Recording King roller bridge and other upgrades

[Bill Burch]

I’ve been having fun upgrading my Recording King lap steel guitar. Like many of you, I added a Certano bender to replicate pedal steel guitar bends. To overcome the friction on the non-roller stock bridge, I reached out to fellow forum member Barry Coker, who has machined parts for other players. I sent Barry my stock bridge and he replicated it, adding the rollers and a shim plate to match the stock string height. He also copied the holes to allow me to keep the thru-body string ferrules. He did a superb job with the machining and finish. Many thanks, Barry!

For fun, I ditched the stock “mother of toilet seat” while Pearl fretboard and replaced it with some thin maple veneer that I had. I think it really improves the look. I also added some black diamonds at the 12th and 24th frets by cutting pieces of black electrical tape and sticking it to the underside of the acrylic fretboard.

Finally, I replaced the knobs with some more understated top hat versions. I did break one of the pots trying to pry the original knobs off and had to solder in a new one. I cut the second original knob off carefully using a Dremel cutoff wheel

If you’re considering buying one of these guitars, I’d highly recommend it. They sound great and are a fantastic value.

FYI, I’m currently using the hybrid G/D tuning (G B D F# A D low to high) with the benders raising the F# to G and the A to B.

Bill

[Andy DePaule]

Looks great and Barry did a fine machine job with the new bridge.
Bet you'll be having a load of fun playing it now.

[Barry Coker]

Thanks for the kind words Bill and Andy the bridge was a neat little project and it turned out to match the palm leavers very well.
Bill that fretboard is beautiful and sets off the insterment perfectly.

Thanks again guys
Barry