Lap Steel Body

So I purchased a block of African mahogany from a specialty lumber store in Commerce City, and after picking up a few new tools (including a snazzy jigsaw) I started hacking away at it.

Things have gone pretty well - I've made a few mistakes, but nothing critical, mostly just cuts a bit too deep. Some sanding and cleanup should rectify most of that.

Here is the body as of now, with the general shape cut, and headstock done:


And here is the worst workbench ever, held together with duct tape and frustration:

Lap Steel

So I've decided to construct a lap steel guitar.

Guitar modification is fun, but expensive, and you end up de-valuing your finished work in most cases, unless the mods are very basic or expected (upgrade bridge, tuners, new pickups, boring stuff). Big changes like new routing don't usually sell well, so its hard to afford new stuff.

So I said, why not make my own from scratch? Making a normal electric guitar is a pain - with the separate neck and body you need perfect routing skills, and the neck is very hard to construct, since it needs to be thin to accomodate your hand, thus needing a truss rod, and other complexities. And if its off by very much at all, the finished product will just plain suck.

But a lap steel doesn't need a separate neck and body, doesn't need frets (the fingerboard is basically decorative), is much smaller, doesn't need to balance, and since both hands are on top it can be very thick, making the truss rod unnecessary.

So I've done some research and decided to go for it. I'll use mahogany or cherry for the body, a single pickup (probably p-90), simple bridge and nut (aluminum stock), cheap Stew-Mac tuners and mostly left over electronics.

I have no idea how to play lap steel, but I've been really interested in slide guitar and open tunings lately, and a lap steel is essentially the full realization of those ideas together. It's mostly a country instrument, but I think it can be used for all types of music.

Here is a neat video of Kaki King looping it and using it for percussive noise as well :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0JxT93JJKI

The Shins use it in some of their more country influenced songs, and a band called Japancakes that makes neat instrumentals uses it relentlessly. So I think I will construct this for fun, and if it turns out to be a great thing, maybe upgrade it.

Here's a link to a lap steel that I think looks really neat (in case you aren't sure of what I'm even talking about):
http://www.gretschguitars.com/products/index.php?partno=2515902552

after a long pause

I have not been doing much of the guitar project thing for a while now... for various reasons, not many of which are good.

I'm getting back on the bandwagon, though. I've got several things in the queue to finish up, and quite a bit of extra junk to get rid of.

I'll hopefully post updates on the following in the near future:

• Strat - converting back to single coils with a bridge tap button
• Tele - Finishing setup, sanding out arm contour, potentially humbucker mods
• Year of the Rat Pedal - Soldering
• Dark Boost - Soldering and finding small enclosure
• Jazz Bass - Ash body with series/parallel switching
  

upgrading strat saddles

I always thought the bridge saddles on a vintage strat were awful, but didn't realize there was a very affordable replacement until recently. As soon as I found out I ordered a set, and just installed them. It all went smoothly except they were missing a grub screw when they arrived - I used one of the existing screws, which sticks out just a bit, but works just fine.

Here's a picture of the vintage-style saddles (left) and the new ones (right):

As you can see the new ones are much more solid and have a better divot for the strings to rest in. The old ones are really just a piece of sheet metal formed into the rough shape of the saddle.

I'm quite happy with the change, it was definitely worth it.

humbucker!

After my lesson on Thursday night I had decided to stick a humbucker I'd gotten off eBay into my strat - I'd never much liked the sound of the pickup in the bridge position, so I found an H-S-S pickguard and an inexpensive humbucking pickup. Here you can see it just screwed into the pickguard (alongside a little block of maple I may someday use to fully block the tremolo):

So Saturday afternoon I finally grabbed the soldering iron and wired her up! Things went relatively smoothly - I don't like working with four-conductor cable, though. The sub wires are very tiny (especially the bare ground) and seem far too delicate. But so far everything has worked, except initially I wired the humbucker out of phase with itself because of a misunderstanding of the Seymour Duncan wiring diagram, which caused it to sound like a hilarious choked ping instead of a beefy humbucker.

All I had to do was swap red and black and everything was fine. I even wired it so that the middle + rear position on the pickup selector selects only one of the humbucker coils, so it keeps that classic strat sound. Here is a picture of me scrutinizing wiring diagrams:

Here is the finished product sans the control knobs. I think it looks snazzy, and the sound is what I was hoping for. The output levels aren't uncontrollably different, and the bridge sound is much better than the sproingy single coil pickup - it has a thick controlled sound that is much more SG-like.

Coming soon: new bridge saddles from GFS + a Floyd Rose style bar string retainer.

pickups

The pickups finally came in, somewhat unexpectedly as I had not heard any confirmation from the winders. They look very classy; I had a little trouble getting the bridge pickup to mount. The screw sockets mounted in the base plate kept popping out from the amount of pressure I had to apply; I think the mounting holes on the Barden bridge were spaced a shade too wide and caused too much extra friction.
With a little perseverance and elbow grease, I managed to finagle everything together, and it seems to be fine now, although the real test will come once the strings are on and I'm adjusting the pickup height with output.

Still searching for the perfect neck - I do know that I want a narrow nut, and a decent medium "C" shape, maple/maple with a nice vintage tint. Hopefully one will pop up somewhere. Here is the current state of things:

Telecaster Update

(I know the timing seems odd - a few minutes after the previous post - but I'm catching up on some stuff I meant to record).

Telecaster body is looking good - the weather and my health haven't been quite good enough for me to start on the sanding of the arm contour/removing the damage, but I did eBay most of the electronics, hardware and a fancy bridge.

It's a "Joe Barden" bridge, and it has a decent reputation among Tele enthusiasts. It's very thick steel and has extra screw holes for clamping it down (which I drilled and installed) as well as including brass slant-compensated saddles, which I had planned on using.

I've put together the wiring the best I can without the pickups - the switch and pots are pretty much wired, and I've hooked it up in a reverse style so that the volume knob is closer to the playing hand. I think it is a bit more useful, and I like the look and individuality.

I'm now keeping an eye out for a neck, as well as ordering some Bill Lawrence Keystone Tele pickups, although I sent payment some time ago and haven't heard back... hopefully everything is ok in that camp.