Lap steel planning stage

[old_picker]

Planning 2 of lap steels for fun and have a couple questions for any out there who have built one or several.
What timber did you use and would you use the same again or try something different?

What pickup[s] and how do they sound??

[Malibu]

Sounds like an interesting project Ray :)
Maybe http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/index.htm will give you a couple of ideas on it....

[reeves]

the standard tonewoods use din Oz would sem to apply, balckwood, ash, qld maple etc..
tho in the lap steels its more flexible i guess, redgum, bluegum, harder denser woods can be used...

Stewmac golden age overowound humbucker is a good pickup to use..?

check this guy out

http://www.desanthony.com/lapsteels.html

cheeeeers
john

[old_picker]

I went shopping and found a couple of nice boards.One I will save for ron, a piece of us cherry, nice and light with cool grain swirls. Don't often see Cherry so I grabbed it.The other is DAR spotted gum. Very dense, hard and heavy. I reckon it will be ideal for a steel. I will get 2 decks out of this flawless board. It has cupped a little so will cut it down and store in the garden shed for the rest of the summer ro make sure it has stopped moving before I start machining it.

Now to decide on the pickups and machine head mountings. Also the bridge and nut will have to be built out of what I can scrounge down at the scrappy. The fingerboard, or should it be called the "eye board' is a pre slotted flat top 25" scale Indian rosewood I got from stewmac. The slots will be filled with pine or maple strips as will the position markers. I will recess the board into the deck.

I am considering duncan 1/4 pound tele set or a pair of hot p90's. The attraction of the tele set is that they will be easy to mount and hieght adjustable. P90's are a pain to set hieght wise. Although I could use Phatcats. or evem maybe vintage buckers.

[Malibu]

For curiosity, how many strings are going on this?
It might limit your pickup choice if you go more than 6...

[old_picker]

I will keep as wide a range of choices using 6 strings.. I am a pretty plain picker and I use the steel for a bit of atmosphere. I definetly aint a specialist which the 8 and 10 stringers are designed for

[Malibu]

Yeah, I understand what you mean Ray!
I have enough trouble trying to coordinate myself around 6 strings, let alone adding more to the brew! :-