The Steel Guitar Forum

Beautiful job! Could you please let us know the site for the online fretboard calculator you used?

Larry, I believe it was this one:

http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/

Most fret calculators only give you the numbers, but this one can model the entire fretboard and save it as a drawing. Very handy for making a lap steel. I used it as a template for creating my own designs in Photoshop. From there, you can make all kinds of nutty designs, but in the end, I found that simple is better.

Printing out the basic lines from the fret calculator is also useful as a saw guide for slotting a wood fretboard.

Now we want to hear it!

I finally had some time to record a little something with this guitar. I cobbled together a kinda dreamy (but not very polished) version of an old classic. It's a large video file, so be patient if you have a slower connection.

When You Wish Upon a Star

Hope you enjoy it.

Gorgeous. I'm constantly amazed by the talent I see when people build their own musical instruments. I am not worthy...

Jerry Gleason wrote:I finally had some time to record a little something with this guitar. I cobbled together a kinda dreamy (but not very polished) version of an old classic. It's a large video file, so be patient if you have a slower connection.

When You Wish Upon a Star

Hope you enjoy it.

I could listen to that all day, dude. Beautifully done!

Man oh man, that was supurb. You sir have the gift!
A coffee over the sustain at the end - does it get any better!!

Thanks, folks, for the kind replies. This has been a fun project, both making the guitar and doing this little video. I have remixed the audio track for better instrument balance since I first put it up.

Now it's on to making a nice case for this guitar.

Jerry

I love the intro, Jerry! Also, I got a kick out of the ending - it sustains so well that you could go have a cup of coffee!

Beautiful playing throughout, on a beautiful instrument. Thanks for posting it.

Jerry, I really liked that. And lovely guitar, too. Salud!

Thank you, Mike, and b0b. You guys are making my day!

For anyone interested in technical details, I recorded the steel direct, with no volume pedal, through the DI input on my Hamptone mic preamp. There is almost no EQ on the steel, just a very slight boost on the high end. No other sound processing besides reverb. I don't pay a lot of attention to video, I just kept a camera rolling while recording the sequences, and stitched it all together afterwards.

Thanks Jerry for a great post. Now the tuning - C6th or a modified version???
Thanks Jerry.

Jeff

Jeff, the tuning on that guitar is C13, a slightly modified C6. Low to high- C, Bb, C, E, G, A, C, E. This tuning is used by Barney Iasacs and other Hawaiian players. I find it to be a versatile tuning for all types of music. The low C requires a heavy gauge string, but that also means that with the same string gauges, I can easily retune to the B11 tuning that I like. I just buy a 10-string C6 set for pedal steel and leave out the first and ninth strings.

Thanks,
Jerry

Thank for your willingness to share all about this whole experience of yours. This is what makes this forum such a great thing for the steel guitar and its' devotees.
Regards

Now that I retired I have a lot to do

I invented a Vertical sawmill

This was a limb of a Mapel tree we cut into slabs

I have a lot of steel guitars to make