1920's National Style 1 Squareneck Tricone-PHOTOS ADDED

[gaucho]

I went to look at a '37 Dobro that was for sale locally last week. It wasn't in very good shape, but turns out the guy also had a Style 1 Tricone he wants to sell. It's in fair shape but it totally fixable into a pretty nice player. The question I have is this, how high off the fretboard are the stings supposed to be on these square necks ? This one is in need of a new nut and bridge (maybe just a nut, for some reason there isn't a regular nut, only a metal nut riser). From the photos I've seen online and in Mark's book, they don't seem to be anywhere near as high as the strings on a typical squareneck Dobro-spidercone type instrument (ususllay in the 3/4 inch range). He claims it's a 1927 but I didn't think they were producing many that early. I'm guessing more like '29. I didn't look at it all that closely, as I wasn't there for that and wasn't interested at the time. He's sending me some photos and a serial # which I will post later.


Just got the photos. It definitely needs some work in the headstock area. You can see the screw on the Ffretboard that Mark mentioned, but I don't know what's going on with the bolt on the backside. The nut slot looks enlarged and I'll need to make a new bone nut for it. It also has a weird eye bolt/screw thing that I can only imagine was put there for a strap anchor. I guess I can remove that and maybe fill the hole?

[Tymus]

Hi Gaucho

On my one (number 499) the nut looks to be totally original and untouched. Measured between the underside of the strings and the surface of the fretboard (not fret top) directly in front of the nut it is 5mm and measured from fretboard to top of nut it is fractionally over 6mm (not quite 1/4").
Between the 12th and 13th frets it is about 6.5mm, again measured from the fretboard surface to the underside of the strings. I suspect that originally this may have been slightly lower, as when the fretboard is viewed along its length a slight dip is visible, caused by the "neck" pulling slightly forwards over its 80 odd year life!

Cheers Tymus

[gaucho]

Thanks for that info Tymus. The serial number on this one is 1060. I don't have my copy of Mark's book with me but I'll research it online to try and figure out what year that makes it. I'll post photos when he sends them...

[Mark Makin]

Hi Chris
Last few months of 1928. I have a note in the serial list stating "bolt through first fret" on this instrument. Not sure what that might refer to??
Best Mark

[gaucho]

Hey Mark, I remember this one having some kinda funky screw or bolt thing thru the fretboard. I thought it was a homemade repair job. I'll definitely post photos when I get them...

[gaucho]

Mark, do you (or anyone) know if the strings on these were typically as high off the fretboard as a Dobro square neck? The photos I've seen online don't seem like they are as high...

[Colin McCubbin]

I've seen several Sq neck tricones with the fingerboard removed at Marc Schoenbergers, and there was a really crazy assortment of scrap wood glued in there to the short tongue on the headstock to join it to the body. The nut/bolt are a real  'bodger's' way to fix the headstock coming loose when the glue dried out. That said, many Sq Neck National tricones have a screw or similar through the serial number to try and 'fix' the same problem.

Here is a picture of a headstock removed from an early guitar, to show how short the headstock join is.  Blocks of other wood about 6 ins long were then glued to it to 'tight fit' in the Sq neck, finally pins are driven through the metal neck under the fingerboard area into the scabs and the fingerboard then covers the pins..  So a proper 'fix' is to remove the fingerboard, re-glue the tongue etc and refit the fingerboard, but the nut and bolt probably work nearly as well!



Somewhere I have pictures of two different sq neck tricone instruments after the fingerboard was removed to repair them properly. If I can find them I will add them to this thread.

Colin