I made this

8) I hope you are writing an article :)
How much did materials come to?

Cool design,- what's the scale length?

Steinar

thanks. the scale is 22 1/2 inches. pretty standard for laps Ive experienced.

am I writing a book? no. am I taking notes. absolutely.
I am no expert. after discovering lap steels and the simplicity of them I felt i had to try.
this is my second. I plan on two more. one maple another mahogany.

tuners, pickup, knobs, bridge were from Stewmac.

total outlay was about 150$. I'd have to check.
it is labor intensive. possibly from my design. there is alot of sanding. and it is gut wreching to take a router and cut into that hunk of pristine mahogany.
I made many mistakes. my appreciation for crafted guitars has gone up considerably.

Thats very cool dogbite :D You should write a artical for GN, Some of us are going to be building a lap steel soon, we could use some pointers :lol: NICE JOB--the dog

BTW how about a sound byte of that thang!!

That's awesome, dogbite!

Yes. What Ricochet said, and;

that fretboard pattern is certainly intriguing, as luck would have it sometimes when you are building stuff, or if you actually designed that pattern/ in either case it is interesting. Upon further observation I see that the diagonals in the pattern get wider from frets 3 thru 9 which is unique and interesting and may be better than getting narrower from 3 - 9; I've never played one but those diagonal bars are very cool and it would seem to me that they would thus help serve as a visual marker for semitones. I like that idea and if/when I design and make one I will keep that aspect of the fretboard in mind.
Does it actually have metal frets?

Nice work, Dogbite.

As I mentioned at the IGS forum, it has a Revolutionary look to it, another reason why I like it.

Thanks all. I have been away from the computer all weekend. I was playing that steel.

the fret markers. they replace the more traditional fret board I made. that one had fret wire and dot inlays. it didnt look right.
thie design you now see is made from a piece of old wall paper i found. it had the right color. the fret lines are pin stripe tape. and the diagonals on printed black material from my printer. I cut them at 60 degree angles. the width of the fret deteremined how they lay within the fret widths; they change and get smaller as they ascend. the result was varying shapes. at the twelve fret I added to the design, but usuing the same principle. it's all hand cut and glued. then placed under non glare plexi.
I wish I had computer skills to lay that out.
as for sound samples. I dont have way to record and upload .
eventually i would like to record with a computer, but no $$ and knowledge.

eventually i would like to record with a computer, but no $$ and knowledge.All you need is a computer with a mic and a free recording program like Audacity. I record with a little desktop mic intended for voice-control of programs on a little 1998 iMac. Not professional quality, but it'll do for sharing something I'm playing with my Net friends.

Most PCs will accept a sound card. A sound card with a mic can be picked up cheap. You don't need the latest and best.

thanks ricochett. I have a hand me down computer at home. its a Gateway PC. I am not hooked to the intenet at home.

at work I have an iMac. so if I recored at home and wanted to post it here I doubt I could run it thru the work computer which is hooked to the internet.

so Im fkd. maybe.

What I've got plugged into my little old iMac is a PlainTalk mic. I don't know if they work with the newer Macs, but most of 'em through the mid-to-late'90s came with 'em.

Hello, Smithsonian Folkways? We gotta get someone over to Minneapolis to record the infamous 'Dogbite'

Dogbite, I would presume that virtually all audio file formats made on either a PC or an Apple, although different, can be read interchangeably on either machine. For the old PC you may have to download the Apple Quicktime software for PC.

JBoyShynes posted a simple inexpensive method for home recording directly through existing sound card in the computer at the IGS forum:
http://www.guitarseminars.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/011404.html

I have never tried it, yet. It is probably the smartest way for anyone on a very limited budget. I imagine that you record into the studio software, and I would guess than on a PC these would be .wav files, and can be converted to other frmats if necdessary..

Without a CD burner on the Gateway PC, you will of course be limited to about 1.2MB files on a 3-1/2 in floppy, as far as taking them to work.

I am negotiating shipping costs right now with a seller to get a new Fostex MR8. I hope that comes through because I have spent about 2 months or more researching home/portable recording gizmos. I have more time than money, that is for sure, so lack of money has been an obstacle, but when I finally get a recorder that will start a new phase of songwriting and recording for me, learning how to do it as I go. I'll be glad when I can spend my time with music rather than studying digital recording gizmos

Later,

I have recorded on my Sony minidisc. it has a nice stereo mike. this model is better than the one that just downloads from the net.
I researched and have learned that getting minidisc (analog) to computer (digital) can be done. so I record on minidisc thtere might be a possiblility to get it pout for you all to hear.
I would need a sound card on my work computer (it is internet hooked).

hmmm. I am not very tech literate.
this will take some time.

I have recorded on my Sony minidisc. it has a nice stereo mike. this model is better than the one that just downloads from the net.
I researched and have learned that getting minidisc (analog) to computer (digital) can be done. so I record on minidisc thtere might be a possiblility to get it pout for you all to hear.
I would need a sound card on my work computer (it is internet hooked).

hmmm. I am not very tech literate.
this will take some time.
The good news is that once you get a sound file on a computer you can move it to another computer and the one you upload it from does not need a sound card.

I have recorded on my Sony minidisc. it has a nice stereo mike. this model is better than the one that just downloads from the net.
I researched and have learned that getting minidisc (analog) to computer (digital) can be done... .

It looks like it might be quite easy dogbite, from the minidisc.org forums:

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

I think that Audacity has a free download version, or is GNU (free open source) you could download it to any computer with a CD burner (assuming the program is too large for a floppy disk) like a friend or neighbor could do it for you and then install it on your Gateway PC.

Good luck