The Steel Guitar Forum

A Pettingill guitar and a Hatton case equals a knockout combination. The perfect coast to coast collaboration!

Nice job Kevin, very sharp and classy

OK.....Tom's FPS-001 is in my computer room. She is stunning to look at, just beautiful. The temptation is to put her on an pedestal under glass....like a museum showpiece.

But....I didn't buy her to look at her....I bought her to play her. So, in car parlance.....let's see what's under the hood.

I wanted a blues machine (Open E tuning) that would give me a WIDE variety of tones. I wanted 2 pups for this palette. Tom suggested humbuckers but not a matched pair as what you will usually find on regular guitars.

He suggested the following BG Pups, www.bg-pups.com. Go to "Products", click on Humbuckers and scroll down the link to read/hear clips of The Lizard (neck) and The Hella-bucker (bridge). They are two wildly different pups.

What a combination these are. Steroids in the bridge (if you want to go that far depending on your amp settings and vol/tone controls) and warm/creamy in the neck and everything in between when you start to combine/blend the pups.

Just a switch of the rotary dial and I get get tones ala Lowell George to Duane to Sonny Landreth (neck to bridge). Some of the inner/outer coil merge positions are very interesting too.

She might look like a 10 but she sounds like a 10+. Thanks to Tom for a fabulous lap steel. It was a pleasure to go through "the process" with him. Anyone who has a Pettingill will attest to the same.

It was my pleasure to build her for you Steve!
I'm thrilled that you are enjoying her, thats what makes it all worth while for me!

Tom:I notice that I never see any "burn" marks on your round-over edges.I have used a router on oak, maple,cherry and ash. Even with a new router bit, I still seem to get some burn especially on the end.I use a hand held counter top router which turns up quite fast. should I be using a slower speed. Or is it a hand-job. Ok no smart replies folks.I do know how to round over by the old method. Gary

Gary ... as you have found out, it can be tough to get a burn free result with a round over bit in a router, and end grain is the worst.
A slower speed may help you and taking multiple light passes helps too.
Another thing that may help you is to put a couple layers of masking tape along the edge where the bearing rides. That will leave the cut a few thousandths shy and you can finish it by hand and remove any burn marks in the process.

That said, for the most part I do most of the edge round over by hand.
I've got a couple customized sanding blocks and scrapers I've made that work well.

Thanks Tom!Both you and Mark had the same solution.I am sure it will work fine.

Cool Gary and good luck. As much as I love power tools, some times the old school hand tools turn out to be the best route.

Stagger me Tom!! Your guitars are works of art! Pure passion mate!

Thanks Tim, they are a labor of love
As coincidence would have it, I'm just getting started on another sweet FPS in some beautiful quilt maple. Have not made up my mind yet if I'm going to go with padauk again or cocobolo rosewood accents. The padauk is stunning, but cocobolo is sweet too. Here is a pic of the monster sized billet of quilt I'm using.


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Truly works of ART ! One must wonder how you can even part with any of them !! You are indeed a Master at the craft.

Each one better than the last, We need to hear these Instruments Mr. Buyer.

James.

Tom,

I can not wait to see what that guitar is going to look like with that piece of wood. Rosewood would be stunning with that maple in my opinion.

Harry

Hello Tom,

Wow! Another beauty I see there.... alright Im drooling ok.... Im still loving my pettengil... man is she one sweet steel... for any rock enthusiests out there, I play a pettengil lap steel and you can hear it on our myspace page:

www.myspace.com/milagrosaints

listen to the song "shine like a healer" which is cut live from the outer banks of North Carolina

Tom we put out a Live CD that we are having a CD release party for on 12/19th... I will send you
out a copy... All songs on the disk have your guitar in the mix.....

take care... and great work as usual Tom

smitty

Tom is there any chance you could post or email me a pic of your scrapers you use on the round-over?

nice selection of woods - that teardrop inspired piece is particularly appealing

Thanks all

George ... building steels is a great creative outlet for me. It can be a little tough to see them go, but knowing they are loved and and bringing joy to their owners makes it all worth while.

James ... I'm a hack player and you wouldn't want to hear anything I tried to record, luckily Paul jumped in and posted his bands Myspace page.

Harry ... I'm looking forward to seeing it all done too. I'm going to the golden amber and I am leaning toward the rosewood, cocobolo is gorgeous with some nice red undertones.
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Smitty ... Love the new Live cuts! Wish I was on your side of the map, would love to go to the release party!

Gary ... don't have any pics handy, but they are real simple. For the scraper, I just drilled a hole in a piece of old saw blade and cut it in two through the hole. For sanding blocks, I just route a shallow channel in some scrap with a round nose bit and use some double sided tape to line it with 100 grit.

Grant ... Wood hunting is one of the fun parts of building for me, I'm like a kid out on a treasure hunt when I'm down at the hardwood dealer.
Those Teardrops have been pretty popular, it makes a nice steel. Check the pics in my sig link, there are a couple other nice Teardrops in there too.

Stephen Abruzzo wrote: I wanted a blues machine (Open E tuning) that would give me a WIDE variety of tones.

I have one of Tom's teardrop lap's in the 8 string configurations that I am giving my son for Christmas.

Basically, my son will be using it for the same type of application. What gauge/set of strings should be used to get the open E tuning with an eight string, or is that even an option.

What do you guys suggest?

BTW Tom,
I got it the finish polished out late this afternoon and it looks great!!!!

Ken, Tom put the 6 string Jagwire Open E set on mine. The Jagwire starts at 15 and ends at 54.....so maybe one thinner (11) and one thicker (58)?

Thanks Steve...
I hope I can find something locally.

I just shot of an email to Bob to see about getting some mailed out for Christmas.

Oh Lordy, Tom..........

I am reminded of being thrown into a light-headed tizzy by a gorgeous woman.

How in the world could ya bring that newest TP home and still live in peace with a wife prone to jealousy ! ? ! ? Sure as heck she'd treat that work of art like it was porn!

Looking forward to seeing it all finished up Ken!
For those that might be wondering, Ken likes to do some of his own work and is doing the finish and assembly for his son's steel.
Here is an 8 string tuning that Brad recommended and one I've seen mentioned a few times here by some of our accomplished players.

1. E - ( 13 - 15 )
2. C# - ( 16 - 18 )
3. B - ( 17 - 19 )
4. G# - ( 24 - 26 )
5. E - ( 28 - 32 )
6. D - ( 32 - 36 )
7. B - ( 34 - 38 )
8. E - ( 54 - 58 )

I am reminded of being thrown into a light-headed tizzy by a gorgeous woman.

Thanks Denny! ... She is a beauty