The Steel Guitar Forum

Here is a new one of mine, its kind of a variation of my other Deco steel.
This build was for a friend of mine that is a pickup winder, thus the sudo single coil inlay at the 12th.
He wanted the Tele trim, so thats what we used.
The knobs are going to be changed out, just have not decided on what yet.

Some specs;
25" scale
African mahogany / Khaya and quilt maple
Amber shellac sealer to pop the quilt a bit toped with Tru Oil
Mammoth ivory inlay and nut
Pickups are BG-Pups, a hot BG-Bucker bridge and a BG-Stealth neck

The photos are not my best, but I'll re-shoot when I get the knobs sorted out.

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Very nice. Beautiful wood and precise workmanship. Thanks for sharing.




Jude

That's a real nice one. Makes me want to go buy some more tools and get busy.

This looks like an interesting selection of knobs.
Click Here

Jude

Another great job on a beautiful lap steel, Tom. Interesting about the shellac. I discovered this on my own when I was experimenting with maple finishes for my Dynalap, in another thread. Shellac seem to pop out the figure in curly maple better than anything else without accentuating the grain itself. I tinted the shellac with dye to get the red-orange color on my guitar. The good thing aout that is that you can thin or rub back the shellac with alcohol to even the color out if it gets blotchy, or the shellac gets too sticky to work with. It must have been you that turned me on to Tru-oil. That's great stuff too.

Nice work!

Thanks all

Jude, those knobs look great and the price is certainly reasonable, you can't make them for that.

Kevin, nothing like a good excuse to buy tools

Jerry, yep, I'm a big fan of Tru Oil, it has a great feel and can really bring wood to life.

I didn't tint the shellac on this one, the dye would have stained the ivory.
The flake I used has a nice natural amber tint to it.
I mixed a thin 1 lbs cut and did a couple wash coats.
The thin cut lets it get real deep into the irregularities of the figure.

Here is a pic of the flake.

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It doesn't seem like the inlaid pickup at the 12th fret would pick up more than the middle 4 strings. Is this a problem?

David Simenson

I'm thinking the pseudo pickup at the twelth fret is decorative as the owner is a pickup builder. Tom builds better than he spells, whereas I'm just the opposite.

Jude

LoL ... yea, Jude is correct.

The "pickup" at the 12th is just a decoration.
I made it out some of the Woolly Mammoth ivory and filings.

I finished a curly/birdseye maple gunstock by almost finish-sanding it. I rubbed in a light coat of a brown stain. Let it dry, and then finish-sanded it. The stain barely seeped into the very tight grain, but it did penetrate the curl and the birdseyes. The finish sanding removed the stain from everywhere else. I was into Tung Oil at the time. I built a drying box from an old speaker packing box and an industrial strength old hair dryer. I was able to do 4 coats a day of hand-rubbed oil. Did about 30 coats. It looked smooth, shiny, and about a foot deep. A lot of work, but it was worth it. Got me a bunch more gunstock work. I'm sure the same technique would work with other finishes.

Tom, you do beautiful work. I love your steels. I'm curious about something though. It appears you have the bridge adjusted making the scale length of each string different. Did you do this for intonation purposes? It's very unusual in the world of lap steel. Please enlighten a fellow steel building experimenter. Thanks.

Hats off for a beautiful guitar. I'm pretty sure it would look good on anyone's lap.

Another beautiful steel and I bet she's wails too

A really beautiful work of art, but I'm curious about the settings of the adjustable bridge pieces.
Why are they 'staggered' ?

You, sir, have done it again! I love the inlay and the colors of the wood. Another beauty, Tom.

Peter

I'm probably stating the obvious, but it reminds me of the National models like the New Yorker.

As Basil asked, why are the adjustable bridge pieces staggered ? There's no fret pull to compensate for.

Impeccable workmanship Has a New Yorker influence to my eyes, very art-deco. I would think it has a wide tone spectrum, with two pickups.
Another fine job

hats off to shellac. nice decision there.

Very beautiful grain in those pieces. Again, I think it's outstanding!

Thanks all

Yep, as with my other deco design, there is lots of National influence in there, I love that look.

On the bridge saddles, the pic was before I got it set up, bridge comes pre staggered.
I was loosing my daylight and took the pics before I had even plugged it in.
I've been thinking of ditching the saddles and replacing them with a section of some SS round stock, kinda like a String Master bridge.
So many ideas and so little time.

After playing around with it for a few days, I've been enjoying the neck pickup and middle combo.
The pickups the owner sent me are very nice, but he also makes a HB sized P90 type that I like a lot.
I've got a couple of them here and might toss them in for a few laps around the block.

Just gotta say, I love the headstock shape / layout as well. Great design!

As always, stunning work Tom!

Fred

Thanks, it was fun to build

Here is the full scale concept drawing I did.
It all starts with a centerline.

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Wonderful