5 humble diy lap steels

[Mark DeSimone]

Hi everyone, I've found so much wisdom here as a lurker, and I finally joined so I wanted to say hello. Wanted to share the instruments I've built in the last couple years. I'm a trombonist and modest tinkerer who got the bug for lap steels a few years ago. My budget is always tiny, and my building skills started at zero. Plus, I'm restless and don't like committing to one idea. So, I came up with a way to build these instruments that works for me, and allows me to treat builds as experiments that I can undo and mess with. I really prefer experimentation over perfection.

Basically, the instruments are made out of 3/4 inch planks from the hardware store. Except for the top instrument, there are 2 layers of planks glued to each other. In the top plank I cut out places to put my pickups. I look for straight planks, then glue and screw them together hoping they'll stay in contact with each other.

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Above is a picture of all five instruments. At the top is a 15-string lap harp - born out of finding a huge, sturdy steel platter at the thrift store that was begging to be an instrument.

Next is the first steel I built - an 8-string baritone with a 30-inch scale. Right now it's tuned to Bb9 (brass players love B flats!): Bb F Bb D F Ab C D. This is my favorite so far. Wood is a plank of pine from Lowe's. Pickups were given to me; I think they are from an 8-string bass, and they sound good. Not very hot because they were originally active, but they measured a reasonable resistance.

Below that is an experiment I'm really proud of. I added some other closeups of it. It's a 6-string 30-inch scale instrument tuned in octaves and 5ths: C1 C2 G2 C3 G3 C4. Inspired by a cool instrument called a megalyra, I made it for creating drones to improvise over. I wanted to be able to play this with or without a tone bar, so I devised the rotating capo system that works SO much better than I thought it would. They're 3D-printed, and when they rotate into position, their bottoms sit flush against the wood. On some of them, I carved slots for the bigger strings to sit in; this helps immensely with intonation. Speaking of intonation, having so many octaves and fifths, it's really impossible to get them all to agree. But the intonation is close enough that if anything it sounds like a chorus effect. It has a huge organ-like sound to it when strummed, and it's also fun to hit the strings with a pencil. Its pickup placement is also interesting; the neck pickup is only a few inches away from the midpoint of the strings. This is cool because it heavily emphasizes the lowest harmonics. On the other end, the bridge pickup fills out the higher harmonics and gives the tones more definition. I have these pickups on opposite ends of a dual-gang potentiometer, so as you fade from one to the other, the effect is a lot like a tone knob, but with no capacitor.

Below that is a 12-string 22.5 inch scale lap steel, because sometimes I want a ton of strings. I don't love the way the pickups sound, but I can't really justify spending on the 12-string pickups that I'd really want. I figure if I get good enough at building, I'll invest in nice hardware and pickups some day.

Below that, I have a 5 string bass made from spare parts. I built it because I wanted to have one. I saw a couple videos of Bill Hatcher playing his lap steel bass and got super inspired. It's usually tuned EADGA, which gives me an octave and a fifth in one bar position, without sacrificing the familiar fourths tuning I know from playing bass in high school jazz band. I don't like the way this sounds very much, but I really enjoy playing on it. It's the last thing I made, so I haven't had much time to find ways to improve it.

What I kind of want to do is make a 2-neck lap steel with a bass and guitar. I don't play in guitar in bands (yet), and I enjoy improvising with loop pedals and drones, so being able to lay down different lines without switching instruments would be really convenient. But, having just one instrument to focus on makes things so much simpler; that's why I still like my baritone best.

[Dennis Belt]

You are one creative guy! Very interesting ideas going on there. I would love to hear some sound samples of your unique steels.
I think the capo is genius; well done!

[Joseph Lazo]

The mad scientist vibe is strong here...I like it!

[Tim Toberer]

My budget is always tiny, and my building skills started at zero. Plus, I'm restless and don't like committing to one idea. So, I came up with a way to build these instruments that works for me, and allows me to treat builds as experiments that I can undo and mess with. I really prefer experimentation over perfection.

I can relate to this! This instrument is made for experimentation. I have many more I want to build, but finding the time just feels impossible lately. Thanks for sharing these, very unique, amazing instruments.