The Steel Guitar Forum

Very cool. The Lollar mini-humbucker looks interesting as well. I'd love to hear that Chicao Steel.

Jason's pups are terrific. So are his repairs and rewinds. My favorite bottleneck guitar is a 1954 National Debonaire. When I got it, the pup was dead. Sent it to Jason. Now it's hot as a branding iron. Back off a bit, and it's smooth as silk.
Here tis

Here's where the Chicago Steel is gonna live.

But, more on subject. Sort of! My double-bender guitar is a Dano Guitarlin. Two "Lipstick" pups. I wasn't happy about the sound, and contacted Jason. We talked about it, and he makes a 6-string Stringmaster lapsteel pup that appears to require the same sized cutout as the Lipstickers. So that might be another possibility. I haven't done the switch yet. Too many old Shobuds to restore right now!

Mark Mansueto wrote:..Alan, that is probably one of the main reasons why I have resisted installing some sort of tuning or bending unit on my steels. My fear is that if I start to depend on it and it becomes part of my general playing technique I'll need a unit on every guitar...

Mark, your concerns are justified. It's more like playing PSG now. I find myself doing a lot less moving up and down the fingeboard. I doubt if I would fit four palm levers on another lap steel. Two is all you need.

About the Chicago Steel pickup from Lollar: while it is intended "for Stratocaster", it is still quite a bit wider than a regular Strat single-coil, so you'd have to do some routing to fit it on the SX. I have the 8-string version of that pickup in a lap steel I built, and it does sound very much like the Valco string-thtough pickup on my old 1952 Supro Supreme: rather bright & aggressive, in-your-face, not for the meek-at-heart...

Oh, and as for humbucker-sized single-coils, I love Pete Biltoft's www.vintagevibeguitars.com HCC - kind of a mix between a P90 and a Charlie Christian pickup in a HB size. I have that in the neck position of a Thinline Tele I built, and this one sound just HUGE - full & warm, yet clear and transparent; I think that one would make a tremendous lap steel pickup...

Here's a pic of the one on my Tele (the bridge pickup is a VVG HS90 - a HB-sized P90 that Pete matched in look and output to the HCC):

RS, you do have to route the pickup cavity. But Mark said he was going to do that anyway to install a P90. Hence my suggestion of the Lollar. Jason does supply a template for the body route and another for the pickguard route.

BTW, RS, That Tele-style looks great! Did you build the double f-hole body?
The wood grain is killer!
JB

John Billings wrote:BTW, RS, That Tele-style looks great! Did you build the double f-hole body?
The wood grain is killer!
JB

Nope, got it of Ebay, from a seller called "cstcustomguitars".

John,
those are some sweet guitars and I bet that strat's gonna be a monster. BTW, the Dano I have is also a longhorn but it's a 6 string baritone with guitarlin pickup positions.

Roman,
I have never heard of Pete Biloft or seen his pickups but they sure do look cool in that Tele. I noticed tht one has pole pieces and the other is a rail. What's the diff?

Mark Mansueto wrote: Roman,
I have never heard of Pete Biloft or seen his pickups but they sure do look cool in that Tele. I noticed tht one has pole pieces and the other is a rail. What's the diff?

I found out about Pete and his pickup company www.vintagevibeguitars.com at the Telecaster forum www.tdpri.com - lots of positive reviews there; and from personal experience I can say that both the quality of his pickups and his customer service is nothing short of excellent (Just his webpage could use a bit of a work-over... But I guess he's too busy winding pickups).

About those pickups: the pickup at the bridge is a humbucker-sized P90-type, that's why it has pole pieces; the neck pickup is called HCC - it's kind of a mixture of CharlieChristian-pickup (the blade) and P90 (magnets and wire gauge) features.

BTW, I also have Pete's 8-string Stringmaster-type lap steel pickup in one of my homemade lap steels, and that one also sounds great.

That's a beautiful guitar. Do the F-holes go just part-way through the solid body ?

Alan Brookes wrote:That's a beautiful guitar. Do the F-holes go just part-way through the solid body ?

Actually, the body is hollowed out in large parts; it is also slightly thicker than a regular Tele solidbody; imagine a regular alder Tele body, with some parts routed hollow, and a thin ash cap glued on top.

Here's a pic the seller of that body sent me - that's what it looks like without the cap glued on:



But I guess we should get back to the original subject, sooner or later - I don't want to steal this thread...

Mark Mansueto wrote:[quote="Bob Borzelleri
Mark...

Now that I have played both my Industrial with the GFS Mean 90 (very P90 like) and the SX with the GFS Lipstick, it has become clear to me that the apparently hotter lipstick has overtones that the Mean 90 does not produce.

In a sense, it's nice to have the tonal variety between the two lap steels, but I am already beginning to wonder about a somewhat hotter single coil in a humbucker size for the Industrial. After all, reducing the overtones (when I don't want them)is only a tone knob twist away.

...Bob

Bob, just keep in mind that you're comparing two different guitars. Will the lipstick have the same overtones in the industrial? Would be an interesing test but at least we know that the lipstick sounds good in the SX. It's also interesting that a pickup called a "mean 90" is not as hot as a lipstick. I have a 1966 Danelectro with original lipsticks and they are not hot at all and never were.[/quote]

Mark...

The difference in "heat" between the lipstick and the Mean 90 seems to go beyond the different guitars. Even with soft pick attack, the lipstick acts like it is filled with nitro. The Mean 90 isn't totally mellow, it jus tdoesn't have the intensity, highs or overtones that the lipstick seems to produce.

...Bob

Bob Borzelleri wrote:... The Mean 90 isn't totally mellow, it jus tdoesn't have the intensity, highs or overtones that the lipstick seems to produce.

...Bob

In my experience, it was very sensitive to mounting height, some tweaking may help.
That said, the Mean 90 is not as "Mean" as the name might imply.

I ended up replacing mine with a BG-Pups H90 and it was night and day.
The H-90 has great note separation, is very responsive to pick attack with a sweet chimey open and airy high end.
When you dig in, it it really gets aggressive.
http://www.bg-pups.com/h90.html

Tom, those BG's sure do look cool. I'm not looking for HB sized but I see that they also make a regular P90.

Not sure if I mentioned this before but I'm seriously considering putting a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage DP-169 in my #1 SX. I'd at least like to try it since it's resonably priced and it gets excellent reviews on Harmony Central. I like the fact that it's noisless too.

Alan Brookes wrote:If you changed it to a roller nut you would pretty well eliminate string breakage. There are many ways to build a roller bridge. One way is to collect those "balls" at the end of strings. Just put a spindle through them and you're 99% of the way there.

THIS IS HOW I WOULD MAKE IT




There goes my patent

These threads sure die quick