In this, my first Instructable, I will attempt to chronicle the construction of a simple Lap Steel guitar. Disclaimer; power tools and sharp cutting tools will be used and I take no responsibility for people who use these things carelessly, read and understand manufacture's instructions and safety guidelines for their proper and safe use. The nice thing about a lap steel guitar is that the fret board can be super simple or non existent at all. You don't need to install fret wire and if it isn't perfectly flat or crowned it doesn't matter.

Here I am trying to decide if I should use walnut or some lovely bird's eye maple I had on hand. Since they both looked good I decided to use them both. You could assemble the fret board right on the guitar or do as I did and glue it up and mark it off before I attached it to the guitar. Custom Vintage Sdx Keygen Photoshop. The end product should be 2 1/4' wide by 1/8' to 1/4' thick by about 18' long, it is better to go long and trim later. Also, a word about scale length, I will be using a 22 1/2' scale length with 25 fret positions.

This link has a great fret calculator. Step 8: Time to Pick It Up a Bit. Now is the time to start thinking about how the electronics are going to work, in this step I show the process I went through to make the pick-up cover plate.

I started by using a 1/8' X 2' X 4' piece of maple I had left from the fret board. It is important to have extra of what ever stock you are going to use because this step is deceptively difficult to pull off in one go. Lay out must be accurate and your cuts need to be clean.

I'll let you get the exact dimensions from the link I posted in the intro. I used a variety of tools here, a drill press, a rotary tool with a steel burr attachment a copping saw and a variety of files and rasps.

Step 9: Dealing With Cavities. Cutting the cavity for the pick up is where things have the potential to go terribly wrong. Once again be sure of your lay out and where on the guitar neck it will go. There are all kinds of theories about the perfect placement of a pick up that you don't need to get into. What you need to know is what space do you have available to work with? Since the scale length is 22 1/2' then we know the bridge will be exactly 22 1/2' from the nut.

We also know where our fret board ends, since you have glued it on by now. So, pick a spot about half way between the bridge and the end of the fret board. Here I used a drill press and a 3/4' bit, use a bit that has a flat face, something like a forsner(sp?). You will remove most of the material with this and work to the lay out lines with a hammer and chisel.

Sep 17, 2016 - 24 sec - Uploaded by rzsdad1millercustomsteelguitars.webs.com.

I set my drill press to cut to a depth of 3/4' but you can go only 5/8' deep if you wish. Step 10: Control Freak. In this step I'll show how I created the cavity for the volume pot and cord jack. As with all things, begin with locating where on the guitar you want to place the controls.

Since this guitar will be played right hand, I placed the controls on the side facing away from the player. I started with physically placing the components on the blank and deciding how much space I need to provide for them. After that it was only a matter of centering the space on the blank and drilling out the cavity. Like with the pick-up cavity I used a drill press to remove the material. I found there was no need to do any chisel work here because the components were round. Be sure you drill deep enough for the guitar cord to plug in without the end striking the bottom of the hole. I then went ahead and drilled a 1/4' hole at an angle from the control cavity into the pick up cavity to run the wires.

Step 11: The Cover Up. Now is the time to wax philosophically on the nature of building with plant materials. Mistakes happen and it is the nature of wood to show it's displeasure at being made to do something it really doesn't want to. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn, like in this case, I learned many new ways to say 'Oh S$#@'.

I decided I was not going to spend another 5 hours making a new pick up cover plate, the crack was clean and my epoxy good, so repair it I did. It turned out OK. Step 13: Let's Get Wired. One of the things to do now is make your perminant wire connections from the pick up to the volume pot and phone jack.

You could also add a tone control pot if you want but this is, after all, a basic build. I like to use a fine tip on my soldering iron because of the tight spaces you are dealing with and the small guage wire involved. Simply follow the diagram and make your connections.

Chances are you have used a stereo jack so orient the jack upside down with the long metal tab that makes contact with the guitar plug (I'm sure this bit has a name) nearest to you. Then use the tab directly away from you and the one to the left. Step 14: Getting a Bit of Bridge Work. The wonderful thing about building a guitar from scratch is that there are so many little projects involved.

While I wait for my client to send some parts he wants on this I started work on the bridges. I am using 3/4' X 1/2 ' aluminum L channel cut to the same width as the fret board. I then sanded it through the stages up to 600 grit. Be sure to knock off any sharp edges and corners too.

I then located and drilled the holes for the mounting screws on the 1/2' lip. Make 2 of these, one acts as a nut, the other a bridge. Then measure in 1/16 ' in from each end.

Those marks will be for the E strings. Then, divide the remaining space to accommodate the other 4 strings. When notching the aluminum for the strings it is important to keep in mind that the tops of the strings all need to be at the same hight so all you are really doing here is making shallow notches to permanently locate where the strings will sit.

You will do the final fitting during the set up phase right at the end of the build. You will also need to make a way of holding the strings at the bridge.

