The Luthier Community

A couple folks inquired whether I fell off the face of the earth or something. Nothing near so drastic Actually, I took a few days off work and buried myself in my latest project, a Weissenborn Lap Steel. Getting close to done, so I'll post a pic or two. The body/neck is cut from a solid slab of Sapeli, dressed out on the top, back and sides with crotch Madagascar Rosewood. The fingerboard/center console and bindings are African Blackwood. Fret lines are inlayed Yellow Sandalwood. Natural water buffalo horn were used for the nut, inlayed Pegplate and bridge saddle. Pickup covers are crotch mad. rosewood. Pickups are a matched pair of seymour Duncan '59s with gold covers. Gotta finish the fret lines and fretboard binding, final carve the pickup covers and final shape the headstock, then it's about ready to clean up and get a french polish with natural amber shellac.

Hey Randy, now that's a mighty cool looking instrument. Thanks for showing us what you have been up to.

I would ask a bunch of questions, but I don't know enough about these instuments to say anything halfway intellegent

G

Very cool, Randy!! I'm not sure what it is, but I LOVE the wood choices!!

Can you tell us a bit about it?

Bill

Randy,

Very nice!!! That rosewood top reminds me of some old antique instrument, which is in direct contrast to the pickups! Should be an amazing looking guitar.

Jim

Hi Randy!

Wow, gorgeous! She is gonna jump off the page with a finish applied. How in the hell do you french polish stuff like the pickup flanges?

Am I correct that this is a solid body Weissenborn-shaped lap steel, or is this chambered? I don't know much about lap steels either, but It seems like at least some lap steels are just a rectangular block with no pizazz, and no one could ever accuse this beauty of lacking pizazz!

Very nice! Tell us a bit more about construction. What were the tricky parts? You couldn't have bent binding that thick, could you? Is the binding laminated? How did you match up the Mad Rose and Sapele parts at the sinuous curves - router with guide bearing, or just bandsawed out? Inquiring minds want to know!

Dennis

Wow Randy, she's gonna be a killer looking Weissenborn! I've had the same idea in the back of my head since I built my Weiss. Just need to find time and material. May go with a Mesquite drop top on a Mahogany body. I plan on using Lollar P90's, or maybe even SD's Phat Cat P90's.
Really like what you did with the wood combination's on this one. But then I guess you have a pretty fair selection!

Guess I took it for granted that folks knew all about these..foolish as I am. This is a solid body instrument played with a steel slide whilst laying in your lap, Hawaiian style. I injured my fretting fingers a while back, so the slide route seemed the obvious alternative, as I'm a blues fanatic anyway. Sonically and electronically, it's basically a funny shaped Les Paul. No metal frets, as the strings never contact the neck. The back is arched/domed slightly to give it some nice lines. Sides are bent to shape and glued on, extending up the neck also. Keen eye, Dennis....yes these are double bindings, laminated. I went that way because I will radius the edges to about 1/4" to soften the look and reduce edge damage. Top back and side plates are about 3mm thick crotch rosewood that had too many defects to make a chambered instrument, but too beautiful to just cut up into headplates and such.

Tricky parts? Hmmmm....just getting the parts sized, I guess. I don't have any kind of band saw anymore. This instrument was made almost entirely with hand tools. I do use a laminate trimmer though, to rout binding ledges and fret line channels. I plan to do some inlay work on this instrument with some really spectacular gold lipped shell that I found in a market here

p.s. Case you were wondering, I still have to cut and inlay about half the fret lines. It will be a 22 fret board, inlayed with gold pearl

"....yes these are double bindings, laminated. I went that way because I will radius the edges to about 1/4" to soften the look and reduce edge damage."

Gonna look sweet! There's a video on YouTube of Cindy Cashdollar and Sonny Landreth doing "Hard Time Killin' Floor". She's playing a solid body Weiss, and it sounds great. Have no idea who made it though.