custom-guitars Posted August 13, 2005 Report Share Posted August 13, 2005 I am currently building a lap steel guitar for a friend. He decided on a tele body with regular tele layout. The body is no problem as I have built a few tele copies before. My concern is with the neck/bridge relationship. A search on the forums did not turn up enough info for me so I thought I would start a new thread. The neck itself is not the concern. It's going to be fretless and I think I've found a nut big enough to get the strings high enough off the fretboard. My concern is that the few lap steel guitars I've seen 1) have rather short scales(20-21") and 2)he wants to use a standard tele bridge. By having a standard bridge, this would make the nut higher than the bridge. To correct this, I was going to sink the neck deeper into the body... but that would also bring my fingerboard below the body as well. I could also angle the neck and/or shim it. Either way would be ok, but he also wants to be able to change necks from a lap steel neck to a standard tele neck. So that throws a wrench into everything I've drawn up on paper. Does anyone else have any other ideas to accomplish both necks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny GUitar Posted August 13, 2005 Report Share Posted August 13, 2005 I have an ancient (30s or 40s) junker lap steel which was given to me a long time ago. It appears to have a 23" scale. I'm sure I've seen ones with a rather long scale (I think longer than a standard guitar; was it John Paul Jones who I saw playing it?). My initial thought with your project is just build a standard Telecaster and get one of those appliances for the nut which raises the height for lap steel use. Maybe you can build a bridge appliance which accomplishes the same thing at the bridge since the inotantion adjustment becomes unecessary when used as a lap steel. If you were building it for me, I'd just ask you to build two seperate guitars since a lap steel is little more than a plank with a PU on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marzocchi705 Posted August 13, 2005 Report Share Posted August 13, 2005 why not just raise the bridge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksound Posted August 14, 2005 Report Share Posted August 14, 2005 An easy fix would be to cut a block of wood to the shape of the bridge and the thickness to raise it how ever much you need. Hamer did this on the early models with the Strat-style hardtail bridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mledbetter Posted August 14, 2005 Report Share Posted August 14, 2005 Use a standard tele style bridge, make sure the top surface of the neck is flush with the body and then use a gibson style nut that puts the strings to the proper height and you should be fine. Basically think of a guitar with the fretboard removed and the lines put on the neck bed. Gives you an extra 1/4 inch of action but really doesn't change the relationship between the bridge and the nut at all. You shouldn't have to sink the neck surface below the body plane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwedishLuthier Posted August 14, 2005 Report Share Posted August 14, 2005 Jonny: If it as John Paul Jones you saw, it probably was a BASS lap steel. Yes that's tru, he has one!!! That would explain the long scale length Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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