Post by stevearcade on Jul 19, 2023 12:12:51 GMT
Back in the mid 2000s, I got the slide guitar itch. I'm a pianist by trade, but play the guitar for hobby/enjoyment. I'd tried doing some slide guitar on my acoustic, but the action was set low for ease of play, and so not at all conducive to slide. On a whim, I took a punt on the cheapest tri-cone reso on Thomann; a Johnson with a somewhat cringey "established in 1993" written on the headstock (so barely a ten year old company at the time of purchasing). I was expecting it to be a little rough around the edges, given the price point, but it was listed as having a chrome/nickel plated brass body, and so I figured some core ingredients were there.
Upon arrival, I thought it sounded good, but was a little taken aback by just how poor the workmanship was. I've worked in musical instrument shops and seen my fair share of nuggets over the years, and this was definitely one of them! The frets mostly had flat tops to them and there were tooling marks on all of them, as if the person doing the setup just got a large, coarse file and ran it across the fretboard to vaguely level the frets. Mind you, the action was nice and high and I just wanted to play slide, so didn't give it too much thought. I did have some pictures of the poor fretwork, but I can't find them, sadly.
As the months went by, I upgraded the flimsy, nasty tuners with grovers, and upgraded the cones and T-piece with parts ordered directly from National Resophonic in the States. It now sounded fantastic and the tuning stability was A+.
Only useable as a slide guitar, due to the very high action and unplayable frets, after a while, it ended up in the guitar rack and gradually got less and less use (as I was wanting to combine fretted playing with slide, but it just wan't feasible on this thing). Then the low cost factors started to come to light as it aged. A mushroom pillar fell out of place and was rolling around inside. The lacquer on the neck became cloudy and started to flake in places. All the screwed on parts like the cover-plate became rattly, even with screws done up tightly. Some cloudiness began to appear in the chrome plating on the back, and the chrome plating was starting to flake underneath the tailpiece (but at least I could now confirm it most definitely is a brass body
). Long story short, it had become an uninspiring lemon of an instrument, and I felt no desire to play it whatsoever.
Figuring it had no resale value in its current state, and I hate to see things like this go to waste, I decided (again, on a whim) to attack all the problems.
I re-glued the mushroom pillar in place and I levelled and crowned the frets with some cheap luthier tools I bought on Amazon (following some YouTube tutorials). They're level now, and whilst still not perfect, as some of the tooling marks were deep, they couldn't be removed entirely, they're highly polished and play smoothly.
I sanded back the finish on the neck to bare wood, re-stained it with a dark red mahogany colour, and finished it with 8 or 10 coats of Baretta Gun-Stock Tru-Oil, before buffing and polishing it back, gradually working up to 2000 grit sandpaper. I did this based on some YouTube tutorials I watched. I was impressed with how well the gun-stock oil finish came out. It surpassed expectation, for sure. After a few days and a little playing-in, it feels smooth yet tactile. It has a gloss appearance, but handles closer to a satin finish. I also replaced the tacky plastic truss rod cover with a rosewood one I got on Amazon for a few quid (also a couple of coats of tru-oil).
I glued some thin piano felt I had lying around to the underside of the cover-plate edge and tail piece to prevent rattling. I filed down the bridge to have the action low enough to finger-pick without too much trouble, and also tidied up the nut, again with some cheap luthier tools from amazon. The action is still high enough to slide without rattle and buzz, but low enough to do fretted playing, chords and so on.
I got carried away in the process and also fitted an old Seymour Duncan P-90 I had spare. Now, I appreciate this might divide opinions, as it did require a little drilling, cutting and filing of the body. Had this instrument been any nicer or worth any money, I wouldn't have dreamed of doing this, but as it was something of a lemon and I've no intention of selling it, I figured what the heck. It sounds awesome through my Fender Champion! Very ballsy!
It's now a very enjoyable and inspiring instrument to play. I have nickel wound strings on it, which sound lovely with slide playing, but also warm, deep and rich when finger-picking chords. The body still has some cloudy patches and a few light scratches from age and use. There's nothing I can really do about that, but I don't mind a little, tasteful ageing and relic-look. My priority with this project was always to get the neck and frets up to a playable standard. I'd not tackled anything like this before, so learned a lot in the process. There are some things that I couldn't get quite right, mostly around the heel. I was too scared to remove the neck from the body, so sanding around the heel joint was tricky and as a result, it's a little scruffy looking there. Not helped by the fact the wood used in the heel joint on this thing was so unbelievably soft, it would crumble and chip away if I wasn't careful...
All said and done, I'm pleased with the end result, as I now have a guitar I know I'm going to play and use long into the future. I wouldn't be afraid to try something like this again, with the right kind of budget/entry-level instrument. However, I'd only do it out of necessity, and don't plan to go looking for these sorts of projects
.
If you have a nugget/lemon of a budget reso and plan to do anything similar, by all means hit me up with any questions. I can't guarantee to know the answers, but having done this, I might be able to help in some way, or shed some light on things you're having trouble with.
