| Author |
Topic: Recently rebuilt a weird import D6. |
John Burton
From:
Manassas, Va
|
Posted 21 Jun 2021 5:54 am |
|
I had bought a cheap D6 lap steel from eBay a few years back. It was "non functioning" and had a chip or two in the finish, so I got it for like 80 bucks.
Well; I re-did the electronics and put in some Danelectro Lip Stick tube type pick ups; then made nuts and bridges from from angle stock. Added some tele knobs for the new pots.
All in all it was playable; but I kind of stuck it away and forgot about it.
A few weeks back I was looking through some stuff to sell and came across it; took it out; tuned it up and played it a bit and thought "Eh, not to bad."
So then I decided to redo it. First I replaced the shoddy angles with some lap steel bridges and nuts I found online:
then; added some leg mounts from Lowe's (just cheap coffee table mounts), and then rattle canned some legs to match
and in the end:
It actually plays and sounds pretty decent considering the whole project cost me less then 250 bucks.
The only things I don't like: The legs are not as stable as I would want; mainly because they go straight down. But still; it works. The rear neck is in plane with the front neck(instead of being a little higher) so the front neck annoys a little when playing the rear. The scale is ridiculously short. I carefully measured frets and placed nuts and bridges; but it's actually 20.625" scale! Weird. BUT..the short scale and the wide parallel strings means bar slants are easier; though sustain past the twelfth fret is a bit lacking. |
|
|
|
John Burton
From:
Manassas, Va
|
|
|
|
David Knutson
From:
Cowichan Valley, Canada
|
Posted 21 Jun 2021 9:05 am
|
|
Nice job, John. The matching green legs are perfect. And ya, talk about short scale! 
Here's a before-and-after of a homebuilt D8 I picked up that had many, many problems, both physical and electronic - so I redid it all from the bare wood up. A fun project.
Before:
After:
_________________
David K |
|
|
|
David Knutson
From:
Cowichan Valley, Canada
|
Posted 21 Jun 2021 12:51 pm
|
|
An afterthought . . . . I believe those coffee table leg plates also come in angled versions. Might be worth checking out.
_________________
David K |
|
|
|
