The Steel Guitar Forum

Sat down and tried to come up with the absolutely most simple but playable D6 lap that could be made with only hand tools and hardware store parts and came up with this.

Could be made with a skill saw and hack saw, a drill with bits ( I had access to a band saw and drill press), a close grain 2/4 and a couple pieces of 1/2" thick wood of your choice for the fretboard, glue, screws and some threaded rod with washers and nuts and some plastic squares to cover the rod, some thumbtacks, a cheap set of tuners, a couple of cheap pickups, a length of angle aluminum, two pots, two mini switches, a jack and some strings. I had some old fretwire laying around so I used that, but first I tried just lining the fretboard with a medium ball point pen and it looked pretty good..that would be the easiest. I had most of this stuff lying around the workshop. I just hand brushed on a couple coats of water based clear poly for the finish.

It sounds very nice and bright and has good sustain.

EASY project for anyone with even marginal skill. Only took a few hours and was fun to make.

Very nice Bill! You have proven the point that a playable steel doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, just some elbow grease and ingenuity. I have long been a player and defender of the lowly 6 string steel guitar and intend to build a triple 6 in the near future. My main steel guitar for several years has been a 1952 Supro Twin equipped with Gibson P90 pickups. There is a long history of players building their own steel guiatrs, welcome to the latest in that line!

Thats very cool Bill, great idea

Very nice, I like it!

Looks good to me. There's a lot to be said about being simple

BILL

Cool! What kind of wood??

I absolutely love the idea of thumbtacks as fret markers. I was at a western clothing store the other day and saw the neatest engraved studs for belts. they would make great markers.
nice job there.

Yeah, Bill! Which one is the Leavitt neck?

John. I actually just sold this to a guy. He wanted open E on the back and C6 on the front

I am working on another Leavitt MP3 to share. This time I will have it all tabbed out to go with the MP3 if I can just figure out how to post it.