1971 Fender Deluxe Six Lap Steel Guitar

A friend of mine sent this up here for possible-sale, possible-trade. I still might take it in the "possible-trade" category. It's dang tasty... and it has legs. Did I mention I love legs on a lap steel? It makes hanging-out in a jam and doubling on something else as well so much more fun. And, yes, I suppose it's useful for playing "out" with the same situation as well. I find it easier to play more accurately when legs are on a steel, too, as the instrument's not trying to slide out of your lap.

Anyhow, how is this not a Stringmaster? It looks like one! But... Stringmasters have two or more necks. This is only one and it's not meant to mate to another. That makes it, by Fender logic, a "Deluxe" lap steel. Because it has 6 instead of 8 strings, that makes it a "Deluxe Six."

The grey-bottom pickups are stamped for 1971 manufacture and so I'm assuming that's when this one was built. Its finish-style certainly smacks of that era and the stripped-down case does as well. It's all-original save one knob (the tone knob -- which I replaced just today with a normal "flat top" knob like the volume one, but it's not in the pics), though the legs are new, after-market items. The case certainly didn't have room for legs in it!

When this came out of the shipping box it was filthy on the top and cleanish on the back and sides. It'd obviously been sitting a long while. After lots of scrubbing with polish, it finally looks respectable. After that it just needed the jack tightened and a light spray-out of the electronics with contact cleaner.

Tone-wise, it sounds gorgeous. It has that Fender-style long sustain, a bell-like, clean sound throughout its range, and an instant "throwback '50s" sort of voice. It sounds very hi-fi. The controls are volume/tone to the right-hand of the pickups. There's one pot (which never had a knob on it) behind the bridge and that acts like a pickup blend/selector. I like it set about halfway as the "neck" pickup has an almost '40s-sounding Hawaiian-like sweetness to it while the bridge pickup is all clean, clear, and "heat-singed" treble. It's a bit hard to describe it but it sounds like desert.

Setup notes: I've got it strung with 52w-12 gauge electric strings with an unwound G-string. This gets me to a good-sounding open E (EBEG#BE low to high) tuning in the video.

Scale length: 22 1/2"

String spacing at nut: 1 7/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2"

Body length: 30 1/2"

Lower bout width: 6 1/2"

Side depth: 1 3/4"

Condition notes: it's all-original save one knob and repro legs. There's light pitting on the hardware but it's overall in good order. The finish shows some long cracking but that's typical for Fenders of the time.