GeorgeBoards has been providing Lap Steels to the Students of the Hawaiian Music Institute of Maui this year.

Steel Master Henry Kaleialoha Allen is establishing a Cultural Musical Program for the Hanna School. GeorgeBoards is currently creating a student model for these youth.

We are seeking Sponsor's for these student guitars.

Each sponsor will receive his name plate on the master plaque at the Institute as well as on the the individual instrument.

Please E-mail if you would like to help in this effort to preserve Hawaiian Musical Culture.

Henry Allen's personal and professional friend is George Benson the jazz guitarist.

Henry has engaged GeorgeBoards to build a Premium Hawaiian Steel Guitar. After an extensive interview as well as several days and nights of playing his Hawaiian Style in Maui GeorgeBoards came up with this new model.

Henry Plays several different steels including Fender String Master Double 8 and one From Fuzzy in Japan that resembles a pedal steel. This Master player and jazz guitarist recognized the quality and sonic soundness of the GeorgeBoard Lap Steel when they met up at the Marin County Vintage Guitar Show.

George's Mom lives in Maui and a meeting was set for the islands.

Hours of discussion, tape measure's and visual inspection resulted in a complete list of best aspects from all of the steels and laps too.

The Head Stock is carved from the Solid Block of Wood CAD assisted CNC carves the main body parts. The remainder of the work and finishes are basically all done by hand .

The Fret Board is plexi glass Laser Carved to exacting Specifications. GeorgeBoards has privilege of having gotten their 22.5" fret measurements from the late Ron Lashley make of the Emmons Le Grande pedal steels.

Grover Super Roto-Matic's have a super nice feel and smoothness, clearly beautiful.

The head stock is graduated to place the tuner's string hole directly in front of the slot where it comes across the front roller. Better tuning, stays tuned longer, extra sustain.

The roller is CNC Milled to exacting depths to create a more smooth plane on the top of the strings.

.330 spacing on this end, available in brass, aluminum, stainless steel.

One really cool Henry trick is...all of the strings are at least .009 above the roller so you can do a pull off or push on from the open position and it sounds like a fret to fret move, no klanking type noise.

The wooden holder for the roller is Koa too and has Alignment pins placed into the neck at .002 tolerances.

The wood helps to make the tone more mellow and less electric metallic than the brass ones used on other GeorgeBoards.

The metal rollers keep it strong and very Hawaiian Sounding

This Koa is 1-1/8" thick, known as

Compression Curl

It is more stable than other Koa's and has some Figure in it too.

Color ranges from Golden Honey to a deep Red with various mineral lines.

Inlay Details accent the body.

A tiny light bulb goes under the front roller to edge light the plexi this light emitts from the laser carvings.

The Hula Girls Dance for you at night.

Tone and Volume controls are

Right There

For quick Action while playing.

Book matched tops.

CAD assisted CNC precision creation of the Bridge roller piece.

Koa of course.

Super quick string change.

.360 spacing on the roller in the back.

Recessed Gold anodized connector plate.

These pickups are are laser cut from plexi with exacting spacing distances.

The Alnico magnets are placed directly under the strings.

Koa tops are in order.

Lindy Fralin, Richmond Va. winds the pickups and charges the magnets.

This single coil sounds like the 50's tone and is super clean.

George Benson purchased this guitar sight un seen on Henry's recommendation.

GeorgeBoards presented it to him November 1st 2001 in Sandy Eggo Ca. He said it was beyond his expectations.

George is a student of the Hawaiian Music Institute also.

Please E-mail for details on how to order the Learning Materials , Learn to play CD's, and Backing Tracks for the songs in the book.

george@georgeboards.com