50's technology...

Well, my old 1950s Commodore lap steel has been a little recalcitrant lately so it has earned a spot on the bench...

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Interesting... it's a cast aluminium body with red celluloid glued onto it.

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.. with a wooden base and wood behind the "headstock", secured by pins that have been bent at 90⁰ and hammered home!

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You see here the huge, steel tailpiece with some of the chrome plated tinware used as decoration.

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The pickup from above. Fully handmade by a Taihape panelbeater called Bunny Milne. The pole pieces go through the coil and screw into the body through a sole plate which is insulated...

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The pickup exploded. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Bunny had wound his own pickups, eh! Chunky coil, with an impedance of 7.4kΩ...

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The loom. Huge great British pots which are a little scratchy but otherwise fine with an enormous capacitor. I think I may leave this loom out and build one with modern components, just for sh1ts and giggles! Both of those pots, by the way, are log taper...

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The machine heads are binding and are very hard to wind; they're just plain worn out but I have a set of 3r/3l machines going spare, so with some judicious drilling and fitting, on they go!

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The bridge, such as it is. This sits underneath that tailpiece and atop that round magnet, which is strong enough to pull your fillings out! Why is that magnet there?? Anyone??

Commodore was, as I said earlier, a Taihape, N.Z. company with Bunny Milne at the helm originally. Information is a little sketchy about these early days but I understand that his gear was pretty well regarded, at least in NZ!!

Awesome stuff but I did notice you've pinched some of MY workbench carpet ;)

As for the magnet under the bridge I wonder if it has some sort of polarity orientation with the pickup to aid the tone
( either that or Bev Brock had something to do with it )

Looking forward to hearing it again in all it's glory.

Love the red mother of toilet seat finish!

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