Part 1: Walnuts and Zebras

Building my first guitar was such a rewarding experience that I thought I'd try it again. I love the sound and feel of my Telecaster more than any other guitar I own - and that's saying' something seeing as I own quite a few guitars. However, because I have a lot of guitars already and wasn't really prepared to dive into 6-7 months of living with/creating another guitar when I have more than I can play now I decided to build something different - a lap steel guitar.

For those of you who are not familiar with Lap Steel guitars they came to prominence in the 30's, 40's and 50's centered mostly around Hawaiian and Country Music. Lap Steel guitars are also commonly used for Blues and Bluegrass (which is more my speed). I would guess that the most 'popular' player using lap steel guitars on a regular basis today would be Ben Harper but his stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.

I was introduced to the idea of lap guitar while working at Blue Man Group in Boston. One of the band instuments is part Lap steel and part Zither. The sound was raunchy and bluesy with the right amount of growl. It was good stuff and I've always wanted to mess around with one.

For the uninitiated - a lap steel has anywhere between 6 and 12 strings, is played with a slide (metal or glass usually) instead of your fingers, and is tuned to an open chord so that any where you place your slide on the 'fretboard' will make a useful chord. As the name suggests the instrument is placed in your lap instead of around your neck with a guitar strap and is quite often played with finger picks instead of the normal pick.

I decided to build my lap steel out of walnut - mainly because the chunk of wood that I found was the nicest looking piece of wood in the store that was also the right size for what I needed. So I bought a piece of 36 inch by 7 inch Walnut that was about 1 and 3/4 inches thick. It had a nice grain to it (burl?) and promised to be somewhat good looking when finished. As you may be able to see in the photo above the Walnut had some imperfections when I got it. It had a few burn marks where the wood planer got stuck and the end had what looks like some skips by the saw that cut the face of the wood. All of this will have to be sanded out.

I also picked up a 24 by 2 inch piece of zebra-wood that was about 1/4 of an inch thick to use as the fret-board material. Which is strange to say about a lap steel - seeing as they need no frets.

But we'll get to that...

Fuzzy close-up of the Zebra wood

So, I bought my wood - $30 for the two peices and I have an idea for how I want this thing to look. Now it's all about cutting and economy.

Part 6: Where's my raygun?

Things are starting to shape up the way I'd envisioned. It's starting to look very Buck Rogers. I'm having a hard time envisioning the headstock now that everything is so 'automotive' in design. The National New Yorker headstock (see Part 4) just doesn't seem right anymore. But we'll see. Perhaps I can modify that design to work with this shape.


So, I went with the cocobolo as my accent wood. I made the second set of wings and a stripe on the top face out of the wood blank I purchased. I'm also going to make a hand-rest out of the remaining cocobolo (I just love that word) that will be placed right above the pickup. I'm going to go all super fancy and make it removable too. Router - don't fail me now!


I went with the cocobolo (see, isn't it just fun to read?) because it had the nicest grain pattern. There are browns and reds and blonds and even some purple all mottled together in these tiny pieces of wood. Cocobolo is a central/south american wood that has many of the same visual characteristics of Brazilian Rosewood but differs quite a bit in other qualities. Cocobolo is almost waterproof (some samples don't even float in water), it has a lot of natural oils in the wood. So finishing this guitar is going to be a trip. Some sites I read suggest just hand rubbing the wood after sanding it. It won't need any further protection. It's supposed to polish up quite nicely.


I have a lot, a lot, a lot of sanding and scraping in my future. I was able to rough shape the second set of wings with a combination of a rasp and heavy duty sandpaper. I was originally going to use a sanding drum on my power drill but the cocobolo just gummed it up too fast to use for more than a few minutes at a time.


Sanding is a trip with this stuff. I bought decent grade sandpaper and started at 60 grit just to get things moving. It is slow going and the sandpaper is constantly getting gummed up. I've also been told that this stuff is pretty hard on your power tools - so we'll see how often I use this.


But I gotta say - even in its rough form - I love the way this stuff looks. It might not have been the best pairing with walnut (as you can see from the pictures it's hard to see where all of the cocobolo is. But I'm hoping that this is because I hit the whole piece with a heavy coat of mineral spirits prior to shooting these pictures.

Part 8: Holy Walnut Batman!

