Home made lapsteel guitar

This guy's home made lapsteel guitar sounds really sweet. (Thanks, Steve!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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scifijazznik

FREEBIRRRRD!!!!!!

Seriously, that was nice. I played geetar for years and my brother gave me a beautiful 1930s National New Yorker lap steel. I was dumbstruck by how difficult it was to play and actually have it sound good. This guy makes it look easy. I just wanna say that it ain’t.
noah django

was gonna skip this until i saw it was “lonesome whistle.” a great tune, and extremely soulfully played, too.

Hank Sr. FTW!
eap

It doesn’t hurt that this guy is really skilled
V

Here he is doing Hank Williams’Lost Highway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dapIz2zQSDQ
cdrudy

Seems like pretty comprehensive instructions for a similar model can be found here:

http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/index.htm
davee5

The “sounds really sweet” bit is pretty much all in this guy’s playing ability, building a lapsteel guitar is actually about as easy as instrument building gets.

I’m all about building your own instruments (made my own electric), so kudos to that guy in general, but add me to the list of people who is rather impressed by the clean, smooth slide playing (which I can’t do for beans).
Anonymous

davee5, you are right. but even a lap steel project can be borked to sound like crap. this one sounds beautiful. enough wood. nice amp settings. he can even play quite a bit, so it seems like he built the lap steel to actually play it and not for some occupational therapy.

i saw some really bad homemade lap steel guitars and like his instrument from what i can see and hear.

.~.
Anonymous

Bliss!
scionofgrace

That was lovely, and just the kind of music I needed to hear (for some inexplicable reason).

Homemade instruments are awesome, and this guy can really play his well.