ab steel guitar lap steel/pedal steel

[quen]

Dear Steelies,

Your thoughts please! I've played a bit of pedal steel for the last 20 years or so, and often thought that a 6 string lap steel with knee levers would be a great thing - but couldn't find anyone who had tried it. At last I've had a go at building one myself and here it is -



The palm lever and right knee are like the A and B pedals on a standard steel hence the 'ab steel'. Sorry about the playing, I'd just strung it up and wanted to put something up... It may well offend both pedal steel and lap steel players alike - I love both instruments, but hope this offers something interesting in it's own right. The nearest thing would be the deusenburg with it's palm levers, but when you see people playing these they have to almost stop playing to operate the levers wheras this hopefully offers more chance to combine bending notes with playing.

All feedback welcome!

All the best,

Quen

[mick hearn]

A very interesting project. Is there a tendency for the steel to want to slide over your legs whist using the levers?

[quen]

Yes - that is the challenge! The right knee has the levers while the left knee has 'posts' that keep the steel in position - and this works quite well in practice. Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated. Best, Quen

[brunopietoso]

Another observation is not sure if one would experience this but with volume swells if you use a volume pedal it makes it a bit awkward to control knee levers, volume pedal and still keep the lap steel balanced without losing control of it?

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

would be interesting to see pics of the mech. And how it works?

[quen]

Thanks for the comments Bruno and John - sorry for slow reply.

That's a fair point Bruno, it can be a bit tricky to operate the knee levers and use a volume pedal whilst balancing the guitar on lap - I'll get some more clips up soon.

Hi John - many moons ago I bought a sho-bud pro 1 from you, perfect red finish and just one knee lever! Hope all well with you. The mechanism is super simple - think maverick type changer. Work and life has got in the way last couple of months but I'm planning to get back to this soon and will put some photos up. I wanted it to be as simple as possible so it would be straightforward for anyone who wanted to have a go themselves to build, but then you start thinking maybe it should be more adaptable for different copedants and then it starts to get more complicated... still messing about with it but will share details soon.

All the best, Quen

[Ed Ferguson]

Hi there
New to this forum. Very impressed with your lap steel. I've been playing lap with Certano benders and enjoying exploring what you can do with it. If you are willing to share, I'd be interested in seeing your palm bender and pedal mechanisms.
Thanks
Ed

[kate1234]

Hi Quen,

This is a very cool idea! Sounds great too. Do you find it tricky playing the levers while resting the guitar on your legs?

[Ed Ferguson]

Hi there
Was looking over some old posts and wondered if you progressed this very promising idea?

[quen]

Dear All,

Thanks for feedback and support for the ab steel concept. I've been slow going forward with this... life being what happens whilst we're busy making plans etc... but the idea has moved on now and here is the new prototype in action



The new version relates a lot more to a standard E9 10 string PSG - it's the middle 6 strings with the 'a' lever (palm) and 'b' lever RKL with a E lower on RKR. It's as small as I could build it too! Therefore serving PSG players who want to take something lightweight out and offering a more simple intro to new players who could go on to the full thing with a fair working knowledge... Just another option in short, but a bit different to anything else out there.

Very interested to hear any thoughts and thanks for taking the time to look.

All the best,

Quen