What is the best vintage 8 string lap steel?

[David DeLoach]

What would you guys say is the best vintage 8 string lap steel?

I love my 1940 6 string Panda, but I've heard the 8 string pickups on the old Richenbachers can be hit & miss for the outer strings.

[Tim Whitlock]

I would say the Clinesmith in your avatar would be as good or better than any vintage lap steel. Otherwise, a Fender S8 (trapezoid or Stringmaster style) might be the best way to go. Another nice option is the Rickenbacker SW8.

[D Schubert]

I have a couple of Supro 8-strings, black and white, short scale, from the late 50's that I'm fond of. Tone is darker than my 2x8 Fender Stringmaster. I play C13 (with high G) and E13 (with low E) tunings. Not sure I'd say that any of those guitars are "best" but both are good. The shorter scale is more comfortable to me.

[David DeLoach]

I would say the Clinesmith in your avatar would be as good or better than any vintage lap steel. Otherwise, a Fender S8 (trapezoid or Stringmaster style) might be the best way to go. Another nice option is the Rickenbacker SW8.

Yeah, I love my two Clinesmith 8 string lapsteels! The reason I ask is I'm playing with a guitarist who is very much into playing old songs on old guitars and presenting a vintage vibe.

[Nic Neufeld]

I kind of prefer my 50s Magnatone D8 to my Fender Stringmaster T8 (57, med scale) tonewise. But both are good guitars! They can also double as ballast, put them in the bed of your pickup when it snows...very heavy to carry around!

[Tim Whitlock]

Yeah, I love my two Clinesmith 8 string lapsteels! The reason I ask is I'm playing with a guitarist who is very much into playing old songs on old guitars and presenting a vintage vibe.

Got it. I love to see a beautiful vintage steel in an old timey music setting. I love my Panda 6, too, and have heard about the issues with the 8 string Pandas. I have owned two Ricky console D8s - a DW16 and a 208. Both were nice instruments and the outer strings were not a problem. They generally go for less than a comparable Fender, when you can find them. Otherwise, hard to beat a old Dual Pro. Just ask Chris Scruggs!

[Barney Roach]

This MAGANTONE Jeweltone 8 string has exceeded my expectations in every way! And I have
two friends that I must acknowledge for getting it:

I asked my friend Rick Schmidt what I should consider for a vintage 7 string Lap Steel
. . and he wisely answered: "Do not discount getting an 8 string."

'Why?' I asked in complete honesty . . . .

"Because you can string it up as a 6 string, a 7 string, or an 8 string." ( I never considered that!! )

So I consulted another incredible friend- Dr. Richard Shatz- hoping he would let go of an old Gibson EH-185. Nope.

But- he did highly praise these Magnatones, and pointed me in the right direction to find one.

I believe it to be a VERY early one, as it has never been serialized, and did not yet have the REAR cast aluminum piece. ( Made only for a year or so- starting in 1949. )

I took this picture of LAP STEEL FAN Mr. Pat Quilter at a San Diego Guitar / AMPFEST in mid- Sept. 2024.
Pat told me he had never seen one before.

I feel exceedingly lucky to be the one to have it!

Thank you again Rick and Richard!

And I would love to hear from someone that REALLY knows these early ones!

[Greg Forsyth]

David,

I bought the Ricky 208 from Tim that he refers to and I agree with him that the 8 string pickups sound good thru all 8 strings.

However if you find an 8 string with pickup problems there are several people who can rebuild the pickup with great results. Sentell Pickups in Sacramento does a great service, and Forum members Nick Fryer and Scott Swartz have awesome reputations as Pickup Masters.

You gotta love Pat Quilter. He's building a fine line of analogue amps that have great tone and versatility!

[Fred]

I have a Rickenbacher D-16. It has 6 string bobbins with two extra magnets added to the ends with extra wire wrapped around them. This was the factory method for a while. The outside strings are fine.

Remagnetizing the shoes will usually fix any unevenness in response. I haven't had to do this.

I don't know if the D-16 (or any Rick) is the best vintage 8 string, but I love it.

[Noah Miller]

Remagnetizing Rickenbacker shoes does not fix uneven response in the 8-string pickups. The problem is that the outer strings are sometimes wider than the coil, so their vibration is not picked up. Sometimes you get lucky and it's not a problem, but when it is, the only solution is to change the string spacing.

[Michael Kiese]

Remagnetizing Rickenbacker shoes does not fix uneven response in the 8-string pickups. The problem is that the outer strings are sometimes wider than the coil, so their vibration is not picked up. Sometimes you get lucky and it's not a problem, but when it is, the only solution is to change the string spacing.

Just adding to this comment, not taking away from it.

Noah makes a good point.

Each string should be directly over a pole piece, whether pole piece is the magnet itself, or a piece of non-magnet cylindrical metal like in Rickenbacher horseshoe pups.

The old Rickenbacher horseshoe pole pieces appear to be iron nails that were filed down by hand.

I've had two 8-string Rickenbacher Bakelites, and they played fine with a little tweaking. Before buying, it's good idea to really look and make sure that there is a polepiece directly under each string. You can't fix what isn't there, which gives credence to Noah's point.

Sometimes the polepieces are very short (perhaps a previous owner filed them down too much) so that a particular string can be low in volume, no matter how you adjust the pickup height. The best non-invasive solution is to raise the pole piece by adding tiny steel washers on top of the iron nail pole piece. This shortens the gap between the top of the pole piece and the string itself. It works, and you can use a bit of hide glue to keep them in place. Hide glue is handy because it's sticky enough to keep something in place, but not permanent, so you can break it off without damaging anything, in most cases.

Re-magging an old horseshoe pup in my opinion is always a good idea. It just brings both mags bag to 100% strength. Ups the output of the horseshoe pup significantly. If you experience a lot of high end harshness, you can always reduce the pot value of the volume pot to 250K or less. Experiment with pot values and use your ears. The trial and error process is worth it!

If you want to keep the original Vol pot, you can always wire a resistor in Parallel across lugs 1 and 2. That requires a little bit of Algebra and the correct formula, to know what the ohmage is after doing so. Just to give you an idea: a 500K pot with a 100K resistor wired in parallel across lugs 1 and 2 reduces the overall resistance of the pot to ~83K. Just another way of achieving the same result.

Enjoy!

[Glenn Wilde]

Best one I've played is my 1950 Fender Deluxe trap pickup, it sounds gorgeous and it's scale suits me.
It's beautiful blonde Telecaster finish don't hurt either.

[Allan Revich]

I don’t know if anyone is still looking, but here’s an 8 string Gibson EH-150 for sale in Newfoundland, Canada.
https://www.nlclassifieds.com/1940S-GIB ... CId3657365

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[Stephen Cowell]

I don’t know if anyone is still looking, but here’s an 8 string Gibson EH-150 for sale in Newfoundland, Canada.
https://www.nlclassifieds.com/1940S-GIB ... CId3657365

Nice guy... he wants 2000 Canuckistan kopecks for the thing, and is not interested in shipping to Texas or USA or international. I own its six-string little brother... these are 1-year-only (1941) instruments, the first Alnico pickup Gibsons. It is in great shape but too rich and not for sale to me anyway. I told him if I'm ever in Newfie-land, perhaps to drink some screech, I'd drop by and might pick it up. This is the only one I've seen.

Keeping up the title theme, I'm awful proud of my Fender Stringmasters... and I could sell them for what I paid for them any day. Why buy a single-neck when the second neck doesn't cost near as much?

[Bill Sinclair]

Hey Stephen,
I've got a '41 7-string EH150 that would be the middle child between the Newfoundland 8 string and your 6. Replaced the fretboard and tuners. It's one of my favorites. In the 8-string department, the only vintage single neck I currently have is this 50's Carvin that Tom Brantley rewound the pickup for. I had to replace the broken plastic bridge and nut with aluminum. Kind of a grab-and-go guitar for jams but it sounds great and I should use it more often.

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