On one of the Forums, I had seen one of the Cigar Box 3 string Guitar builders use a plank of 4x2 timber to form the body of a lap steel guitar and this sort of set me thinking...............
Out in the interweb, I had come across somebody printing pedal steel guitar fret boards on Aluminium sheet - jut like they used to do in the 50's and 60's and I figured this would give it a bit more style. Also with my recent success with Kluson parts I spotted that they had re-issued the Tuner Tray (to hold the machine heads) for the old Fender Stringmaster Pedal Steel Range - so this was the really hard parts covered and the icing on the cake was when I spotted someone in the US custom making Steel Guitar nuts in brass.
So armed with these bits and a free afternoon in the Shed and a bunch more Telecaster bits - bridge, pickups etc, I was ready to give it a go. As an exercise in free hand routing, it took a few tries and the plank became shorter with each attempt, but I got there in the end after about three hours. Overnight I gave the blank a few coats of Red Blackboard paint to give it some sort of finish - I didn't know they made red backboard paint which is probably why I has some unused sitting on the shelf in the shed - a mistake purchase comes good
To my astonishment it all came together and actually worked. - the nut was a temporary one - a bit of an old tailpiece till the real one turned up, but plugged up is sounds sort of slidy (the desired effect I understand) and I can actually get a noise out of it - one day I hope for Tunes............
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