Lap Steel Strings

a lot depends on what tuning you use, and what the scale lengh is. I just have a set of accustic 12's on mine.... but they are not right. I havent settled on a tuning yet, so for now they are good enough. Tehre is a chart somewere on line.... but I cant find it right now.

Mostly Hank Williams tunes...so I guess in G, D and A.

Also that typical HW tones comes by plugging the lap steel clean or using some effects?

http://www.well.com/~wellvis/tuning.html

here may be some useful information re: strings, gauges and tunings.

I actually have 11's on mine and but that required a luthier trip. 12's seem to be the norm though

Here are the actual tunings and string gauges used by Don Helms, who played steel guitar for Hank Williams:

Most people now use a C6 tuning to play old country music and Western swing on a lap steel, on a 6 string that's CEGACE from low to high. The low C is the one on the third fret of the A string of a standard tuned guitar, so you'll need a special string set.

What GHS puts in their 6-string C6 set are: 015, 017, 022, 026, 030w, 036w