This document provides instructions for building a singing steel guitar. Some key points:
- The guitar has 12 strings arranged in three groups to allow for major chords, diminished 7th chords, and minor chords. This simplified design avoids the need for complex switching mechanisms used on other steel guitars.
- Construction involves laminating a body from plywood, adding a hardwood headstock with machine heads, and installing a pickup, control panel, and bridge. Wiring connects the pickup and controls.
- The fretboard is lined with frets spaced according to a chart. Strings are tuned so that related chords are in a straight line across the fretboard for easy playing.
- Once assembled
This document provides instructions for building a singing steel guitar. Some key points:
- The guitar has 12 strings arranged in three groups to allow for major chords, diminished 7th chords, and minor chords. This simplified design avoids the need for complex switching mechanisms used on other steel guitars.
- Construction involves laminating a body from plywood, adding a hardwood headstock with machine heads, and installing a pickup, control panel, and bridge. Wiring connects the pickup and controls.
- The fretboard is lined with frets spaced according to a chart. Strings are tuned so that related chords are in a straight line across the fretboard for easy playing.
- Once assembled
This document provides instructions for building a singing steel guitar. Some key points:
- The guitar has 12 strings arranged in three groups to allow for major chords, diminished 7th chords, and minor chords. This simplified design avoids the need for complex switching mechanisms used on other steel guitars.
- Construction involves laminating a body from plywood, adding a hardwood headstock with machine heads, and installing a pickup, control panel, and bridge. Wiring connects the pickup and controls.
- The fretboard is lined with frets spaced according to a chart. Strings are tuned so that related chords are in a straight line across the fretboard for easy playing.
- Once assembled
This document provides instructions for building a singing steel guitar. Some key points:
- The guitar has 12 strings arranged in three groups to allow for major chords, diminished 7th chords, and minor chords. This simplified design avoids the need for complex switching mechanisms used on other steel guitars.
- Construction involves laminating a body from plywood, adding a hardwood headstock with machine heads, and installing a pickup, control panel, and bridge. Wiring connects the pickup and controls.
- The fretboard is lined with frets spaced according to a chart. Strings are tuned so that related chords are in a straight line across the fretboard for easy playing.
- Once assembled
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The article describes how to build a singing steel guitar at home using readily available materials. It has a simple design with just one bank of 12 strings to allow for easy chord changes.
The body is made of laminated plywood and the neck is hardwood. It has machine heads for tuning and a bridge and nut made of specific materials. The pickup is wound with magnet wire around magnets housed in a plastic body.
The pickup core uses plastic sheets with alnico cylinder magnets cemented inside. It is wound with 1200 ohms of magnet wire and has plastic covers wrapped in aluminum foil.
Build
a singing steel guitar By ROY L. CLOUGH
Plug this multichord instrument
into any good speaker SO MAYBE it's not an authentic Ha- waiian guitar. But what is? That amplified vi- and you'll make music like brato we associate with blood-stirring hulas and plaintive island tunes was really invented in you never thought you could California. At any rate, the sound has become part of American music—you hear it in hoote- nannies, dance bands and those weird sound effects in science-fiction movies. That sound is yours for a couple weekends' work. This standing model perches on 24-in. legs, leaving both hands free for playing. Since the the strings are taut. The nut, on the other hand, strings are "stopped" with a straight steel bar can be Plexiglas. The grooves in the beveled top instead of the fingers, the choice of chords is lim- edge are just deep enough, for now, to catch the ited to those that can be covered with the steel— strings. Push the nut into the slot between top plus a few open-string-and-steel combinations. lamination and headstock, using a paper shim for Early guitars were limited to major chords and a tight fit, if necessary. a few bobtailed sevenths. Efforts to overcome The pickup core consists of two identically- this resulted in guitars with several banks of drilled pieces of 3/32-in. plastic sheet (styrene or strings, or with mechanical tone changers to alter acrylic). Cement in the 12 alnico cylinder mag- the tuning. nets with poles facing the same way, then take In both cases, provision had to be made for one turn of electrical insulating tape around the "damping" unused strings, to prevent them from magnets before winding on 1200 ohms' worth of vibrating sympathetically and producing un- No. 40 Nylclad magnet wire. A 1/4-lb. spool wanted dissonances. This involved some sort of should do it, but you determine the amount with mechanical or electrical switching method to take an ohmmeter, since the frequency response the unused strings out of play. Then, if you changes if you wind on too little or too much. suddenly wanted to include the dead strings For the winding, pin the assembly to a block of while playing, you had to switch them back on. wood chucked in a lathe. This meant kicking a foot or hand lever. Use short lengths of stranded hookup wire Our model avoids all this by using just one for leads. Cement the wire's insulation into the bank of 12 strings, hardly wider than a simple pickup body so the leads won't pull out. Close guitar. Thus, all damping can be performed as in in the pickup with thin phenolic covers and wrap classical steel technique—with the edge of the the whole unit in aluminum foil, rubber-cemented hand. Strings are arranged in three groups: The in place; leave a tab of foil to twist up in the first five form the melody or major chords; the wire that comes from the outside windings of the next four, a diminished seventh; and the last pickup. Cement the foil-covered pickup into a three—farthest from the player—make up the recess which you can now mark and cut to fit it less-frequently-used minor chords. The result is —making it deep enough to provide the proper a close-knit fingering arrangement which makes clearance between the top of the pickup and the playing much easier and simplifies construction. strings. You can check this by laying a straight- edge across the bridge and nut. build the body first Laminate the body from three pieces of ex- the control panel terior plywood or any %-in. kiln-dried stock. Cut The control panel and end plate can be cut out the recesses for volume and tone controls and from 1/8-in. hardboard—or more elegant opaque phone jack. plastic, if you've some on hand. The plates are The headstock should be hardwood, preferably similar, except that there's only one 3/8-in. hole in maple. After it's cut, you'll have to make up a the end one. taper block to hold it in position on the drill When you install the machine heads (available press while you bore clean, accurate holes for the from any musical supply house) in the head- shafts of the machine heads which are used for stock, note the position of the worm drive. Meas- tuning the strings. When you've done the other ure off the bridge location from the nut, as drilling and slotting, check all parts for clearance shown; this is a critical dimension for pitch—it and glue and screw the head in place, with a shouldn't be over 22-3/4 in or under 22-11/16 in scrap of 1/4-in. Plexiglas between it and the top Note there's a grounding lug under one of the lamination, so you'll be able to slip in the nut screws; feed a bit of hook-up wire from it to later on. Finish and paint the guitar body now. the outside braid of the pickup cable. Wire up the Paint the hardboard fingerboard flat black and control pots and the phone jack as shown in the line off the fret positions with white ceiling-coater schematic and screw their plates in place. The type paint in a draftsman's ruling pen. Follow guitar plays through any standard amplifier and the spacing chart carefully—these positions gov- speaker system. In stringing and tuning it follow ern the pitch of the notes. Glue the fret board in the diagram just below the wiring schematic, place. bearing in mind that in each group the lightest- The bridge must be iron angle—not brass or weight string is located farthest from the player. aluminum—because of the heavy load on it when After tuning, pull lightly on all strings, to take out the initial stretch, and retune. They'll stay tuned, now. Check the level of the strings by laying the steel bar across them. Squeaks mean a high string. Loosen it and file its nut groove a bit deeper—a touch-up operation that's neces- sary because the diameters of strings vary. The way the strings are located and tuned puts the major with its seventh and relative minor in a straight line across the fret board. This means no groping around for related chords. They're right under your fingertips—leaving you free to watch the hula your music inspires.