Source for lap steel guitar parts.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 1 Oct 2003 11:41 am

Hi Guys, I`m needing some help in locating a parts source for my lap steel guitar project.I have a Stewmac catalog but realy would prefer another source for hardware and wood along with the fret board or the dimensions....
As this is my first endever in building a complete lap steel, any hint,tips or advise
offered will be appreciated...
I did fill and reroute the pick up cavities in my Jolana D6 after the previous owner butchered them beyond use. I`m familer
with mechanics, electronics and woodworking, just not familer with guitar building, any help will be appreciated.
Thanks Much.. Frank

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 2 Oct 2003 4:45 am

Ive bought a lot of tuners, pickups, etc on Ebay. I even bought a big chunk of Maple on Ebay. (search lumber). I used a Tele style tailpiece & pickup on a six string. I bought a 10 string pickup from Jerry Wallace.
There is a fretboard calculator somewhere on the internet.

Steinar Gregertsen · Post by **Steinar Gregertsen** » 2 Oct 2003 5:21 am

Here's a site with some links that may be of interest. You will also find a link to a online fret calculator at the bottom of the site.
http://www.cooginstruments.com/Coog_Links.htm

Denny Turner · Post by **Denny Turner** » 2 Oct 2003 6:04 am

Frank,

I'm not sure that just answering your question about where to buy parts might be suggesting you down a difficult road; And your question might be better answered by a bit of explanation why building a Steel Guitar with hodge-podged parts is no small task for even someone with experience doing it. Almost every part of a Steel Guitar has to be chosen for specific design criteria.

It would help if you could define a bit of why you would rather build a lap steel than purchase a good old one for probably less than you could build even a rudimentary steel for. Even if your desire is for the building pleasure and results, it might suit your purpose to look for an old steel in the style you want and use all the already matched-up materials, parts and geometry from it to install on the steel you're building. Getting it all right is not an easy chore the first time. By giving the folks here a bit more idea about what your desires and objectives are, ...not only could you get some good suggestions, but there might very well be one or more folks that happen to have a steel suited to have all or most of the parts you might need for the project you desire to build.

There are a number of Steels that are suited to being custom rebuilt to a person's desires, especially flat-slab type. There are a number of Steels built upon a flat slab of carved wood, with the right parts to build one that way, which is a heck of a lot easier than building one that requires special knowlege, like angled headstocks to exert the right amount of string pressure upon the nut, etc etc etc. And if it's a flat Steel, then it needs a particular type of tuners and mounting for them to accept the strings on horizontal spindels rather than verticle ones that won't work on a flat Steel. There are other parameters like the thickness of wood to provide the Steel a stable tuning platform, ...that have already been accounted for in an already existing production steel; And string height matched up with bridge and nut height to provide a good height above a given thickness of fretboard, and a pickup that's the right size for the nut and bridge or vice versa, and a pickup cavity that will fit the pickup into that geometry, etc etc etc.

EBay is a great place to go and just look at the steels for sale there over a few weeks period to get some ideas, and see what's available in what price ranges, and maybe give you a better idea of the task and what you want to build and how to go about it.

This Steel Guitar Forum website is a treasure trove of archived information that you can find by typing each part and consideration into the site's search engine one at a time. Use every part on a Steel Guitar as a checklist of search words.

From the little information you've provided so far, it seems to me to be important for your first-time building circumstance to have materials and parts that are already matched up in a production Steel Guitar. When we know more of what your objectives are, folks here can make more and better suggestions if that doesn't suit your desires and needs.

Aloha,
Denny T~

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 2 Oct 2003 10:53 am

Hi guys..
Wayne, thanks for the comeback, I roam the Ebay constantly looking for lap guitars and parts,amps, and even goodies for my scooter.
Steinar, whew, what an index, I`ll be up all night for the next week checking this out.thanks so very much.
Denny,Yea, I guess I left a lot to be disired in my first post. My intentions are at first to build a single neck flat six lap type guitar.My end result will be a double or triple neck six or eight that I will keep and play forever, I hope. I know that result is some time down the road, but I`m retired and time I do have. As I said, wood working is my hobby and I do have a well equiped shop,electronics was a profession so there`s no problem there. The biggest hangup that I can see is the placement of the components in relation to each other and again the wood thickness and species.Along these same lines, It seems the overall length of the fret board comes into play.
When It`s all said and done, I think your right in that it would be better in the long run to buy a used guitar and transfer the components and in the end that may be the way I go. but for now the vision of that double or triple still keeps coming back when I close my eyes, I guess you can relate to that too...
Anyhow friend, thanks a lot for your insight, you`ve given me a lot to think about. now It`s decision time.....
thanks a lot guys..... Frank

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 2 Oct 2003 12:23 pm

Frank. Go ahead and build a single 6 first. Easy to get parts on ebay or at a music shop. Start with a simple body, 1/2"round stock for the nut and bridge. Strings through the body eliminate the need for an expensive bridge and sounds better. Hardwood from any cabinet/woodworking shop. You will end up with an instrument that is better than 90% of the old Supro $150 things that you would buy on Ebay.
I have built 30 various guitar instruments from scratch. EVERY one has been fun to build and all were a thousand times better than what I could have bought for the same money I spent in parts.

