Well, one of my best friends who I've played music with for many years picked up a Grestch G5700 lap steel and asked if i could help him with some modifications. I went ahead and put a palm bender on it for him and a few other bits. He encouraged me to sit down and give it a try. I was hooked. The wheels in my head started turning and I thought, I bet i could make one of these myself. And 4 weeks later, I had what is pictured below done and finished.
Looking at his Gretsch, the Duesenberg lap steel, and just steels in general I came up with what I think is a pretty cool design. This is a protype of sorts but overall I'm very pleased. I went in to trying to see if I could design a lap steel that could be a "kit" and bolt it down to any sort of board. With that in mind, I created a two part system. A frame that holds the tuners and a roller nut, and then a bender with a roller bridge. The bender works similar to that of a multi bender or hipshot bender I once had on a tele. The roller nut and bridge are made from string ball ends. I've done this for other things over the years and also know that I'm not the first to use them in that fashion.
As stated this is a prototype so most of the parts outside of the "body" are 3D printed from carbon filled engineering plastics. They are very rigid and are holding up fine. I have also machined the parts on my CNC out of hickory and plan to build another using those hickory pieces. Though I can machine aluminum, I'm considering getting a set of parts made either at my work where we CNC machine or online.
I love the Art Deco design of a lot of the classic lap steels so I wanted to make my own spin on that. Being a Michigan native I started thinking of the art deco inspired high rises in Detroit and wanted to replicate that with the design. Also a fan of Jack White so I thought, if jack played a steel, what would it look like? (if you've seen the film It Might Get Loud, I guess he does play a one string "stee" guitar at the begining
) Used his blue/white/black color pallet and the number 3 throughout (three tiers, markers in 3, plates with 3 in them, etc) Body is Ash that I CNC cut to shape and finished in a hardwax oil like I do all my guitars. plates and fretboard are 3D printed but plan is to replace those with ones I cut and etched out of acrylic on my laser to give it a cleaner finished look. Just thought I'd share it here hoping some folks would appreciate it. Now just to learn how to really play it. Its been a lot fun.
Justin B
