The Steel Guitar Forum

I have access to a woodshop that has a CNC machine and also to some antique pine planks. I was thinking maybe i would make a lap steel?? Any advice or tips would be appreciated!

Building your own can be a fun and rewarding project, pay attention to shop safety and work smart.
Pine can make a great sounding instrument, some of the first Tele's were made of sugar pine. I built a prototype test rig out of some pine and was quite pleased with the tone. The only down side is it is soft and dents easily.
My best advice would be to draw your design out full scale first. It all starts with a center line, mark your bridge and nut locations and fill in the blanks from there.

Thanks for the tip, Tom. Also, your steels are beautiful.

Check out this thread:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=134200

There it is, I used the search but couldnt come up with enough satisfying results. Thank you.

Johhathon,

There were 5 pages in all on that search. Did you look at all of them? Or were you looking for something specifically that you hoped to find and was not there?

Best of luck in your endeavors.

Thanks Jonathan, I enjoy building them

A couple other simple things that I find to be helpful in both the design and building phase is see through / clear rulers and protractors.
See through makes it easier for me to accurately see that I'm on the line, find edges, centers, and layout right angles.
Good lighting is also a must and I use a magnifying visor a lot too.
It may sound like mundane simple stuff, but if you don't start strait, you will not finish strait.
And again I would just say, draw it out first. Make a centerline, nut, then bridge, everything else references off these 3 landmarks.

For example, here is my Cruiser concept drawing.


.

Here's part of my hand made inventory. It has served me well and I have enjoyed playing it on the band-stand. Tunings are A6th,E13th and C6th.I made it about 11 years ago .

[img

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/userpix0 ... 0370_1.jpg[/img]

That T-9 is really nice, Thiel.

This is my effort. A S12 and I really like the tone and the ease of playing it.

You folks have built some great looking instruments

I HAD NO IDEA TO BUILD A STEEL, AND NEVER WORKED WITH WOOD BEFORE. WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU COULD END UP WITH.YOU GUYS HAVE SOME GREAT STUFF.

robbie...that's a sharp bridge/tailpiece. did you design that?

Chris- yes, the tailpiece was made from scratch. I and a friend of mine have a machine shop where we can pretty well make most anything we need, with exception of pickups and tuning keys, etc.