Conclusion
Well, this project was a bit rushed, as we started it around Thanksgiving, and one of them was a Christmas present for our younger daughter, who is a talented musician. She plays several acoustic and electric instruments, including electric and acoustic guitar, viola, keyboards and trombone. But the lap steel was a total supprise on Christmas, and we think she is going to have fun with it. We are hoping she inspires us to learn to play it as well (that is what the second one was for, after all). Our older daughter is also a talented musican who plays both violin and acoustic guitar - unfortunately, we are not quite ready to tackle building an acoustic instrument...
In the end, it was a really fun project, despite the minor fustration of a lack of certain tools. We have to admit that we owe some thanks to a number of sites we visited while researching this project - especially a blog by a woman in Colorado who was building one on her living room coffee table, with an electic drill and electric jig saw as her only power tools. Made use feel a bit spoiled. Last we checked, it was looking fantastic, and she was getting ready to paint it.
However, the biggest source of satisfaction was, of course, being able to give one of these to our daughter for Christmas this year - a musical instrument built pretty much from scratch. How cool is that? W00t!!