making a resonator guitar

[James Linares]

Hey Michael, great site!

A work colleague and I were thinking of building a ‘Tricone’ type guitar from scratch in our workshop, but found that working from a few odd pictures would be very hard. Is there any way you could give us some tips or pass on any details (diagrams or crucial measurements for example) that would help set us on our way.

I would be extremely grateful for any information at all.

I know that this is probably putting you out, so I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope it’s not too much bother,

Thank you so much; I'll let you know how we get on anyway.

James

[lee holliday]

Hi James,
I have also considered this but would like a wooden tricone to compliment the sweeter sound of the tricones.
Mike lewis already has mastered the wooden tricone both round and squareneck and I have no illusions on where mine will fit in the evolution of the resonator guitar but part of the passion (fun?) is having a go.
If you google making a tricone/construction etc there are a few who have already trodden the path and left informative photographic trails. As regards the metalwork I have already started buying it in and somehow ended up with two coverplates (twin neck anyone?)
Regards Lee.

[Michael Messer]

Hi James,

Welcome to our forum & thank you for the kind words.

I am not the best person to advise you about making a Tricone. I am sure, as you can see from Lee's post, there are some people far more qualified than me to advise about making. I have been collecting, playing & fiddling with National guitars for 30 years, but making them......I leave that one alone!

I am sure you will get some good advice from other members of this forum and please do keep us informed with your progress. It is neither an inconvenience or a bother, it is a pleasure.

Good luck with it!

Shine On,
Michael

[LouisianaGrey]

The first place to look is in the library at the Musical Instrument Makers' Forum (www.mimf.com) where there are a couple of descriptions with photos. You have to register on the site to be able to look at it. Both Mike Dotson and Mike Simpson have done tricones - they are helpful guys and if you post questions on the forum I'm sure they'll be happy to answer them.

[Deleted]

I'd also recommend the Musical Instrument Makers' Forum as a good source of information. I too have been planning to build a resophonic guitar for quite some time but haven’t got around to making a start. It was originally going to be a metal body but more recently I've decided to try a wooden body first, a little bit less ambitious I think. I still don’t know when I’ll start it though.

Mike Dotson is a very helpful chap, I sent him an e-mail asking lots of stupid questions and he very graciously answered them without sniggering. You should be able to find answers to most of your questions on the Internet if you do enough digging.

Beard guitars sell blueprints of a single cone guitar (no tri-cones), which may be helpful if you want to see the basic construction of a National, although most of that information is available in picture form free of charge on the Internet. I wouldn’t buy a blueprint unless you want to build a National copy.

Best of luck with your project.

[tonemonkey]

MIMF is an excellent resource.

I knock about on www.projectguitar.com as a resource for guitar building. There is the odd discussion regarding resonators, but nowhere near as much as electrics. However, they are a very helpful bunch.

As a quick method of getting the outline, you can find a photo of the relevant guitar and import it into AutoCAD type programme. You can then increase the size of the photo and keep measuring the scale length until it is full size. Then draw round the outline with the spline command, delete the photo and you have the body outline.

Not the most accurate method, but good for an outline.