Thinking about building a lap steel

[DarkAxel]

I plan to visit my granfolks' cottage someday, there are tons of wood and old stuff laying around, maybe I can salvage something

otherwise the plan is to probably go for a tele bridge with single pickup and the chrome cover for arm resting... My biggest concern is the headstock, but i'll figure it out

[Swordfishtrombone]

I've thought about it before. I have a friend that works as a machinist and he's told me before that he'll make things for me. My idea was to go with an aluminum lapsteel tuned to some low open tuning and attempt to work out a lever that could be used to raise/drop the tuning of one string by a semitone so I could go between major and minor tunings. I could never figure out an idea for how to do that, and he couldn't think of anything either so I dropped the idea for awhile. Maybe I'll see if he's still up to making a body for me...

[Mike]

I started buying stuff for my lap steel build. Maybe I'll start a topic about it, once I actually get started.

Picked up a set of these tuners. They're the only 3+3 slotted vintage tuners I could find for under $75. I found a local shop that sells hardwoods. The guy stocks about a dozen species in the right dimensions, so I'm heading out there this week. I'm thinking about trying some wood binding on it, since I already have a router bit that can cut the channel.

I'm going to make the bridge/nut out of aluminum. If you look closely at this photo of the one I'm basing mine on, you can see that the bridge/saddle is just a piece of angle, and a piece of square tube. Easy enough.

I haven't decided what to do for the fretboard, or what type of pickup, or how to do the control plate. Decisions, decisions!

Mike

[lapsteel]

Yep. If you have the time and some basic skills you should definitely make your own. You can make it as complicated or as simple as you want, plus you can choose any scale length that you feel comfortable with. Building your own steel is the type of project with a real nice effort to reward ratio. Do it.

Quick tip: put your volume knob right up next to the strings for easy volume swell access with pinky.

[Chankgeez]

Picked up a set of these tuners. They're the only 3+3 slotted vintage tuners I could find for under $75.

I've got similar Pings on my guitar, Mike, and they're decent tuners.