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Old 03-03-2016, 07:39 AM
815C 815C is offline
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Default 1940 Oahu lap steel

In what is likely the final trade of my rock & roll cover band guitars and amps for the musical instruments of my true DNA (western swing, country, blues, Americana, etc.) I picked up this guy yesterday in a trade.

It's a 1940 Oahu with a Rickenbacker pickup. It plays and sounds beautifully! It has a 25-1/2" scale which I'm liking (my Gibson BR9 has a 22-1/5" scale).

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Old 03-03-2016, 08:03 AM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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Nice! Does it have the long Rick pickup?

Bob
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Old 03-03-2016, 02:00 PM
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My second lap, a Rickenbacher Electro is on the brown truck today, but it has legs so can go either way. Its set up for C 6.

What tuning is that bad boy getting?
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Old 03-03-2016, 02:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Br1ck View Post
My second lap, a Rickenbacher Electro is on the brown truck today, but it has legs so can go either way. Its set up for C 6.

What tuning is that bad boy getting?
My Gibson BR9 is tuned to C6. This one will be tuned to Bb diminished (C#, E, G, Bb, C, D)

BTW I learned today on the Steel Guitar Forum that the Oahu is actually a 1938 and it probably does not have a Rickenbacker pickup.

Here are my other steels...

1957 Fender Stringmaster (triple 8 string necks) tuned to C6, E13, and B11
1960 Fender Stringmaster (double 8 string necks) tuned to Bb diminished and C13
1980 RQ Jones square neck tuned to open G
1948 Gibson BR9 tuned to C6


Last edited by 815C; 03-03-2016 at 02:15 PM.
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Old 03-03-2016, 04:21 PM
tdq tdq is offline
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Very nice. I love to play lap style, have a weissenborn and occassionally use a cheap nut raiser on my acoustics, although I'm mainly a guitar player. When I see steels with several fretboards - well they kind of freak me out. Two tunings is already too much to think about. Anyway, nice. I'd love to get my hands on one of those old Oahu squarenecks.
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Old 03-03-2016, 06:56 PM
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Got this a while ago - never learned to play it - still time but a lot of priorities ahead of it.





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Old 03-03-2016, 09:33 PM
muscmp muscmp is offline
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here is my 1942-48 National Lap Steel with string thru valco/supro pickup. Great machine.

play music!




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Old 03-04-2016, 08:03 PM
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My Ric Electro came today, but life precluded me from taking pics.

So if you had two steels, after C6, what tuning makes sense? I have a dobro in G.
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Old 03-05-2016, 06:45 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Br1ck View Post
So if you had two steels, after C6, what tuning makes sense? I have a dobro in G.
LOTS of choices. Look HERE and HERE (scroll down a bit for the 6 string tunings).

Also, I've recently joined The Steel Guitar Forum. There is a one time fee of $5 to join, but it's a great community and I've learned a lot over there. I pretty much stick to the "Steel Without Pedals" section, but hope to make use of the rest of the forum someday when I get a pedal steel.
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Old 03-05-2016, 07:56 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is online now
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I have a few recommendations for string selection and basic tunings on my lap steel construction page here:

http://www.bluestemstrings.com/page5.html
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Old 03-06-2016, 12:46 AM
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I just sold my pedal steel to fund my Epiphone Texan. Not enough life left to get any good at it. But practicing hard for two years did get me good pick and bar technique.

Much better on the lap steel and dobro now.
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Old 03-06-2016, 04:31 AM
syrynx syrynx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 815C View Post
It's a 1940 Oahu with a Rickenbacker pickup. It plays and sounds beautifully! It has a 25-1/2" scale which I'm liking (my Gibson BR9 has a 22-1/5" scale).
Congratulations, David! I wish you joy of it. That Oahu would not be a good fit for me at all, due both to the control knob right where my right wrist wants to be, and to the low contrast between the fret board and the fret lines. (I vastly prefer the high contrast of your Stringmasters, or spock's Electone, or musicmp's National, or Br1ck's Rickenbacker.) But many far more accomplished players than I have made magical music on those old Oahus, including my own teacher, Herb Remington. So my objections may well be meaningless to you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Br1ck View Post
So if you had two steels, after C6, what tuning makes sense? I have a dobro in G.
Here's a chart showing some other close-spaced tunings which are compatible with the string gauges you're already using for C6. (Your set may vary a bit from the nominal gauges in the chart, but all of these tunings will work with what you have.)