Edit: this is the first time I've attempted to embed imaged in a post on this forum... it didn't work... Here's a google drive folder with the photos I tried to include in this post: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlOMxOQ83g9Fv5JSVgb2F8NDIrKDtQmU?usp=share_link
Upon arrival, I thought it sounded good, but was a little taken aback by just how poor the workmanship was. I've worked in musical instrument shops and seen my fair share of nuggets over the years, and this was definitely one of them! The frets mostly had flat tops to them and there were tooling marks on all of them, as if the person doing the setup just got a large, coarse file and ran it across the fretboard to vaguely level the frets. Mind you, the action was nice and high and I just wanted to play slide, so didn't give it too much thought. I did have some pictures of the poor fretwork, but I can't find them, sadly.
As the months went by, I upgraded the flimsy, nasty tuners with grovers, and upgraded the cones and T-piece with parts ordered directly from National Resophonic in the States. It now sounded fantastic and the tuning stability was A+.
Only useable as a slide guitar, due to the very high action and unplayable frets, after a while, it ended up in the guitar rack and gradually got less and less use (as I was wanting to combine fretted playing with slide, but it just wan't feasible on this thing). Then the low cost factors started to come to light as it aged. A mushroom pillar fell out of place and was rolling around inside. The lacquer on the neck became cloudy and started to flake in places. All the screwed on parts like the cover-plate became rattly, even with screws done up tightly. Some cloudiness began to appear in the chrome plating on the back, and the chrome plating was starting to flake underneath the tailpiece (but at least I could now confirm it most definitely is a brass body
). Long story short, it had become an uninspiring lemon of an instrument, and I felt no desire to play it whatsoever.Figuring it had no resale value in its current state, and I hate to see things like this go to waste, I decided (again, on a whim) to attack all the problems.
I re-glued the mushroom pillar in place and I levelled and crowned the frets with some cheap luthier tools I bought on Amazon (following some YouTube tutorials). They're level now, and whilst still not perfect, as some of the tooling marks were deep, they couldn't be removed entirely, they're highly polished and play smoothly.
I sanded back the finish on the neck to bare wood, re-stained it with a dark red mahogany colour, and finished it with 8 or 10 coats of Baretta Gun-Stock Tru-Oil, before buffing and polishing it back, gradually working up to 2000 grit sandpaper. I did this based on some YouTube tutorials I watched. I was impressed with how well the gun-stock oil finish came out. It surpassed expectation, for sure. After a few days and a little playing-in, it feels smooth yet tactile. It has a gloss appearance, but handles closer to a satin finish. I also replaced the tacky plastic truss rod cover with a rosewood one I got on Amazon for a few quid (also a couple of coats of tru-oil).
I glued some thin piano felt I had lying around to the underside of the cover-plate edge and tail piece to prevent rattling. I filed down the bridge to have the action low enough to finger-pick without too much trouble, and also tidied up the nut, again with some cheap luthier tools from amazon. The action is still high enough to slide without rattle and buzz, but low enough to do fretted playing, chords and so on.
I got carried away in the process and also fitted an old Seymour Duncan P-90 I had spare. Now, I appreciate this might divide opinions, as it did require a little drilling, cutting and filing of the body. Had this instrument been any nicer or worth any money, I wouldn't have dreamed of doing this, but as it was something of a lemon and I've no intention of selling it, I figured what the heck. It sounds awesome through my Fender Champion! Very ballsy!
It's now a very enjoyable and inspiring instrument to play. I have nickel wound strings on it, which sound lovely with slide playing, but also warm, deep and rich when finger-picking chords. The body still has some cloudy patches and a few light scratches from age and use. There's nothing I can really do about that, but I don't mind a little, tasteful ageing and relic-look. My priority with this project was always to get the neck and frets up to a playable standard. I'd not tackled anything like this before, so learned a lot in the process. There are some things that I couldn't get quite right, mostly around the heel. I was too scared to remove the neck from the body, so sanding around the heel joint was tricky and as a result, it's a little scruffy looking there. Not helped by the fact the wood used in the heel joint on this thing was so unbelievably soft, it would crumble and chip away if I wasn't careful...
All said and done, I'm pleased with the end result, as I now have a guitar I know I'm going to play and use long into the future. I wouldn't be afraid to try something like this again, with the right kind of budget/entry-level instrument. However, I'd only do it out of necessity, and don't plan to go looking for these sorts of projects
.If you have a nugget/lemon of a budget reso and plan to do anything similar, by all means hit me up with any questions. I can't guarantee to know the answers, but having done this, I might be able to help in some way, or shed some light on things you're having trouble with.
Edit: this is the first time I've attempted to embed imaged in a post on this forum... it didn't work... Here's a google drive folder with the photos I tried to include in this post: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlOMxOQ83g9Fv5JSVgb2F8NDIrKDtQmU?usp=share_link
