Making a quality CHEAP lap steel, I have a 2x6 for starts

[Clifford D]

I want to make an inexpensive lap steel, it seems easy,,

Surface tuners, bridge and nut lap steel size, pups and knobs and electrnics,,

Router or Dremmel, drill, saw, sandpaper, finishing stuff (if needed),,,

And the math to make it correct =)

What am I missing? Ugly is fine, function is everything.

AND GO 49'ers (superbowl day) 27/23

[OldWailer]

Here's a video of one that I made a couple of years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI158fQ4d5E --they are easy and fun to make--find the information you need on scale length and fret positions on Stewart McDonald--they're at http://www.stewmac.com/ You'll find a lot of useful info there and plenty of parts for fairly reasonable prices. You can buy tuners on Ebay for way cheap--but they ship out of China and take a long time to get.

Stewmac is fairly reasonable and the service is really good and fast. . .

Good luck with your project. . .

[Jakeblues]

Sounds like fun. I'm not sure how you plan to terminate the strings...one piece bridge, bridge and tail piece or through the body. I've toyed with the idea of making one, but I hadn't thought of going "Ultra-low tech." Sounds cool.

[ricbleu]

Here's one I made a couple of years ago. It started life as a 3x2 taraire (ta-rye-ree, a timber native to NZ) laminated to about 9" with puriri (poo-ree-ree) stringers. Contact me if I can be of any help. Peace

[s1120]

I made this last year..



I used poplar blocks from home depot that I glued up. Alloy angle stock for the bridge, nit, and spring tree. A old pickup from a strat project, some radio shack jacks, and pot.... a weeks worth of time. It was a fun project!!!!!

[ricbleu]

Looks good. I'll bet that single coil p/up can make her scream. You get a lot of results in quick time making these, don't you? After a bit of experimenting, I put the heaviest gauge d'Addario Pro Steels on mine. Considering it's so short scale and the 'neck' is so solid, the bright Pro Steels give me lots of tension and a sound I like. Like you, I just used Radio Shack equivalent pots, cap etc - Dick Smith is our Radio Shack equivalent and because I had all the rest of the hardware lying round, those were the most expensive parts I bought at about $NZ2 each, apart from the strings, of course. Peace.