Code:
Str  .036  .030  .024  .022  .017  .014
C6    C     E     G     A     C     E
C7    C     E     G     Bb    C     E
A6    C#    E     F#    A     C#    E
A7    C#    E     G     A     C#    E
E6    B     E     G#    B     C#    E
E7    B     D     E     G#    B     E
E9    B     D     F#    G#    B     E
E13   B     D     E     G#    C#    E
B11   B     D#    F#    A     C#    E
JB*   C#    E     G     A     C     E
WL**  C#    E     G     A#    C     D
*JB = the Jerry Byrd C6/A7.
**WL = William Leavitt's tuning, designed to play a wide variety of chords without slanting the bar.


What makes sense to you may not make sense to anyone else, but that's perfectly OK; there's only one person to whom it needs to make sense. You may find that one of the tunings in the chart-- A6 or E7, for example-- is sufficiently useful to you to devote your second lap steel to the tuning full-time.

On the other hand, because of the string gauge compatibility and the ease of retuning, you may find that you're OK with occasionally retuning your C6 lap steel to any of the tunings on the list for specific tunes. In that case, you might find a triad tuning more useful on your second lap steel. For example, with your Dobro in G and the Rick in C6 (or other close-spaced tuning), you may find it worthwhile to keep the second lap steel in a Vastopol tuning. Vastopol (very frequently misspelled Vestapol) is the generic name for any R 5 R 3 5 R tuning (low to high), such as "Open D" (D A D F# A D) or "Open E" (E B E G# B E). In many respects, Vastopol is the queen of lap steel (and bottleneck) tunings, with its power chord on the lowest pitched strings and three different inversions of the major triad, plus a bass note, available at every fret.

Tuning choices are totally subjective. My own choices may be of some interest. If someone were to offer me an obscene amount of money to come out of retirement and play lap steel in a band context, I'd grab my Fender Deluxe 8, tuned to A6. But for playing solo at home, which is all I do these days, I keep six string lap steels in three tunings, each chosen to fit my (steadily shrinking) vocal range:

- Db Vastopol ("Open Db"); often retuned to open Db minor and occasionally to Dbm7.

- F7: F C Eb F A C. This is a reentrant tuning, with the fifth string C tuned a fourth below the 6th string F. This tuning would probably make no sense to anyone else on the planet besides myself, but it works very well for me.
!
- Bb F Bb F Bb D. This tuning has the same interval relationships (R 5 R 5 R 3) as a widely used "Open C" tuning, but pitched two semitones lower. I hate this tuning! It's constricted, limited, ugly. But David Lindley has been using it extensively in recent years, and I use it for the same reason he does: For accompanying songs we can no longer sing well in higher keys. (Getting old is not for sissies.)
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  #13  
Old 03-11-2016, 06:02 PM
muscmp muscmp is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 815C View Post
LOTS of choices. Look HERE and HERE (scroll down a bit for the 6 string tunings).

Also, I've recently joined The Steel Guitar Forum. There is a one time fee of $5 to join, but it's a great community and I've learned a lot over there. I pretty much stick to the "Steel Without Pedals" section, but hope to make use of the rest of the forum someday when I get a pedal steel.
i've been on the steel guitar forum for quite a while and the people there are great. i've even made friends with a guy who is 80 years old and still out there playing his pedal steel with his 53 deluxe. he has given me a wealth of knowledge on troubleshooting my amps.

play music!
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Old 04-27-2016, 07:31 AM
LesRose LesRose is offline
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Awwwwww did you have to?
Now I have to get a fresh drool rag....

These are all sweet and remind me that I miss my lap steel, thanks for great photos!
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