Building a Duesenberg-style lap steel

[Steve Pavey]

I'm hoping to start building a lap steel, using a Duesenberg bridge, and possibly a capo system similar to the one on the Fairytale. So far I have some fairly rudimentary drawings in Fusion360, and plenty of mahogany to laminate the body blank, which I'll shape on a cnc router.

I'm not sure about the string spacing and width of the fingerboard - I see the specs of the Fairytale say it's 65mm at the nut - am I correct that it is parallel all the way? How does that affect the choice of pickup, given that most are intended for conventional guitars so not as wide?

So advice on suitable pick-ups (two would be nice if possible) would be very welcome. Thanks.

[Karlis Abolins]

Regardless of the string spacing at the nut, Your bridge spacing depends on the pole spacing of your pickup(s). There are two "standard" pickup spacings: Fender and Les Paul. If you plan to use the Duesenberg bender, the string spacing of the bender controls your choice of pickups. I went through all of these considerations when I built my "doozietone".

Karlis

lapsteel.jpg

[Steve Pavey]

Thanks. That's a really nice guitar, and more or less exactly what I have in mind. Can you measure the width of the Multibender bridge, ie the distance the rollers are apart from the lowest to highest string? And also could you say what pickups you have fitted?
By the way, before joining the other day I have read most of the Duesenberg-related threads here, and the information you have provided to others on your build is invaluable - thanks.

Edit - Looking more closely, I think you may have the Certano bender fitted, not the Duesenberg. So it may be that you don't have the latter to hand to be able to measure.

[Karlis Abolins]

I replaced the Certano bender with the Duesenberg bender because I need a lower on my setup. The Certano bender is a good bender but it only does raises. I measured my Duesenberg bender bridge. The distance from the 1st string to the 6th string is approximately 5.35 centimeters (~2 3/32 inches). My pickups are Lollar PAF Imperials with F spacing (Fender). On the Lollar pickups, the spacing for the F spacing pickups from the 1st pole piece to the 6th pole piece is 2 1/16 inches according to their website. With the Duesenberg bender, you should have a lot of choices as long as you stick with F spacing.

Karlis

[Steve Pavey]

Thats great info, thanks. I’m slowly getting my head round this, and I can now start to add the details into Fusion. I’m thinking of making a body from some redwood first as a dummy run to make sure the cnc does what I want it to, but Ive got a couple of 1” mahogany boards which I’ll laminate for the real thing.
Many thanks.