Lap Steel Construction Questions
Moderator: Brad Bechtel
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Lap Steel Construction Questions
Having a guitar maker build me a lap steel. He's very open to my input on design features. What's a good spacing between strings? I currently have a Lazy River Weissenthingy which I find very comfortable to play. Also, he usually makes resonator instruments and uses a wooden saddle. I know there is some debate on whether a harder material is advisable, metal or bone. Any input from the forumites on what I should request for a saddle, or some thoughts on what each substance does to effect the tone?
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Ditton on what Ron said. Much will depend on the p'ups you choose, their pole-spacing, placement on the guitar and over all scale. Get all your parts together and lay it out beforehand to avoid unpleasant surprises.
I've used metal and bone saddles and nuts. You can try wood too, I am currently using an ebony saddle on a Tele set up for bottleneck.
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Half-assed bottleneck and lap slide player. Full-assed Builder of resonator instruments.
I've used metal and bone saddles and nuts. You can try wood too, I am currently using an ebony saddle on a Tele set up for bottleneck.
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Half-assed bottleneck and lap slide player. Full-assed Builder of resonator instruments.
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- chas smith
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To my ears, 6061 T6 aluminum sounds the best. The 6063, that most extrusions are made from is very soft.<SMALL>Are you guys using a special type of aluminum or jsut what you can get at Home Dept?</SMALL>
The string spacing that I favor is the "standard" pedal steel spacing of .343.
If you have access to the more exotic metals, titanium 6-4, Inconel 718 and the Hastelloy alloys are pretty interesting.
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Thanks Gary--Had inquiries, but never sold the "stretcher" unit ala carte; just complete instruments. It's a very labor-intensive component to put together 'cause as you can see, there's a lot of cutting, drilling, & tapping involved. Two bills wouldn't be out of line for the time it takes.
Vaguely like a vibrato unit, at least in theory; I got the idea years ago when I was using a Hipshot B & G bender on my guitar & playing in a country band. The one in the closeup is my fourth; the design has gone through a number of changes & the jury's still out as far as anything else I can do to make it better. I will say though that I recently fell in with a rockabilly band where I play mostly lead guitar and we recorded a couple of tracks where I used the steel--I ain't braggin' on myself 'cause I don't do that, but the playback was knockout!
Thanks for your interest.
Vaguely like a vibrato unit, at least in theory; I got the idea years ago when I was using a Hipshot B & G bender on my guitar & playing in a country band. The one in the closeup is my fourth; the design has gone through a number of changes & the jury's still out as far as anything else I can do to make it better. I will say though that I recently fell in with a rockabilly band where I play mostly lead guitar and we recorded a couple of tracks where I used the steel--I ain't braggin' on myself 'cause I don't do that, but the playback was knockout!
Thanks for your interest.