Chuck Fisher · Post by **Chuck Fisher** » 2 Oct 2003 2:36 pm

Allparts.com is good also, for pickups other than 6 string, Jason Lollar is the greatest, also look at the buy-sell here.

look out for guitar pickups without adjustable pole pieces, most are arched and lapsteels have the strings pretty much flat and level.

excellent pickguards can be made by Paul Chandler at Chandlerguitars.com

CF

CF

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 2 Oct 2003 6:16 pm

I built a six string for $50.00 and a 10 string for &150.00. I should have probably used that time for practicing but I enjoy building as much as playing. I've taken old guitars and made resos out of them. I've recently made a quasi-acoustic solid body bass using weedeater strings and a homemade under bridge piezo buzzer (Radio Shack). The inspiration for the bass came from Dennis Havlena http://edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/
who has made just about any instrument you can think of. As Denny suggested you can search: bridge, nut, tuner, strings, pickup, etc. on this forum. I've used Corian, brass, bone, alum., etc for nuts and bridges.This forum was my biggest help and inspiration ever. My latest "thing" is finding old tube amps from record players, reel to reels, and PA's and using them for guitar amps.

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 2 Oct 2003 6:38 pm

Here's one from our own Joey Ace. I wish I would have made an 8 string instead of a six string for my first. Mine looks like a long triangle fashioned after the Morrel. http://www.joeyace.com/x.htm

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 2 Oct 2003 6:46 pm

I would hate to leave Brad's homepage out of my building inspiration links.
http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/diy.html

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 2 Oct 2003 7:01 pm

I almost forgot an important note that has been discussed many many times here on the forum. Which is: Tone or Timbre is in the HANDS. So it doesn't really matter what wood, nut material, pickup-up, cables, bars, strings-through-the-body design etc. etc. you use, which should simplify the building process. You can even use a "beaver log". Search this site for that topic.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 3 Oct 2003 11:04 am

Hi guys, Oh my aching back, what I thought was a straight forward project of placing components on a board to make a steel has become a real eye opener. It seems the more I delve Into It the more there Is to learn.
Questions keep popping up as to string spacing, the pro`s and cons of fret board length, pick up placement,one or two pickups
,string gage,through body verses bridge plate attachment for the strings and even the angle of the tuners has some type of bearing on the assembly.There Is a heck of a lot more to It then I thought.
I think I`ve ran off about 30 pages of data that you guys have given me and hopefully I will find most of my answers there.
Anyhow, to each of you that responded,Wayne,Steinar,Denny, chuck and Bill you`ve given me a world of Information to digest and thanks to those who came In on my email with offers Of parts and part locations, I sincerely thank each of you.
I don`t know who coined the phrase,but It`s true " When you need help On a steel guitar, the SGF Is the place to go" Agiin guys, Thank a Million , Now to build this critter. Take care Frank

Donald Ruetenik · Post by **Donald Ruetenik** » 3 Oct 2003 3:40 pm

Download this FRETCALC program:
http:\\www.dougsparling.com/software/fretcalc/

I started out making 22.5" for playability but after making a 26", that's the one that stays out and plugged into the amp.

Denny Turner had a excellent recent post on another thread concerning woods and resonance that I can't find but would recommend. Turner ought to write a book about Steel guitars. I'd be the first in line to buy one.

Denny Turner · Post by **Denny Turner** » 5 Oct 2003 12:46 pm

WHOA Don......... Thank You for the kind words, ...but we already have that book right here all over the SG Forum, with more contributors than any collection of Steel Guitar information on the planet, ...and 100 times better than any one person could do unless they copied the SGF !

But I do have some thoughts about making it easier to find subject matter with the SGF search engine:

It is quite easy and very effective to post a request for broad information such as Frank did here, and get allot of good info from great folks, ...but it takes some time to get enough replies to more fully cover such a broad area. ----- SO, the only "difficulty" here in a person finding what they unknowingly need in short order ... as opposed to what they already know to search for ... is an organized list of comprehensive subject matter. It would be nice if someone sometime started at one end of a non-pedal Steel Guitar and worked their way along it indexing every part and sub-criteria as a "search words" index; ... an inventory of subject matter a person could have to find data for any particular purpose. (Including a list of webpage addresses probably wouldn't be worth the effort because they are subject to change ...although the SGF is highly commendable in their archive addresses reliability excellence! THANKS B0BBE!). The same thing might be done for Instructional material, etc. I would appreciatively pay $10 for a comprehensive subject-matter checklist were someone so inclined to compile one; as my old brain farts far too often ...about like a Model-T running too slow with it's spark lever too far advanced (oops ...am I really getting that old?).

Aloha,
Denny T~
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Denny Turner on 05 October 2003 at 05:50 PM.]</p></FONT>