I’ve had a Sherwood Lap Steel for a couple of years now. I got it from Amzie down in the Marigny. While I liked the idea of the lap steel, the sound out of this one was never very good and it wouldn’t hold a tuning.

So a couple weeks back I got a wild hair and decided to re-wire it. I picked up two 250 pots and set to work replacing the old ones.

I rarely work on the electronics of my guitars having successfully screwed up quite a few in my younger days. But given that this particular instrument has little monetary value and had almost no value to me in its barely-functioning state, I decided to dive in.

When I had the new pots in and plugged it in, I couldn’t believe the difference. The pick-up in that thing sounds fantastic!

So to complete the transformation I picked up a set of grover tuning pegs and replaced the mis-matched set that was on it when I bought it. I suspect that if there is a Sherwood lap steel purist out there in the world, they will be horrified by my desecration of this old war horse. Sorry about that.

The good news, however, is that I now have a kickin’ little lap steel with great tone that stays in tune!