I recently learned that Tom Pettingill unexpectedly passed on 01/05/17. You may ask who he was.

To myself and other lap steel players.....he was the consummate artisan...he made beautiful, aesthetically pleasing lap steels.

Every part of his steels had function though, nothing was wasted or superfluous.

Gorgeous works of art that sounded as wonderful as they looked. He knew his wood....all about pickups.......a finishing expert with Tru-Oil.

Above all that he was the most humble of men, a free and reliable disseminator of knowledge.

He was my friend. Over the course of 7 years, he built 4 stunning lap steels for me.

All 4 looked different from each other and they sounded different from each other.

I will link, later today, to a site Tom put up of pictures of his steels. Drool-worthy stuff.

If there's any interest I can put up links to the pics and story of each of my steels.

RIP brother!