The Steel Guitar Forum

I've decided to do some decorating with the various lap steels I've picked up, but I'm not sure if standard guitar hangers will work well with lap steels.
Has anyone done this before? If so, what did you use?


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Brad's Page of Steel:
www.well.com/~wellvis/steel.html
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Brad: Of the standard guitar hangers, String Swings seem to work best, at least for guitar-shaped lap steels. The neck holder has to be widened, but this can be done easily in a vise. For irregular shaped instruments I haven't found anything that works at a reasonable price, so have taken to making my own, with a piece of 1x2, dowel and clear tubing. Given the price of String Swings, it's arguably worth the trouble of doing this for all your instruments. As for wedge-shaped top tuner instruments like my Fender Deluxe, they sit comfortably on the floor, propped in a corner.

Be careful of those guitar holders. I had one many years ago and it ate holes in the finish of the guitar at the top of the neck where it joins with the headstock. There was some chemical in the covering that reacted with the nitrocellulose finish of my Gibson.

-Bill

Hi Brad,

In my living room there is a rough sawn cedar
wall where I had four guitars hanging for
several years. I drilled holes in the wood
to accept standard peg board hangers and hung
the the guitars from their tuning pegs with
no adverse affects to the guitars. However,
leaving guitars out in the open for long
periods of time with the wide variations in
humidity present in a household could cause
some adverse problems I imagine.

Good luck, Maurie

Bill: I haven't encountered this problem with either the String Swing rubber mounts or the standard Home Depot clear tubing. Over time the String Swing tubing does become brittle and cracked, though. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ian McLatchie on 24 April 2000 at 04:12 PM.]</p></FONT>

I believe it's vinyl that eats laquer. There's an article on it on FRETS.com

Brad if you make up small leather strips with holes on either end to slip over the tuners then you can hang the steel's on dowels or decorative hooks. I've seen some shops do this.

You can then call it "Brad's Wall of Steel"

In my home studio I use String Swing hangers and their slat-wall system (cherry wood). These hangers can be angled to display your guitar anywhere from almost flush with the wall to 90 degrees out. The 'gripper' part of the hanger that holds the neck of the instrument can easily be widened by hand to fit any type of instrument. I have successfully displayed lap steels, solid body electric guiars, dreadnoughts, arch top guitars and ukuleles.

Before I purchased the entire system I asked the String Swing manufacturer if the rubber in the hanger would damage the finish of my instruments. They assured me that it wouldn't. Their systems are in use in many music stores around the world. Their hangers hold everything from $30 to $30,000 guitars.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Gerald Ross on 25 April 2000 at 06:09 AM.]</p></FONT>

In my studio I hang the guitars, basses and laps with a nylon cord. I take a one foot piece of 1/8" nylon cord and tie it in a circle. Then I just weave it in and out of the tuning pegs, leaving a loop at the top to hang on a hook. You then just leave the cord on the guitar at all times.

Joe

Hi Brad,

Whatever you do, do not use 18 gauge speaker cable around the tuning machines to hang heavier instruments from a nail or hanger. I heard a resounding crash some time ago... that was my metal bodied dobro falling (thankfully) onto my couch. The cable had broken where it went around the hanger. I have most of my other instruments hanging like this for years with no problem, but they weren't as heavy as the dobro.