Acoustic lap steel / Hawaiian guitar is quite a lapfull!

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This acoustic lap steel or Hawaiian guitar has been hand-built using a large plywood box. Whether the box was made specifically for the guitar or whether it was an existing box that has been repurposed, I could not tell you. Whatever, with a soundbox that big it ought to have plenty of acoustic volume. I think if it was mine I'd be tempted to put legs on it.

Currently listed on eBay UK with a starting price of £10.

G L Wilson

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MeloDuende Aluha 2 aluminium Hawaiian guitar

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What with French luthiers and metal body guitars? We saw already steel instruments by Trussard and LePape, here is MeloDuende - who dropped steel for aerospace grade aluminium, and as you can see the Aluha undeniably shares DNA with spaceships! Doing so they went back to the origins of electric guitar - the original 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan was made out of aluminium...

Unfortunately MeloDuende doesn't have original models - come on people, why have a luthier's guitar that looks like everybody's Squier? - but this Weissenborn style hawaiian guitar seems quite unique - and sounds terrific! 

Bertram D

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Pre-war, French-made "Pineapple" guitar

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I'm afraid I have virtually zero information to give you about this French pineapple guitar other than it looks to be a nylon strng instrument (although it originally had a trapeze tailpiece which would imply folk guitar rather than classical guitar) and is supposedly pre-war French (2nd World War, I believe).

Its shape echoes that of the pineapple ukulele. I've not seen a pineapple-shaped guitar before, although we have previously looked at an egg-shaped acoustic guitar.

This guitar does require some attention and as such is being auctioned on eBay UK as a project with a starting price of £50.

G L Wilson

Additional: We believe it is a Hawaiian guitar - see the comments below this post.

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Flyte-inspired lap steel, a.k.a. the KKK Hawaiian!

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Lately I've been looking through some of the lap steels and Hawaiian guitars being sold on eBay, becuase, let me tell you, there are some really wacky designs in this whole sub-group of our favourite instrument.

Look at this one. There are currently two sellers on eBay.co.uk selling a guitar like this (here and here). Both are using the same photos and have copied the same text from somewhere which very mysteriously claims that:

This guitar is made by an "official" overseas manufacturer for one of the biggest name-brand guitar companies (which I can not name here, per eBay's ebay rules).

I'm not aware of anything in the eBay rules that says you can't name the manufacturer of the goods you are selling, but I get the impression that this isn't really what the seller means. It's more likely a question of copyright infringement.

This lap steel guitar is obviously based on the now legendary Burns Flyte guitar, which is one of my personal all-time favourite designs. However, unlike the real deal, it does not look sculpted, elegant and classy. It looks flat and two-dimensional as if it had been cut out of a sheet of MDF (although apparently it's the ever-popular basswood) and the pointed headstock looks like it could be lethal.

Even more disturbingly, standing up like that in the photo, it resembles the silhouette of a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Please don't tell me that this is genuine Burns products (if it was, why the secrecy over the name of the manufacturer?) because I'd hate to think they'd lower their standards so very much as to produce this abomination.

G L Wilson

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Halua Hi-Tech Hawaiian Guitar

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Did you ever see a guitar as sleek-looking as this Halua acoustic lapsteel? It's like a spaceship out of a SciFi movie where the whole craft is perfectly seemless and smooth. The bridge is integral to the body as is the fingerboard (it's not a "fretboard" in this instance, because being a lapsteel it has no frets, just markers).

Although it is based loosely on the Weissenborn acoustic slide guitars of the 1920s and 30s, this 21st Century reinterpretation is constructed of carbon fibre (or "carbon fiber" if you will) and comes in its own carbon fibre case that doubles as a stand.

This particular guitar - currently for sale on eBay - formerly belonged to Ben Harper, and was apparently surplus to requirements because he had somehow ended up with two.

Halua guitars are handmade by Hans Jorgen Jahr, a Norwegian now relocated to Australia.

For more please see: www.halua.no

G L Wilson

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An Interview with Vintage Guitar Restorer and Historian Richard Johnston

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If you've ever wondered about the history of the guitar, how the instrument first gained popularity and where the likes of the Hawaiian guitar, mandolin and ukulele all fit into the picture, then you could do a lot worse than to read this Interview with Vintage Guitar Restorer and Historian Richard Johnston courtesy of Collector's Weekly. Absolutely facinating stuff.

G L Wilson

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Astor Studios Hawaiian Guitar

When I first saw the picture of this Astor Studios Hawaiian Guitar my immediate though was, "That's a short neck! Joins the body at what? The tenth fret?"

Then I realised that it was a hawaiian guitar and would be played lap-style. Nevertheless it's a peculiar looking instrument. It looks almost as if you could use it as a small boat or coracle. Its shape also reminds me of the now legendary wheelbarrow bass.

The seller estimates that it might date back to the 1930s or 1940s. What appears to be a dull grey finish in the photo, is actually a green marble.