How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

vinnie1971

vinnie1971

New member
I converted my Dearmond M65 fitted with SD APH1s into a lap steel.

I fitted a lap steel conversion but over my existing nut and raised the action at the bridge.

I strung it with Nashville strings but not the Nashville way, it’s in order of thickness :

26, 18, 14, 12, 10, 9
So it can be tuned to open C6 just like a real lap steel with no danger of bowing the neck or damaging the guitar.

It’s totally reversible too. So if you don’t know if you’ll take to lap steel, here is a cheap way to find out.

Here’s a demo

https://youtu.be/ixT-7aHzWtg


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Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

Wow, this is a really cool idea, and gives me some things to consider. Thanks for sharing!
 
Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

Cool idea, might be worth doing to a Coodercaster. That right there would be 95% of the way to an actual lap steel.
 
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Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

Chistopher said:
Cool idea, might be worth doing to a Coodercaster. That right there would be 95% of the way to an actual lap steel.
Click to expand...

I am really tempted to get a lap steel now. But I’d love to get a Teisco with gold or black foil pickups - I bet that would sound cool!


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Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

Somewhere, I have a BOX full of those things....
 
Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

Mincer said:
Wow, this is a really cool idea, and gives me some things to consider. Thanks for sharing!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I have been considering a lap steel for a while - I already use unison bends and pedal steel type phrasing in my regular guitar playing and play slide with Nashville open D.

But it’s not the same as open C6 lap steel with a tone bar .... so how to set up a regular guitar, it dawned on me Nashville strings won’t bow the neck. They’re perfect.

So while I get my head round open C6 I can decide if I’ll add a lap steel to my birthday list....


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Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

No.... those metal nuts he used to raise the action.
 
Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

I got into playing dobro recently. I love how you can dig into the strings with the bar. With super heavy strings (16-56) and bluegrass G tuning (GBDGBD), you can really fight the thing.
 
Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

JB_From_Hell said:
I got into playing dobro recently. I love how you can dig into the strings with the bar. With super heavy strings (16-56) and bluegrass G tuning (GBDGBD), you can really fight the thing.
Click to expand...

I’d love a dobro!
I’ll try that tuning on by acoustic with highish action that I set up for slide.


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Re: How to convert your regular electric guitar into a lap steel

The main thing for this set up is the use of Nashville strings so you can safely tune to open C6 with no risk to your guitar’s neck or string breakage.


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