My 4 lap steels...
 

After so many years of intense study of the guitar, I have fallen in love with lap steel. It’s like finding a new undiscovered room in a house you’ve lived in all your life.

Left to right: 1960 Supro, 1948 Gibson BR-9, 1940 Rickenbacher (yes, that's how it was originally spelled), 1938 Oahu

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...34&oe=5DA17770

Yep. Lap steels are real nice. I have a modded 40s Silvertone with a JazzMaster pickup, and a 1942-43 Supro Irene.

Fun stuff !

I play them in several tunings.;)

That's why they developed the multi-neck pedal steel - unless you're Andre the Giant, it's a mite difficult balancing them all at the same time... :cool:

Your Ricky, is it a long pickup pickup, isn't it? That's a great vintage for the Rick. I've always wanted one of those. One of these days...

I've got a Supro Supreme Hawaiian Model 1400 that looks to be from the last year of the War and sounds a bunch like a Tele.

http://www.in2guitar.com/supro/supro4a.jpg


http://www.in2guitar.com/supro/supro12a.jpg

It's got the captive, cotton covered cord so one day it'll go on the fritz and I'll have to replace it. ;)

For most sessions I use a modern Gretsch G5715 that won me with its smooth sound.

http://www.in2guitar.com/gretsch/body2a.jpg

http://www.in2guitar.com/gretsch/overallfl2.jpg

Bob

That's why I have these ;)

1957 T-8 and 1960 D-8 Fender Stringmasters

Tunings left to right:

1938 Oaho - A6
1940 Ric - Bbdim9
1948 Gibson BR-9 - B11
1957 T-8: Neck 1 = C6 (high G), Neck 2 - E13, Neck 3 - C6 (high E)
1960 Supro - C6
1960 D-8: Neck 1 - Bbdim, Neck 2 - A6

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhRIMzEWAAEEA1e.jpg:medium

Bob, I've wondered about those Gretsch models. I've not played one yet.

The Gretsch has a mahogany body, metal nut and bridge, formidable hardware. A pretty good gig bag is available and I got one. The only negative is a tighter string spacing than the Supro.


Bob

Nice. Had a Ric Panda like that. Fine sounding piece. Lap steels are reasonably priced too . . . . . in most cases.

well, they are going up because some people feel they are worthless and rip out the wonderful rick horseshoes or valco, supro string through pickups and sell them for a fortune. lollar makes a string through and charges a ton for it. also gold foils from the teiscos go for a bundle.

this is my 42-48 national in c6 and my asher electro hawaiian jr. in open E

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/WnBMZRZ.jpg[/IMG]

https://i.imgur.com/RkpPMCd.jpg

Nice Panda.

You can blame Ry Cooder for that.

I have an early 50s BR 6 that has a great P 90.

ironically i have a friend who goes by coupe deville and we are making a coupecaster guitar based upon ry cooder's coodercaster. coupe is a super fan of ry. our guitar will have a gold foil in the neck, a bigsby-type r.c. allen made pickup at the bridge and an old jaguar single coil in the middle. we are using an old martin stinger electric for this project.

my friend coupe has a br6 and it is a great steel.

play music!

I played a single pickup Asher the other day and I LOVED it especially the scale length! The one I played had a different bridge though like an acoustic guitar, mahogany body with a satin finish, and a single humbucker. It was one of the best lap steels I've ever played and I've had a few good ones!!!

I currently have two lap steels now.

My Gibson...

https://i.imgur.com/jgPyh1W.jpg?1
My Oahu...

https://i.imgur.com/oSYrf27.jpg?1

Here's the Oahu in a song...

Very cool. All of them. I think I need one. ;)

Laps are cool, when I retired from my day job I spent the first 4 years making custom lap steels and marketing construction information on my website. I gave up laps after doing about 100 customs and moved on to open back banjos. Some folks specified Lollars or other specific pickups but most had my own 6, 7, or 8 string split single coil humbuckers.

For those that may want to make their own you can still access the information and a few of the construction plans from the internet archive of my old website:

http://web.archive.org/web/201603130...com/page5.html

https://i.imgur.com/GveWsWV.jpg