The British Steelies Society

Hi
Really impressed with this forum, stumbled upon it by luck and really pleased I did.

I’m really impressed that you feature a Gordon Huntley area. He was such a good player, well fantastic actually and such a lovely guy.

I have a Lap Steel and hope one day to be able to get a Pedal Steel too but err think I need to be a better player first. Having played guitar for 58 years I find the Steel to be a welcome change as well as a challenge

Cheers, Nick

A very big
welcome Nick, glad you like the forum. I am sure you will get any help etc from many of the guys here. Enjoy.
What part of the country do you hail from?

Thank you for the warm welcome Uncle Roy.

I’m down in west Cornwall, place called Nancekuke which is between Portreath and Porthtowan.

As far as I know there isn’t much Lap or Pedal Steel action here although I did once play with a Lap Steel player some time ago, he was very good and it added so much to ourband’s sound

Will have a good hunt around as I do have some questions about tunings/strings for my humble Lap Steel

All the best, Nick

Welcome Nick
I had a similar path myself, played guitar and eventually arrived at the pedal steel, and I have had no regrets. And, also like you I ended up on this forum, which has been an enormous help. The guys on here, and, it seems to me, the whole steel community are generous to a fault with their know how.
All the best with your Steel Trip

Hi Nick, a big welcome to the forum from another fellow newbie!
I have played lap steel for quite a few years, but after getting my hands (and feet!) on a pedal steel I think I am now converted Don't let a lack of playing ability deter you - you'll be amazed how quickly you improve with a few exercises and chord patterns to practise.
The help and advice available on this forum is second to none, and there are so many genuine and friendly people willing to share their knowledge. I should acknowledge John Davis in particular at this point, who not only helped me to find a decent steel guitar, but has also spent plenty of time showing me how to get started with playing it! There are some brilliant videos available on this forum (many by John) that I'm sure will be helpful to you. For lap steel, I found the free lessons on youtube from Troy Brenningmeyer to be also very helpful - particularly with regard to where the partial chords are with bar slants, so you don't need to move the bar so much during chord changes.
Cheers,
Sid

Thank you all so much for your kind words and guidance.

Having always loved the sound of Steel guitars in general I was knocked out when a friend offered me a Lap Steel guitar for free along with a Cindy Cashdollar tutorial video, this was some 15 years ago or more.
I spent quite a lot of time coming to terms with it and then using it on some of my recordings. Hard work and so different from a lifetime of playing guitar and keyboard. Unfortunately I didn’t keep up the playing, only using it as and when I needed a little background steel on a song so I haven’t improved infact my playing’s reverse

However lately my interest has returned. From what I can discover the Lap Steel I have (there’s no name on it) is an old Japanese “Jedson”. These days I play it through a Fender ‘68 Custom Deluxe Reverb.

When I received this Steel guitar it was tuned and in tune, sounding very nice and worked well in so many keys but unfortunately while finely tuning it recently the top string broke. I can’t believe it but I never did make a note of the tuning,big mistake and really embarrassing, I assuming it was pretty bog standard tuning. Having put a new set of strings on I’d realised my error.
After closely listening to some old recording I think I’ve discovered what it may be being E G B D B? A

Strewth what a minefield...tunings, string gauges. The set I bought was I believe a C gauge and thus it’s not right for the above tuning I think as the tension is too taught on those strings to get them to concert pitch.

Ok, I’ve said enough, you now realise this new member is a complete ‘no hoper’ but thought someone might be able to give a little advice to this fool.

Cheers, Nick

Nick, in my experience the actions of a 'No Hoper' are to stay silent and not ask for advice...
With my old lap steel I experimented with a few different tunings, and found eventually it was easier to work out the gauges I needed and make the pilgrimage to the local music shop (it was before the days of internet shopping...), then buy the strings individually. It cost a bit more, but at least it made the thing playable!
You could do worse than look at 'Brad's world of steel' for some tuning options, and there are various charts online to give you the correct string gauge for the relevant open string note. Some links below.
https://people.well.com/user/wellvis/tuning.html
https://www.steelguitar.com/stringGauge.html
Do let us know when you have the beast re-strung and ready for action

simon_f3 wrote:Nick, in my experience the actions of a 'No Hoper' are to stay silent and not ask for advice...
With my old lap steel I experimented with a few different tunings, and found eventually it was easier to work out the gauges I needed and make the pilgrimage to the local music shop (it was before the days of internet shopping...), then buy the strings individually. It cost a bit more, but at least it made the thing playable!
You could do worse than look at 'Brad's world of steel' for some tuning options, and there are various charts online to give you the correct string gauge for the relevant open string note. Some links below.
https://people.well.com/user/wellvis/tuning.html
https://www.steelguitar.com/stringGauge.html
Do let us know when you have the beast re-strung and ready for action

Thanks for the advice Simon, will indeed check out those links

Welcome Nick, our own Mick Hearn is the man to follow for lap steel, he knows a thing or two on that instrument.