Dobro set up question

[gaucho]

I just picked up a really clean and sweet sounding 1934 Dobro model 37 roundneck. I's currently set up to play lap style with a raised bone nut and high (almost touching the hand rest) un-capped Maple bridge inserts. The neck is pretty straight and the action was not raised due to any problems with the neck. I'm going to cut down the nut and bridges and set it up as a proper round neck. Does anyone have any suggestions as to s starting height to cut them down to? I know it is not a straight deal where you can just cut off 1/2" to lower the action 1/2". Any suggestions for a starting height?

[pete1951]

First fit the strings in a `standard` nut, this will give you an idea of the action before you touch the bridge. Then think about the bridge tail/p. angle , will lowering the bridge make it too low and kill the tone? are the cone/spider from 1934 (the have not made any 1934 Dobro parts for 80 years)be careful .
PT
(I have a feeling gaucho knows what he`s doing, but it`s nice to be asked)

[gaucho]

Thanks Pete! I've worked on a lot of resos and I'm confident, but this is the first spider that I've had that needed some set up of this type. Since its a round neck (all original 1934, save for the tall nut and bridge) set up as a lap guitar, I have no real starting point for the nut and bridge height. I know there are no hard and fast rules. I do have a low bone nut thats the right size and spacing so I think I'll put that on and then just use a popsicle stick for a bridge and just sting it up and see how the action is. If it's close, that'll give me a starting point for cutting down the bridge inserts. The break angle does concern me a bit as it will obviously be much more shallow. But since it was originally set up as a regular fretted round neck, it should be ok, right? I'll report back. It's a beautiful guitar and even with the high action it sounds and plays great in the Spanish position (with no fretting of course!). The neck appears to be very straight with a decent angle.

[washboardchris]

If its any help, if you lower the bridge by 2 16th's 0f an inch it will lower the action at the 12th fret 1 1/6 th of an inch. that way if you fid out what your ideal action is at the 12th you can calculate how much you need to take off(you probably know this but in case you dont)

[Deleted]

I sent this to gaucho already - might be of interest.
It includes the nut height and neck angle / bow factors, as well as your info washboardchris.
TT

[oscar]

I have a 1933 Dobro model 37 roundneck which had a very low action when I got it.It plays great both fretted or with a slide. I lended it to a friend for a while who used it for recording. He raised the action and it got a little bit louder, particulary in the bass (it has a lug cone where the E and A string always lack a little bit of volume). It has very sweet singing trebles. I have the impression they disappear as much as the volume increases (by raising the action or string tension).So I lowered the action to the original level. I play the guitar mainly in D-tuning, with strings 14 -19 -25 -32 -44 - 56. It has a great wide V-neck.
This guitar is not as loud as a modern squareneck but it has a tone these guitars don't have.

[gaucho]

Thanks for all the replies. I tore into it this morning before all the responses posted. I was planning to make a new bone nut and new bridge inserts, but when I opened it up I saw that Bobby Wolfe (a famous dobro builder and luthier in NC) had done the set-up in 1989. He had signed it inside and noted that he set it up for lap style play. His bridge inserts and nut were no doubt way better than anything I could have made, so I just cut them down from the bottom. I used a parts-bin extra, standard bone nut and a popsicle stick to to get an idea of a starting point for the height of each and that worked perfectly. Tuned it up with the standard nut and popsicle stick and adjusted those until they were just a bit higher than I wanted the final set-up to be and then cut down the existing nut and inserts based on that. After some sanding, I got the action right where I wanted it. Put it all back together and it plays and sounds awesome! No apparent loss of volume from the decreased break angle either. If anything, it's even louder now! I'm super-stoked with this dobro. It, along with my Duolian produce what is for me, the perfect blues tone when played with a bottle-neck!

[gaucho]

I got a message from Bobby Wolfe and he remembers the guitar and has photos of it! He says he initially thought it was a model 37 as well but after working on it he determined that it was actually a model 85. I'll post some photos soon but does anyone have any ideas on how to tell a model 37 and 85 apart?

[Deleted]

Hi Gaucho.
Was it understrung when you got it? Some of these bluegrassers quite like to do it.
TT