Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks again for all the nice comments, they are very much appreciated.

Nick, it is indeed pretty much the same as a dobro, though we who build them really can't call them that, as Gibson owns the name "dobro".

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars

Damon,

That is indeed a beauty!

Also a very timely post. I am just in the process of laying out a body design for my first resonator build. When you talk about intonation, I am really stumped over how it is compensated for on a square neck, if at all. All the things I have seen so far have shown the 12th fret to center of cone being laid out at 12-1/2" for a 25" scale. Is there something else I need to know before I get too far?

Thanks,

Mark

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A world without music would Bb.

Yes, no need for compensating for the different string thicknesses like on a six string, since you are not fretting the strings when playing. I always wondered why people put a compensated saddle on a Weissenborn. But there may be a good reason, I am pretty new at this and don't pretend to know everything!

Anyway, 12.5" from the 12th fret is exactly what I use. The tricky thing is, you want the neck to be fitted pretty well to the body, straight and squared up as best as you can, before routing out the hole for the cone. You really want that hole to be in the right spot for correct intonation, this is a problem with a lot of reso's I have played, especially older ones. You do have some leeway in that the edge of your top material should be about 1/16" of an from the edge of the cone, so you can move the cone/saddle assembly some if you need to at final assembly. The problem I encountered was after installing the back I still had to install the trim and then sand down the sides. When I did that the neck had to be refitted to the newly sanded sides, and now my hole was no longer in the right spot. It wasn't a huge difference and since the ledge I made was oversize anyway, I could still move the cone to the right spot for correct intonation, if you see what I mean. But now the top 4 screws for the coverplate were not going through any maple, and some of the others were right on the edge. They are long enough there is still a lot of screw in the plywood, and I don't think they will pull out, but it's all a bit too sloppy for me. I actually superglued in some little squares of maple in the questionable spots, but two came out, they were too small to have enough surface area to hold when glued in. This guitar will remain with me!

So I guess you could either allow for the fact the cone location will move slightly when you sand after installing the trim, and rout it maybe 12.5' + another 1/32" to 1/16" or so, or you could install the back and trim, sand and fit the neck before routing. I will probably do the former, as I like to be able to actually bolt on the neck to measure for the saddle location.

Good luck! Hope that helps some!

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Damon Wack
https://www.facebook.com/LindamonGuitars