Lap steel guitar find

[123davido]

I just found an unfinished lap steel guitar in the garbage!!! I know nothing about these things while I already have way too many unfinished projects, it would be rude not to take this on.
The body is done,bar a final sand and finish. The fretboard looks complete with inlaid brass frets(24) and mother of pearl type fret markers. The hole for the pickup is already routed out as are the holes for the tuning pegs and the volume/tone pots. There is quite a large brass plate nut glued in and that's about it.
On the down side, the nut is badly glued in (squeeze out all over the place). The tuning peg holes are badly routed (very wobbly looking) as is the recess for the pots on the back.The through holes for the strings at the tail are drilled in a random fashion and very out of line.
Thats what I found in the garbage today. I will post a photo at some point.
One thing I wanted to ask about, is the fact that there are 7 tuning peg holes routed out and 7 slots filed into the nut. Is this normal on a lap steel?
Any other help,tips,warnings etc appreciated.
Thanks

[Dave Hicks]

6-, 7- and 8-string laps are all pretty common configurations.

D.H.

[123davido]

Originally Posted by Dave Hicks

6-, 7- and 8-string laps are all pretty common configurations.

D.H.

Thanks good to know. Would it be a high string or a low?

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by 123davido

I just found an unfinished lap steel guitar in the garbage!!! I know nothing about these things while I already have way too many unfinished projects, it would be rude not to take this on.
The body is done,bar a final sand and finish. The fretboard looks complete with inlaid brass frets(24) and mother of pearl type fret markers. The hole for the pickup is already routed out as are the holes for the tuning pegs and the volume/tone pots. There is quite a large brass plate nut glued in and that's about it.
On the down side, the nut is badly glued in (squeeze out all over the place). The tuning peg holes are badly routed (very wobbly looking) as is the recess for the pots on the back.The through holes for the strings at the tail are drilled in a random fashion and very out of line.
Thats what I found in the garbage today. I will post a photo at some point.
One thing I wanted to ask about, is the fact that there are 7 tuning peg holes routed out and 7 slots filed into the nut. Is this normal on a lap steel?
Any other help,tips,warnings etc appreciated.
Thanks

I had a web-based business producing 6, 7, and 8 string custom lap steels for the first five years after retiring from my day job. If you do a bit of research you'll find there are a whole bunch of tunings for these, it's not just a string added above or below the 6 string configuration.

Here's a couple of plans and instructions for building a 6 string lap steel from my old website:

http://web.archive.org/web/201604062...com/page5.html

The same basic information pertains to 7 or 8 string steels, too.

Two sixes and a seven: