Double Neck Lapsteel - hand crafted or factory ?

musicalstash

Bought this double neck recently at a well known auction house ,  it was sold as being " hand crafted "  but I am not too sure in that I think  it might be a off the shelf model  .

The only branding is on the  tuners which look to be B&H  Van Ghent  units .

The case even though hand sprayed with " Burns" looks to be a genuine sixties Burns case.

 Any ideas or information would be appreciated  ?

https://imgur.com/a/xWPLfyf

rlw

Hand crafted = made by hand.  No way a machine made that.

jpfamps

That is a bizarre item.

More to the point, what tunings are you going to use on it!

Henrytwang

Looks like a handmade guitar to me . Burns did use Van Ghent machine heads but I don’t think that the guitar was made by them.

musicalstash

Thanks for taking the time out to reply. It was just the burns style tuners and  possible burns case that threw me.    

Jimbro66

To be brutally frank it looks more home-made than hand-crafted. Anyway, it's how it plays and what it sounds like that matters. What do you have in mind?

musicalstash

It doesn't sound too bad ,  currently strung with nylon flatwound strings and tuned E13th

and C6th.  

Bit of a hassle to play at the moment as it did not come with any legs or stand and the input is on the back so trying to balance it on my legs . 

Will be looking to move it on once I get  the pots cleaned ( bit scratchy)  .  

DulcetJones

Could it be that Burns is the name of either the person that made it or an owner of this instrument?  It is really cool though.  It seems odd to me that someone would put nylon strings on it considering that the magnetic pick ups won't, uh, pick them up.  I think you can get some answers at  https://steelguitarforum.com/  , there is a one time $5.00US membership fee but the site has lots of knowledgeable members and access to tabs and advice.

musicalstash

Possibly but I am 99% sure it is a sixties burns case,  I had a similar one with my burns jazz 
.  
Sorry meant black tape wound strings ( metal core) .

Jimbro66

As far as I'm aware Burns never at any time made steel guitars even though Jim Burns did play lap steel. Under his Ormston brand (James Ormston Burns) he did market rebadged Denley steel guitars but none of them looked remotely like the OP's one. So if that is a genuine Burns case it's probably just one that the maker of the lap steel happened to have.

I can imagine that would be a bit of a challenge to play on your lap! If there are no legs it's likely that it was previously used on a keyboard stand or similar.

musicalstash

Thanks for everyones input..  it's was more hope than anything else with the burns connection.  


Thanks again 
S