I found out while making my first electric that guitars are in fact full of holes. I took so much wood out of the Telecaster that it's surprising that there was any wood left to color the tone.

I'm a big fan of shaping and sanding wood but to make it look like you want (and for it to function as a guitar) you gotta go digging. So here are some pictures of the lapsteel being excavated.


String holes
The strings will go through the body - so these six holes for that. I'll be using tiny ferules to smarten up the appearance. Those will be installed after I put a finish on the guitar. So for a while these'll look a little rough. The big hole right be hind the six small ones is either going to be for the volume control knob of the varitone switch. My money's on the varitone.


Control Cavity
So, I said I wasn't proud of the bottom of the guitar (and you can see why) but I figured if someone is really interested in this - they'll want to see how the whole thing comes together. The six big holes are again for the strings and will have larger ferules to hold the strings in place. I'm using the same type of ferules I used for the Telecaster build - mainly because they came out so well on that guitar that I figured why mess around with a good thing? The big cavity is for the varitone (or volume) control/knob. I'll have to get a soldering iron in there and the varitone switch is big - so I made the hole big. This will be covered either by a piece of wood or a plastic control cavity. I haven't decided which yet. The streaks and light colored bits are wood filler for all of the miss-matched joints. I haven't finished filling all of the seams and cracks yet but I will prior to gluing the covering on the back.

The back (or backing) is usually fabric - to help the lap steel stay on your lap. As of right now I'm vacillating between black felt (which is traditional) a yoga mat (which is super effective), and a swath of leopard print which I've had for 10 years (I don't know why I kept it for a decade either). Either way - there will be a gap in the fabric so that I can get to the string ferules and electronics.


The hole for the imput jack.
Yeah, this was no fun to drill. The first inch or so was done with a forsner bit and the remaining 3/4 of an inch was done with a standard bit. It took forever but now the input jack and the control cavity are connected. I was a bit nervous about this hole because there is a crack in the walnut that I had to drill through. It ended up being fine but just like on the telecaster build I had to put my whole body into drilling this hole - for a long time. ...I need to buy a drill press...



I also had to drill the holes through the headstock for the tuning pegs. I'm going to talk more about the headstock in a future post. It was a difficult process all around and deserves its own post.
For the record - this was a pain in the ass. If you can get your hands on a drilling template (Stewart MacDonald) and a drill press (craigslist) - do it!
Those two items would have made this part of the build much easier.

Also, as you can see the slope leading from the neck to the headstock is a bit mis-shaped. Right where the headstock begins it gets very thin and then gets thicker as you get to the end of the headstock. This is technically a no-no. Right at that thin part is where all of the string tension is going to sit. Walnut is tough - but I'm asking a lot. This was one of those times where hand shaping things didn't work in my favor. It looks pretty decent (considering how much wood I shaved off by hand) but time will tell if this is the Achilles heal.

Part 12: Shellac that puppy!

Please click on any of the images to enlarge.

So, I test drove her for a couple of months and boy does she sound good. So good - I didn't want to take her apart again - even to finish her. But I've got two other projects stewing right now and want to be done with this one. So, it's time to 'finish' this one up.

I decided to try using shellac for this build. If you are unfamiliar with what shellac is - go here.



I decided to make my own shellac instead of buying a can of it. The reason for this is that it was advertised as an easy process (it was) and the end result is supposed to come out better (it looks good to me). Making shellac is pretty easy. You buy the flakes (thank you Rockler), grind them up a bit, add denatured alcohol (how much alcihol determines the 'cut'), stir or shake the mixture, wait 24 hours, and you have shellac. I went for a 2 pound cut. I probably should have gone lighter for my final coats - but such is life.

I also heard that you should strain your shellac before using it - as it might have impurities still in the flakes (read bug parts). I did not and was happy with my results. I might try doing so next time.

After you have your shellac you have to apply it. I chose to use a brush. Next time I will try a pad (this is also called French Polishing).

I'm just about done with the shellac as of this post (maybe 1 more coat to go) and I can say that I probably will put a top coat of laquer on top of it. I wasn't going to but after all of the coats that I've done - I don't want to have to do this again. The biggest problem with shellac is that it isn't terribly resistent to water and it is defensles against alcohol. So, if I spill anything on this - I'm back to square one. If I hit this which a couple of coats of laquer - this thing will look good and be protected - so that's what I'm gonna do. Check back for updates.