My New Plans

[Meegs666]

well looking at all my future plans, i noiticed something. all my guitars i want to build are pretty much the same. after high school i want to go to roberto-venn and do a lot more than just guitars. i love old folk instruments, and i can play them too, so why not get some practice?

so i think im gonna put the seven string warlock and the ml on hold for a while and kill two birds with one stone. i love playing the tenor banjo and guitar and i also have recently fell in love with slide guitar. so why not build myself a tenor and a lap steel? i mean they are both really easy projects and good practice. although my name on the forum would suggest that i openly condone devil worship and full on balls to the wall black metal rocking out, i also really love to play southern folk music and turn of the century type stuff. also you have no clue how much fun it is to be playing a tenor and just start shredding.

so here it is mapped out:

1. tenor guitar

*either tele or sg style.

*use standard bridge without the outer saddles(ala old gibson tenors)

*use real pickups but cut my own covers only exposing the middle four polepieces, or on tele just use a standard tele setup with a rail pickup in the bridge

*tenor scale length(yeah no duh i guess)

*use a bigsby clone for the wigglestick if its an sg

*either modeled after the tony iommi sg or the 52 tele butterscotch blonde

2. lap steel

*setup to look like an art-deco gretsch electromatic from the 40s.

*silver finish with metalflake in it.

*paint the fretboard white with art-deco squares and rectangles for an added look.

*old style klusons

*a bridge and peghead cover made out of aluminum

*made from mahogany with a maple cap on top.

*use a steel as a bridge angled like a tom for intonation purposes.

*use black plastic in the fret slots.

*use a tv'tron bridge p-up

id really like some feedback. these are going to be miniprojects for me for the most part. im probably buying the wood off my friend shortly.

Edited February 5, 2005 by Meegs666

[Badams]

Have you ever built a guitar? Making a good lap steel with more style than a 2"x4" for the body isnt easy. The lap steels always give me more trouble than a regular solid body electric. Dont know why but they do.

[Meegs666]

ive built three guitars, and ive set up a danelectro to play slide. i am pretty weirded out by the fact that you automatically assume i have no experience whatsoever, though. i dont see how its that hard. there isnt that much wood shaping involved. im basically going to build a thinline box. its going to have a nut extension to give extendedly high action. im probably going to just use a hardtail bridge.

Edited February 6, 2005 by Meegs666

[tirapop]

I'll admit that I don't know much about lap steels, but, since you aren't fretting strings (stretching them down to the fingerboard), just holding the slide on the strings, what intonation purposes are you going to angle the bridge for? That standard check of intonation is to strike the harmonic on an open string and then play the 12th fret and check if it's sharp or flat. On a lap steel, when you strike the open harmonic and then put the slide on the midpoint of the string is it usually off?

[Meegs666]

yeah i just saw the downpoint of that. thats why i corrected myself and said i was going to just use a hardtail.