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Post by Quarterquay on Apr 28, 2014 22:17:49 GMT
I can't say I've restrung my Delta that many times and I've always followed the advice here and replaced the strings without taking the whole lot of old ones off first, but today I broke a string and was just reminding myself how to restring a reso when I came across a youtube clip about dust on the cone and in the sound well and I couldn't resist it ,I opened her up and.... err well is any one missing half of Texas?
I think I just found it,Harry Dean Stanton was wandering around in there lost! I couldn't believe how much dust there was . Now this probably has a lot to do with me not keeping the guitar in it's case because I'm for ever picking it up at odd moments through the day when I have the chance, and the Tipperary Delta is a surprisingly dusty place for somewhere where it rains a lot of the time but still I was amazed at how many dust bunnies there were , enough to rival Watership Down and a few more.
So ,dust, a bad thing, a good thing a neither here nor there thing? How much does it deaden/mute the sound really? My guitar does sound a lot louder and brighter and more bushy tailed than it did but I've just put new strings on it so I'm guessing this has a lot to do with that ,but still the dust must have some effect?
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Post by Matt on Apr 28, 2014 23:03:54 GMT
I can't say for sure, but seeing as many of the very best resonators are old nationals and donors which haven't been opened in decades, I'd probably say that dust doesn't hurt at all. I also can't imagine a physical way that it would have a dramatic impact, but I guess it could vary the tone very slightly, if at all, and who's to say whether it would be detrimental or not?
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Post by Michael Messer on Apr 29, 2014 8:01:10 GMT
Hi Quarterquay,
Matt is correct. I would NEVER open a National-style resonator guitar just to clean the cone, unless it had been in a loft for 50 years and had a thick carpet of dust on the cone that was really killing the tone.
All of my guitars have dust bunnies roaming around inside. I have removed a few with tweezers, by holding the guitar upside down and pulling the bunny out through the gap by the biscuit. But in general, just leave them alone and only open them if you really have to. Even when they are opened, I don't clean them thoroughly, just a dust-off with a soft paint brush. My main guitar, koa Fine Resophonic, has only been opened once in 16 years. That was three years ago when it had to be opened. Prior to that it had a large dust bunny rolling around inside. Three years on and a new bunny has formed and is gradually growing!
It is not so much about the dust having an affect on the sound, it is more about not disturbing anything inside. Every time the pressure is taken right off the cone, it unsettles the way it has bedded-in and takes time, sometimes months, for that to settle in again. This is something I am very fussy about, as I have seen many National-style resonator guitars that sound perfect before they are opened, and not so perfect when they are put back together.
Shine On
Michael
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Post by Quarterquay on Apr 29, 2014 8:40:41 GMT
Ack! Well live and learn!Thanks M&M! So far having cleaned out the warren and put it all back together,I was very careful, the Delta does sounds a lot better than it did. That'll be the new strings then. I won't be doing that again,I'll leave well alone! I followed a link from somewhere here for restringing from scratch so hopefully I haven't disturbed the cone too much. No buzzing or rattling at least and the tone is good. Well to my ears anyway. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a few days.
Of course, I knew in the back of my mind I should have asked here first but there's a pub jam on Friday night and I wanted to get the strings on and settled.
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Post by billyclaire on May 7, 2014 10:37:27 GMT
Was it like this? Will this affect my tone? ha ha ha...  |
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Post by Michael Messer on May 7, 2014 10:51:22 GMT
Billyclaire, that might well be the dirtiest cone I have EVER SEEN! I think that amount of dirt might affect the tone!!!! I have saved that photo for future use :-)
Shine On
Michael
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Post by thebluesbear( al) on May 7, 2014 12:13:22 GMT
billy
may i suggest you get a doctor to give your guitar a tetanus shot before you put it back together
al
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Post by billyclaire on May 7, 2014 18:47:57 GMT
billy may i suggest you get a doctor to give your guitar a tetanus shot before you put it back together al Yeah... as I was working on it I was seriously thinking about getting a tetanus shot - especially after I got a cut on the side of my hand from the inner parts of the body. That, and as I'm sanding the old house paint off, I suddenly thought "maybe I should get a lead paint test kit..." |
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Post by resonatorman on May 16, 2014 14:11:18 GMT
I hope you have stuffed the dirt in a bag that you put inside the guitar - to keep the mojo.
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Post by Brad Bechtel on May 21, 2014 14:41:08 GMT
Was it like this? Will this affect my tone? ha ha ha... You won the internet for the day! That's the worst looking cone I've seen. I took the cover off of my Dobro DM-1000 and cleaned up the cone. It had a number of dust bunnies and a thin layer of dirt, but not like that. You could grow a crop on that cone! I also found out that my cone is glued into place. |
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Post by slideplayer on Jun 12, 2014 16:00:02 GMT
How could a guitar get that dirty, it must have been buried or something... How did it sound after the cleaning?
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Post by billyclaire on Jun 13, 2014 16:27:58 GMT
From the seller - he said he found it in the basement of a property he owned where he had recently evicted the tenant. He said it was covered in mud. I believe it since I cleaned mud out of it when I opened it up!
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Post by slide496 on Jun 13, 2014 22:34:55 GMT
I've never worked on anything as dirty as that cone but I always wear non-vinyl gloves and put down a clear plastic table covering before handling any of my vintage parlor guitars that I am cleaning up.
I buy the gloves by the 100 count and change them real frequently - like if I go away to pick up something in another part of my home I'll take them off at the bench, get what I wanted and then put a fresh pair on when I return.
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Post by Michael Messer on Jun 13, 2014 23:13:31 GMT
I love this photo. I have seen a lot of resonator guitars in my life, literally thousands, but I have NEVER seen anything like the cone in this photo....just brilliant! Shine On Michael |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2015 10:03:17 GMT
Well, this thread answered my question (i.e., since I'm about to restring my reso, should I bother opening it up to clean the cone?). The answer being: No.
But I was wondering -- is it worth giving it a couple of quick blasts with a computer dust cleaner? They tend to get very cold very fast, would that be an issue?
The guitar (Johnson AXL-998) is 15 years old, usually hung on the wall in my (dusty/cat-infested) office. The sound could be a bit brighter for my taste (although probably the new strings will take care of that, I have a set of John Pearse G-tuning strings on the way).
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