I'd first ask them to build one with saddles and see if they will. Else, I suspect you could use a 6 string 'Tune-o-matic' style saddle option from Warmoth or All Parts that would work. I was bummed to see the saddles gone on the hipshot, because NOBODY MAKES 8 STRING PARTS! But I'm sure there's a workaround, I just haven't looked too hard yet. http://www.warmoth.com/

Btw, the Trilogy is a very cool option to have on a single neck steel! I've only nailed down two tunings that I use most of the time, but love having the option to experiment. If anyone else uses a Trilogy bridge chime in. I'm planning to go to Hawaii for the HSGA show in April and will take mine with me to play on stage.

Related note: would anyone be interested in a 'kit guitar' for 8 string? All the parts provided, you just do your own custom finish and assemble?

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.seldomfed.com

After far too much time spent experimenting, I've set it up with the two necks voiced differently. One neck is strung for "narrow" tunings, where all the intervals are small and the outside strings aren't more than a tenth apart: a D13 like b0b uses, a couple of diatonic D tunings, and an E13. The other neck has wider tunings where the outside strings are two octaves or more apart - C6, G6, and a couple of E7ths and pronounceable modal tunings (Dadegade?).

I'd say this gives me more options than I need - the big drawback is that I spend more time making charts and experimenting and dicking around with the bridges than I do playing the thing. But I think I'm starting to settle down. My ideal guitar might be a 7/8, with a Hipshot on the 8 only.

Something that might work if 8-string parts were hard to get would be to use a 6-string Hipshot on the middle six.

[This message was edited by John Kavanagh on 11 December 2002 at 12:21 PM.]

Well I don't have any kits (yet) - I was just checkin' the pulse of the group. Seems like after all this running around finding parts, programming CNC machines, finding vendors, and building parts I thought perhaps there would be some value in providing kits as well as prebuilt guitars.

I have a daydream fantasy, or sense that the lap steel will get more popular and there could be a huge renaissance someday soon. I think others sense it too. But I've felt this way for 10 years. Perhaps if there were parts avail., builders would flourish, hence guitars would become more ubiquitous, kids could afford them, and the steel community would benefit? Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

I'm learning that if someone likes 8 strings and multi neck lap steels etc. they likely already have one or more fine playable guitars or collector guitars, and probably aren't going to get their wife to let them buy another one! Plus, the biggie - there ain't no money in building custom instruments unless there is a demand. I can fantasize a demand because I love steel - but as we all know and rehash numerous times in this forum - the demand is 'graying'. Kids don't have lots of money, and steel ain't cool in the multi-national-global-hiphopping-electricguitar-beatdriven-digital-wannabe entertainment economy (yet).

I think I started building these in part because I went sorta nuts for steel. Perhaps that's part of the disease. You catch the 'bug', then as the mania progresses you have to build a guitar and convert every other musician you know. Kinda like Jedi's have to build their own light sabre to fight the dark side of the force.

One thing I learned - my experience makes me realize how amazing Leo Fender and other early makers were at designing this equipment, especially so early in the electric history of the instrument. Was Leo a genius or just lucky? The best guitars and the best players seemed to come into existence all in a relatively short time frame, early in the lifecycle - it's quite amazing! So here 50+ years later, people are still trying to sell you something that looks like a Tele! or a Strat! And we will be trying to improve on the Frypan, the Ricky Bakelite guitars and the Stringmaster for years to come. How and why does this happen?

Is it just seredipitous? That because all this (steels) happened as it did, sounded the way it sounded, at that certain period in time when it was new and unique and people were willing to focus their time and the technology of the age on it, that it all came together perfectly? - or at least the way we think it should be?

But I digest... (my food).

email me if you have questions about parts.
Cheers, Chris

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon" www.seldomfed.com

[This message was edited by seldomfed on 12 December 2002 at 04:36 PM.]

quote:

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I have a daydream fantasy, or sense that the lap steel will get more popular and there could be a huge renaissance someday soon. I think others sense it too.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

It's rare in my experience to walk into a guitar store and see a lap steel anywhere. Resonators more now - Although I did see a Chandler in a Guitar Center once way back in a corner.

Since I started building mine - the number of mfg. has grown - so there is a 'flow' going here. There is a + trend. (esp. in acoustic resonators - what's that? blues or bluegrass?). I think we (steel lovers) suffer from a provincial perspective perhaps common to any small population. The rest of the world still say's "what"? Your web site, and this forum (the experienced, pasionate, talented people that contribute) are quite amazing in facilitating visibility and sharing info. - but it's basically invisible to the mass market. I've only been a steel player for 10 years (guitar for 40) so I'm still learning -just my perceptions.

chris

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.seldomfed.com

Any ready-made lap steels that permit enough wood behind the bridge for mounting the Trilogy?

Any lap steel brands to avoid?

Anything available on the 'Bay that would suffice?

Thanks in advance.

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Livin' in the Past and Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 16 December 2004 at 04:36 AM.]