Starting research now. I'd like like to get something solid body electric I can leave in the car when traveling during ski season to practice. So something reasonably close in scale length and string spacing to a square neck reso and tuned in open G.
I actually would love to build one as I've built a few electric years ago and much of it is simply selecting components, finishing, and bolting together. But I don't have to tooling to route body cavities. When I built electrics, I started with a routed body. If I could buy a body routed, I'd consider building just for fun.
Budget, a few hundred.
Any recommendations?
I built one a few years ago, and didn't rout anything, I just drilled adjacent holes with a forstner bit and cleaned up between them with a chisel. It can be done on a very low budget. I think mine was under $100 and half or more of that was for the pickup.
In a way I wish I still had my Peavey Powerslide but people are asking ridiculous prices for them now.
I'd recommend the SX Lap 3 Steel by Rondo Music. It's close to a standard dobro scale length, and every part of it is "decent" - the tuners and pickup could be upgraded if you wish, but it's a solid starter instrument.
Plus 1 on the SX. I have one for the purpose you described in your op.
I was actually looking at the SX 2. It's more than the SX 3 but at that price point it's not a big deal. Of course after reading a bit out lap steel, I'm very intrigue by the western C6 tuning and now want to try both. A million things to turn and not enough time.
-l2t
@mikes Do you use the GBDGBD tuning and if so, may I ask what string gauges you use? I would think the stock strings are gauged for C6.
-2lt
Yep I have it tuned GBDGBD. Sorry to say I don’t remember the gauges but as I recall it is a mix of mostly stock strings with a couple of different gauges thrown in.