There are, again, all kinds of ways to do this, I chose to use a tail block. Step 15: Boom! Like any time you try something new, you can make mistakes, in this case for example, I learned that lacquer doesn't like ink, and that I should have tested the application first. Oh well, learn and move on. I used a gloss lacquer for the finish of this project because of many past successes.

Brain Builder Pc Family Edition Of Amazing on this page. If you start with a good surface preparation then there is little or no sanding between coats. Spray lacquer is a great way to go but brush on is ok too. I did a brush on application for the first coat because I was dealing with very dry wood and I knew there would be a lot of absorption.

The final 3 coats were sprayed. Warning, this stuff is very nasty to breathe and very flammable so good ventilation, and no open flames please.

A respirator would be a good idea too. Step 17: And We Are Done. So, I have laid out and drilled for the machine heads, the next thing to do is to attach the machines. Next I did the final setup on the bridge and nut, which was just a case of filing the notches down to get the all the strings at an equal height. The thing to try and do here is make sure the bottom of the notches are round.

This prevents the strings from buzzing. After that is done string it up and run it through the amp! I won't offend the real lap steel guitar players out there by posting a video of me testing it.

I'll post a video at a later time of a friend playing it (he actually knows how). I hope you enjoyed this rather long instructable and try building one yourself. One thing I might be concerned about with this instrument is with the wood lamination part.

It may or may not be a problem, but at least theoretically it could be. Using pine and maple, especially back to back, could cause warping, due to the different expansion and contraction characteristics of the two different woods.

This probably wouldn't be a problem if you make sure that you cover every square millimeter of the wood with your finish so that there would be no possibility of moisture transfer from the air to the wood (and vice versa) in varying humidity conditions. With laminating the body, you could also have made a groove down the middle of one (or both) of the pieces and placed a piece of steel rod in it before laminating. This would help strengthen it and also help keep it from warping. Pretty cool instrument though! I hear ya on the movement differential, but that again is of little concern because of the nature of the guitar, so long as you don't get such a massive twist that the strings are radically uneven, it would remain playable. I seriously doubt a truss rod would do much good here. I did seal the end grain with epoxy to prevent that sort of thing happening before I put 4 coats of lacquer on it.

If anything the lamination of pine to the maple will help stabilize the natural tendencies of maple to twist. (damn site cheaper than solid maple too).

Johnanthonyguitars.com Plans to build this Danelectro style steel guitar - John Anthony. 1024 × 768 - 151k - jpg pinterest.com DIY CD-- BUILD YOUR OWN PEDAL STEEL GUITAR- - NEW CHANGER MAKING. 236 × 177 - 11k - jpg cigarboxguitar.com 1965 Hawaiian Lap Steel Guitar Plans - Full Size PDF Download 620 × 350 - 65k - jpg youtube.com Ryan's Lap Steel Guitar built from a 2X4 - YouTube 3296 × 2472 - 890k - jpg youtube.com Homemade Pine Lap Steel - YouTube 480 × 360 - 15k - jpg pinterest.com 286 best CBG's, lap steel & guitar building images on Pinterest.

480 × 360 - 16k - jpg pinterest.com How to Play a Lap Steel Guitar Instructions Pinterest Lap. 1024 × 768 - 98k - jpg johnanthonyguitars.com Plans to build this Danelectro style steel guitar - John Anthony.

1100 × 733 - 151k - jpg pinterest.com Click this image to show the full-size version. Guitars LAP. 450 × 594 - 89k - jpg johnanthonyguitars.com Plans to build this Danelectro style steel guitar - John Anthony. 1024 × 768 - 371k - jpg lulu.com How to build a weissenborn slide lap guitar by terry Buddell. 246 × 320 - 63k - php johnanthonyguitars.com Plans to build this Danelectro style steel guitar - John Anthony. 1024 × 768 - 388k - jpg pinterest.com Best 25+ Lap steel guitar ideas on Pinterest Steel guitar, Used. 360 × 500 - 31k - jpg cigarboxnation.com Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar - Cigar Box Nation 624 × 832 - 280k - jpg cigarboxnation.com Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar - Cigar Box Nation 624 × 832 - 262k - jpg guitarworld.com The DIY Musician: How to Build a 2x4 Lap Steel Guitar - Guitar World 1200 × 848 - 120k - jpg pinterest.com Best 25+ Lap steel guitar ideas on Pinterest Steel guitar, Used. 736 × 552 - 179k - jpg cigarboxguitar.com 1965 Hawaiian Lap Steel Guitar Plans - Full Size PDF Download 340 × 142 - 8k - jpg pinterest.com 286 best CBG's, lap steel & guitar building images on Pinterest.

300 × 400 - 30k - jpg johnanthonyguitars.com Plans to build this Danelectro style steel guitar - John Anthony. 1100 × 733 - 149k - jpg.