The Steel Guitar Forum

So my bassist has a bunch of scraps from his homebrew basses that were too small for a bass, but perfect size for a lap steel. I had a piece of alder that was guitar sized. I used my Shubb SP2 on my Tele to fake steel for a song at church and wanted a real steel guitar. Thanks to Pettengill and some others' build threads, I had the itch to build a steel.

Here are the specs:
Alder body w/ slightly figured walnut top with bubinga and maple accent stripes
cherry/maple/bubinga/maple/cherry set neck, bubinga fretboard
GFS Mean 90 pickup, and gold Grover rotomatic tuners will complete it.
25" scale length, semi-hollow body
Bubinga bridge with bone saddle and bone nut. Probably going to use walnut for the pickup ring

Here's some in-progress pics:








It's been a slow process since I only get to work on it for a little bit before or after practice usually. The guitar may or may not get an F-hole.

In hindsight, I would've routed a groove to go from the pickup cavity to the control cavity, but forgot to do that before gluing the top on, heh. Might use a maple colored epoxy putty to fill in the fret slots. Still have to attach and trim(or trim and attach) the fretboard, drill for the electronics/string holes, and sand the body before finishing it.

Corwin - Loooking good - I would expect no less from a fellow Iowan - DB

I like it! Great job! You may be able to drill from the pickup to the control cavity. I have a 3/8" bit that's 16" long. If you drill at the right angle, you might just make it.
I really like your choice of wood for the fingerboard. Kinda reminds me of flowing water. I think I'd be tempted to use little MOP Dolphins as fret markers. Not straight up the center either, but sorta where the "flow" is right. Little MOP dolphins are available, already cut, as women's stud earrings. Cheap. I noticed them, as well as palm trees, etc., in a shop in Cleveland's Chinatown. Got my little girl the palm trees.
Anyway, I really like the looks of your guitar.

Doubles. Sorry!

Great job Corwin, I like it a lot!

Drilling at an angle into the cavity is not too hard with a long bit. You can get a set cheap from Harbor Freight if you need
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... mber=90029

You might want to double check that the Mean 90 fits your HB route before you get too far. Often a covered pickup like the Mean 90 or other covered HB needs a tighter radius in the corners of the route.

Looking forward to seeing it when its all done, building your own is a fun and rewarding project

Thanks for the heads up on the pickup. I test fitted it to see how deep I needed to route it and it fits.

On the "flowing water" thing on the fretboard, some of those marks are burn marks from the table saw. It will probably sand out, although I kinda like them there. After rubbing mineral spirits on the body and fretboard, it does look pretty sweet though. I wish I would've taken pics of it.