Jimmy Page's guitar

[Sam Spoons]

Lap steels are very simple things, those Harley Benton's from Thomann look like as good a place as any to start.

[Drew Stephenson]

Often thought about trying to make one.

Yep, me too.

[Funkyflash5]

Last weekend I went to buy a few tools from some folks who were trying to clear out the garage workshop of a recently departed old time woodworker. While I was there, they pulled out a case they hadn't identified, and it turned out to be a 50's lap steel that was missing the electronics. Since the tuners were in great shape, I parted with a few dollars and it came home with me, with the promise that if the electronics turned up in the clean out they'd give me a shout. If they don't, I'll have to decide what sort of pickup to slap in there, but it's about as cheep of a way to try lap steel as possible!

[Wonks]

How many strings? And what's the make? Bound to be at least some photos of them, and probably still a few decent examples around.

[Funkyflash5]

It's a 6 string "Old Kraftsman", and this old listing on reverb is the same model. https://reverb.com/item/3696637-old-kra ... -tv-yellow

[Guest]

Lap steels are very simple things, those Harley Benton's from Thomann look like as good a place as any to start.

Thanks, they are remarkably cheap!

[Wonks]

That Old Kraftsman pickup looks pretty unique, so no easy replacement choice. That bit of metal you see is probably the pole piece and there’s a coil wound round it below the plastic cover.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of height between the strings and the body, so hopefully there’s a decent depth of control cavity underneath that area.

The lack of intonation adjustment on the bridge (it’s not even angled like an acoustic’s) means that it’s never going to be a great instrument and the higher up you play, the more out of tune the chords will be.

So you can either try and keep it as original as possible, or else upgrade it with a toploading hardtail bridge and put a modern pickup on it. Measure the string spacing, but it looks to be a fairly standard width spacing, between 50-52mm, so a standard Strat pickup should fit.

It may be that you could pick up a cheap loaded Strat scratchplate, cut out the middle pickup section, use that as the control plate and re-use the one tone and the volume knob and pot. Again you’d have to measure to see what space you have available. A new bridge doesn’t have to sit on the cover like the original.

[John Egan]

I bought myself an 8 string Joe Morrell lap steel some time ago and have been very happy with it (my playing apart!). It's certainly not fancy, just a simple block of poplar with a metal fingerboard plate and made in the USA. But it came at a reasonable price, from a UK dealer (though I can't for the life of me remember which one). I keep it tuned to E9.
Regards, John

[merlyn]

The lack of intonation adjustment on the bridge (it’s not even angled like an acoustic’s) means that it’s never going to be a great instrument and the higher up you play, the more out of tune the chords will be.

A straight bridge is right for a lap steel, or a guitar set up to only play slide on. A compensated bridge on an acoustic, or adjustable saddles on an electric are to compensate for the string bending out of tune as it is pushed down.

On a lap steel the strings are not being pushed down, so there is no need for compensation. Look at any lap steel and you'll see the bridge is straight.