inspiration to me
The tuning machines are HipShot locking, my first time using locking tuners and I consider them excellent in every way, very convenient and well made
David Gilmour uses a few proprietary EMG products in his strats, I am pretty sure he has his lap steels set up with the same pickups and tone shapers, so this is the direction I chose for my second build, EMG SA single coil and EMG P90 HB, along with EMG SPC and EXG tone controls, I experimented with an EMG kill switch, which has not made the cut as yet, we'll see
Since the pickups are active there is also a 9v battery compartment independent of the cavity
In the 1980s I became aware of Ned Steinberger, an industrial designer who decided to design 4 and 6 string basses and guitars on a new slate, he did an amazing job of it and I was lucky enough to own one of his early XLII basses, it brought EMG into my focus and it is fair to say I've been a fan ever since, I may be breaking rules with the SS pups, but that's okay, I hope
I have been using 3D CAD daily for communication and fabrication for over 20 years, Autodesk Inventor specifically, both of my lap steel builds have been fully drawn out in CAD prior to anything being cut, this is an invaluable tool for me
The shape of both guitars was inspired by an image of an early Audiovox lap steel I saw years back, the headstock shape is not from that guitar, it just came to be one morning when I dealt with the challenges I encountered in the prototype, specifically the first one couldn't be set down without affecting the tuning, the machines would touch the surface before the guitar, so I tweaked things to work better and that's what came out, this one can be set down without affecting the tuning
The finish is 4 coats of Danish Oil, love the high gloss lacquer finishes many of you employ, I just didn't want the need to be careful with it, so oil it is
I think that's about it, let's have a look:
Rev 3 will have a recess for the string-through ferrules and maybe some focused practice for the player, both are necessary
I'm very objective and like to think I don't have an ego, please feel free to offer any constructive input you might have, you folks are the experts, while I play the role of the hack, fire away!
Thank you ~brian
