Recording King RG-31-NA Lap Steel

I have played guitar for decades, but have never tried to play lap steel before. So I wanted an inexpensive lap steel to try if I could play it at all. I have a very good Recording King banjo, so I expected this lap steel to be ok.

First, let me say that all the Recording King lap steel guitars are the same instrument, just different finishes. So you might want to read the reviews on the other ones as well.

Next, I suspect this is a standard chinese instrument that is sold under different names, "Johnson" is one. So there has not been much Recording King design into this.

I think this lap steel was strung with ordinary guitar string gauges. Which made it impossible to tune to C6 that I wanted, the strings were much too thin. So you better order some extra lap steel strings. I bought the LaBella C6 string set which seems to work just fine. I also bought a Shubb steel bar.

The bushings for the strings thru body are not recessed. So they will scratch a table. I fixed that with a drill press.

The bridge is a simple metal one, and I noticed that the strings did not align with the pickup pole pieces. I fixed that by filing notches to the bridge to keep the strings in place and aligned with the pickup.

On the rear there is a cover for the electronics (two very small pot-meters and a condenser). One of the screws holding this cover did not meet any wood in the guitar. I had to glue in a little pice of wood where the screw could go.

All in all a decent lap steel for the price, although it needed some adjustments, repair and string change. And to my big surprise, I was able to play it from the first day using my general knowledge of scales and harmonies. Great fun.

Despite the fact there is no intonation saddles I must say the instrument is pretty well tuned...I bet not exact, but for the nature of this instrument is not really necessary.

The finish is good, except for a bump on the "perloid fingerboard" mark surface, seems like they cutted it a bit too long and the last bit towards the nut is a bit lifted...not a biggie tho.

The instrument is rather light, I expected a heavy one, good that is not.

The pickup sounds nice, be aware that under certain circumstances (a very bright setup on the amp or multieffect) it gives buzz hum unless you touch the strings...I've checked the electronics and the ground cable and everything seems in place. In my normal Jazz setup (fender amp, compressor, delay, verb) the output is very clean.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested into getting a lapsteel for the first time.

As a complete beginner on Lap Steel (and not wishing to shell out too much just in case!) I did my research and this one always came up as great value for money. It certainly looks the part! On plugging it in (The supplied lead is a little wimpy but better than nothing) there is a slight buzz but I normally put that down to the P90 style pickup as I have the same problems with my P90 equipped guitars.

I restrung it to set it for C6 tuning and armed with a book and a few online tutorials got it sounding good and accurate quite easily! Either clean for the traditional sound or through overdrive for the Pink Floyd-type atmospherics it works really well

The tuners work well and all the controls work fine and as I said, it looks pretty good and I can see no reason to change to another model for some time or at all. The satin mahogany looks much nicer than the sunburst in my opinion!

At the price this is selling for there really is nothing to complain about and its certainly great value for money!