#1955 fender champion lap steel mod

These tunings are possible on a lap steel or square neck Dobro that can take the extra stress, but could cause damage on a round-neck resonator or standard guitar. They also sometimes raise it up to вЂњHigh-AвЂќ: A-C#-E-A-C#-E. David Lindley is another player who uses transposed variations of these tunings.Д«luegrass and Country Dobro players using a square-neck instrument tend to favor an altered G tuning, often called вЂњHigh-GвЂќ, where the 6th string is tuned up to вЂњGвЂќ instead of down to вЂњDвЂќ, and the 5th string is also tuned up, to B: G-B-D-G-B-D. Joe Perry of Aerosmith uses Open E on his electric lap steel. Most Rock and Blues players use open G/open A or open D/open E. During the 1920s and 1930s, much of the sheet music written for lap steel utilized open A tuning as the de facto standard tuning for the instrument. Sometimes an extended chord like a 6th, 7th, or 9th. Usually they are tuned to an open chord like G, D, E or even A. Lap steel guitars are not tuned in standard guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E, low to high). Tunings I learned from several sources including Wikipedia I am a horrible lap steel player, but still a fun time trying. Clearly, it's been modified heavily, but a lot of the parts that the eyeballs catch are 'period' if not correct.GE Smith Tele was inspired by Fender Lap Steel Pickups: 1x Seymour Duncan Lil '59 Strat-sizedД¬ondition notes: the pearloid has damage along the sides but looks good from the front and 'player's perspective.' The aluminum 'fretboard' has tons of neat wear on it - as does the back of the instrument. Repairs included: modding to fit unoriginal parts, new wiring harness, new pickup, new jack, new knobs, etc. It's currently in open E tuning (EBEG#BE low to high). There's an open, non-used hole that would have been for the jack on the later Champ control plate, though it's now filled with the smiling face of a lady pulled off of an old cigar box.ДЄ new jack-cup and Switchcraft jack finishes-off the harness and the knobs are modern, relic'd, dome-style ones. The tone pot is a little stickier and farther away to keep it from being nudged too much. I wired the new harness to suit, too, with the volume control a fast-rotating pot that's nearest the bridge and pickup for easy swells. The adjustable poles also let you dial-in balanced string output which I find a huge boon. Played clean it can get some great country chime but dug-in and pushed it'll do dirty blues and rock right away. Said new pickup is a Duncan Lil '59 and it sounds superb on this lap steel. This is specifically because he wanted to use a height-adjustable pickup in a mount that could be palm-muted without the integral pickup cover like on the earlier Champ plates. This is an earlier-'50s Champ body that came with its tuners, tuner plate, and 'fretboard.' The owner bought the later-style bridge/control plate and I routed the body and cut the pickguard to accept it. The rest is as per the original blog post. It can easily be restrung for 3x2 setup again, though, as the saddle and nut are slotted to accept that arrangement if desired. That was it, though - it didn't need anything else because I'd already done the rest. He's been buying some expensive gear, lately, so this lap steel is back here for sale and I did restring it 'as-normal' this time around.

#1955 fender champion lap steel mod

I originally whipped this up for its owner back in 2019 as a 3x2-strung instrument, but at the time I'd decided to make it an 'easy-back' mod so that it could be restrung back to 6x1 'normal' stringing.