The wood tone is as it aged. I only used some polyurathane gel to seal the grain. What you see is what Southern Pine looks like aging inside a wall for 23 years and inside my garages (3 moves) for the next 27 years. No staining was done. I picked up a 'modern' 2 x 4 that was perhaps 5 years old and 'thunked' it with my knuckles. I repeated with this older one. I then asked my wife which would make the better guitar. She said the one that sounds like a bell (older one). Thus, my first lap steel was born.
Yes, it is the CB Gitty P90 pickup. Sounds fantastic. There is an excellent demo video by CB Gitty on Youtube that sold me on it.
I'm still learning to play the thing, but 50 neighborhood cats wailing at a fever pitch seem to think it sounds OK. A couple of zombies were attracted by the noise, too.
I am also using D'Addario EXL115 medium gauge strings. I used the Shane Speil 2 x 4 lap steel article as guidance, but I can never build anything strictly according to plans.
It's a 60 year old southern pine 2 x 4 from my first house. I moved the wood to 3 different addresses over 35 years before finding a use for it.
The tuners are black skulls with beady red eyeballs and nose, also available at CB Gitty. The copper nut and bridge hold downs are 1/2 inch copper water pipe hangars leff over from reinforcing some closet wire shelves that came down about a month after the East Coast earthquake.
Knobs are Radio Shack left over from some amateur radio projects I built in the 1980s.
Tailstock is Gretch-like from a vendor on ebay. I was going for a hand built look like the Vikings would have done if they had Marshall amps in the late 900s common era.
Comments
The wood tone is as it aged. I only used some polyurathane gel to seal the grain. What you see is what Southern Pine looks like aging inside a wall for 23 years and inside my garages (3 moves) for the next 27 years. No staining was done. I picked up a 'modern' 2 x 4 that was perhaps 5 years old and 'thunked' it with my knuckles. I repeated with this older one. I then asked my wife which would make the better guitar. She said the one that sounds like a bell (older one). Thus, my first lap steel was born.
Awesome, love that warm wood tone and great style! Bet it will sustain for days!
How does that Pup sound? Is that the one from Gitty? Nice work.
Bob Taylor, Paul Reed Smith and Chris Martin don't have anything to fret over.... I'm not planning to go to NAMM 2018.... YET <smile>.
Looks great!
yup !
VERY nice!