The Steel Guitar Forum

FedEx just delivered this eBay find today:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0720559118










Interesting construction on this- it looks like half of the parts came from the local hardware store. Not that there is anything wrong with that. There are a few tricks that might be worth copying.

Like the bridge. It is U-shaped, but the bridge part is taller than the part with the holes that holds the strings- I wondered where Bob Diederich got that type of U channel. There is a little trick involved: the notched part (the actual bridge) is 1" aluminum angle iron while the part with the holes is 3/4" aluminum angle iron and sits on top of the 1" piece.

The nut was also made from 1" aluminum angle iron and it also serves to support the pieces of wood and aluminum that the Sperzel tuners are mounted on. There is a lot of tension on those pieces of wood and aluminum and they are wedged against the angle iron nut to keep them from moving. The only thing holding those two pieces to the body are 6 woodscrews (~ 10 x 1.25") which by themselves could never handle that amount of tension from the strings. Very clever.

The big question: so what did I think of the sound when I plugged it in? I was very disappointed- the strings were much too close to the pickup and the treble strings were much louder than the bass strings. While it would be good for distorted blues/rock, that was not what I was looking forward to from the George L E-66 pickup (designed to capture the sound of Buddy Emmons's favorite pickup from 1966).

Not to worry- it just needed some minor adjustments. I put small washers under the the two tabs on the bass end of the pickup to balance the sound and larger washers under the bridge to raise it up (which would lower the output). Results: it sounds really great now. I call it my "poor man's Clinesmith"...

Here it is with the handmade case that it came in:



I got worried when I saw that the shipment was only 10 pounds. "Did they forget the case? Or did they forget the lap steel?" Nope, it was all there. A lot of sound for 10 pounds.


Steve Ahola

P.S. There is one drawback. Like some other lap steels the tuners for the 1st and 8th strings are right at the nut, blocking access to the first fret a bit. I think that the lap steel would have to be a little bit longer to really correct that problem. Or maybe get banjo tuners like on the early Gibson Firebirds.

I bought a bridge just like that a couple years back from Chris Fouke at Fouke Industrial Guitars, worked well enough

Steve...Bob is a close friend of mine... He and his wife moved from Denver to Rosedale Ca. about 4 years ago. In fact he and I talked on the landline just yesterday. He's one heck of a nice guy. I have his telephone number if your interested. E mail me
kingjuju@q.com if you wantit. Lee

I've done some more work on this lap steel since my last post. I noticed that the 4 high strings would drop in pitch overnight while the 4 low ones were just fine. So I redid the two tuner brackets so that they were secured better and rotated the tuner knobs back a little bit to give me more room at the 1st fret.

I routed out the cavity under the George L E-66 so that I can adjust the height and angle, added a better shim under the bridge and mounted the leg sockets from one of the Rogue EA-3's that I just received. It was very tricky drilling it out with the Forstner bits because the wood was only an inch thick. So I ended up using 4 or 5 different bits, making it like steps going down to the bottom of the hole. Or an amphitheater in the round...

One note: for the bridge, Bob used a 7/64" drill bit for the 3/4" angle stock holding the strings. I was wondering if anyone had an thoughts on using aluminum vs steel for bridges and nuts. I'd always used steel which is much harder to cut, shape and drill. I have noticed that the open notes with a steel nut ring out a lot more than an aluminum nut, which isn't necessarily good. I understand that aluminum will wear out faster than steel, so I might have to replace the bridge in 20 years...

Steve Ahola wrote:

P.S. There is one drawback. Like some other lap steels the tuners for the 1st and 8th strings are right at the nut, blocking access to the first fret a bit. I think that the lap steel would have to be a little bit longer to really correct that problem. Or maybe get banjo tuners like on the early Gibson Firebirds.

Steve, can you flip over the two parts of the keyheads that hold the tuners?
You can then sacrifce the small wooden insert at the end of the keyhead.
Or maybe swapping the left and right sections might do it?

I was wondering if anyone had an thoughts on using aluminum vs steel for bridges and nuts. I'd always used steel which is much harder to cut, shape and drill. I have noticed that the open notes with a steel nut ring out a lot more than an aluminum nut, which isn't necessarily good. I understand that aluminum will wear out faster than steel, so I might have to replace the bridge in 20 years...

I have one of Harry Shephard's excellent Harbor Lights Frypan shaped guitars and he offered brass saddles and nuts. I believe Basil has one of these guitars too and he rates them highly too. (Unfortunately Harry has stopped making them. I would imagine that brass which is freely available would be a better option that aluminium or steel.

Details of these guitars can be found at http://chanos-isgf.org/ForumESG/viewtop ... f=12&t=212

very interesting !
i love using aluminum for all kinds of parts ,
although on my pedal steel builds i use steel for
crossbars , links , and such .
here's a sample of a steel i made at first with
no pedals (forgive the crossover), showing the various aluminum parts . i have a blue psg in the
pedal steel section that has the neck installed with
no. 10 stainless screws and also secured at the bridge. playit 3 times a week or more and have for a
year -- no movement whatsoever and stays tuned very
well -- it's always ready to play at any time .other
builds i have done have bolts & nuts to secure
the neck but i see on differnece so far.
pastor bruce

Peter den Hartogh wrote:Steve Ahola wrote:

P.S. There is one drawback. Like some other lap steels the tuners for the 1st and 8th strings are right at the nut, blocking access to the first fret a bit

Steve, can you flip over the two parts of the keyheads that hold the tuners?
You can then sacrifce the small wooden insert at the end of the keyhead.
Or maybe swapping the left and right sections might do it?

Peter:

I used the trick that you posted regarding your Dynalap which also had tuners right up to the nut
:


It works great now, thanks for posting your idea! I remounted both of the tuner blocks so that they butt up against the nut, which is what keeps them from moving. The Sperzel tuners don't have a mounting screw but a guide pin to hold them in place. So I drilled the holes out to 1/8" and filled them with wood dowels before redrilling them for the offset position. (With the two tuner blocks mounted properly there was no need for that small block at the top which had evidently been added later.)

Steve

P.S. I am having a lot of fun with the Deeks! I have it tuned to E9th (originally a Western Swing tuning) and it is the perfect 8 string lap steel for honky tonkin'... if it gets tore up in a fight I can just rebuild it again.