Thread: Supplies for lap steel

A left handed lap-steel would be no different to a right handed one. The strings would need flipping and so would the saddle and nut.

Tasmanian tone woods will have you covered for wood. AMS will have the rest.

If not LMII or stew mac.

Hi Lux,

Thanks fo the AMS suggestion - I wasn't aware of them so just what I was after. Planning on Tassie Tonewoods or Mathews Timber for the blank, just need the shiny bits and prefer a local supplier.

I plan to get a standard lap steel plan and flip it, which is easy enough. However hard to buy one as although I thought of restringing a RH one, the control knobs would probably get in the way of playing so less risky to start from scratch.

Thanks,
Darren

Sorry TK1, I mis understood what you wanted.

I thought you meant a weissenborn, which is a symmetrical acoustic instrument.

I didnt realise you were talking solid body I understand now about the controls etc. For pickups look at Brierley Guitar Pickups Home Page I just seen a lap steel build with one of his P-90s. A p90 and humbucker would be pretty cool.

Tassie tonewoods is probably your best bet. A solid blackwood (assuming that what you will use) would be quite heavy, so you might want to do a two piece body and route out some chambers.

Well using a standard plan may or may not be the best way to go.
Most of the old lap steels were designed for a C6 tuning which is good for hawaiian music or western swing.
They generally were a 22.5 inch scale.
For tuning to open E or D a 25" scale like a weissenborn works better
Drawing up your own design around this scale length is pretty easy .

Check out Asher Lap steels
Lap Steel Guitars - Custom made in California by Luthier Bill Asher

They are nice looking weissenborns Jeff.

Here are a few more pics, these two are ebony fingerboards, the rest is blackwood these two are sold but there is two more here. The two new ones have a blackwood fretboard and it looks alot better it helps when the figure is all time.

Hi,

Thanks again Lux - I should have been more specific that I intended to do an electric build.

Jeff - thanks for the scale length advice, I'll need to look at that.

I'd like to do an acoustic eventually but plan to start off with an electric first as although it has the electronic aspect, it will be a quicker and easier overall build without worrying about a hollow body acoustics and building - that's my view anyway! )

Thanks again,
Darren