Another Inquiry

[Markus]

Hi everyone….. Firstly, big thanks to everybody here who shares their knowledge and experience so amateurs such as I can learn a few things. I could just spend hours on here reading through all the different threads and absorbing information. I’m hoping to find some helpful guidance in this thread…

A lot of what I am going to ask has surely been covered in other threads but my questions are specific and relate to my particular situation. My resonator is one of lesser quality…. it’s the Epiphone biscuit……It’s a round neck and I’m playing fretted most of the time. A big problem with this guitar is the section of wood that houses the cone. I believe that it is not seated properly and therefore I get a tremendous amount of buzzing. For the time being, I have the cone secured with screws and I am aware that it has compromised the tone. The sound of a secured cone is still better than the sound of a buzzing cone IMO. Aside from the poor craftsmanship, I think the real problem with this guitar is the angle of the neck… It is in my very near plans to do a full upgrade on the guitar and I was hoping to have a few questions answered…..

Things to upgrade:

Saddle/biscuit:

On my guitar they are 2 separate pieces…. I’ve seen some single-cone resonators with ebony or maple saddles that appear to be one with the biscuit… would you say that those are the best>??

Nut:

My guitar came with a plastic nut… how much would a bone nut improve the tone?

Cone:

The obvious consensus here is that nationals or quarterman cones are best… The few places that I have looked at have the quartermans selling for slightly more than the nationals… Is it a good measurement to say that my sound well will have to be re-seated to accommodate a new cone? Especially since I don’t think it was done right to begin with. I have searched long and hard to find info about reseating a cone. Does anybody know where instructions for this procedure are available?

Tailpiece:

I understand that changing the distance from the saddle to the tailpiece changes the tension on the cone and therefore changes the tone…. With a new cone, would this be necessary? I have heard many good things about Allen tailpieces.

Pickup:

I eventually will need to install a pickup on it….. I played a fender single-cone that had a simple lipstick pickup on it…. To me, that sounded pretty good…… what do you all prefer? regular pickups (lipstick or ordinary single coil) or pickups designed specifically for resonators??

Finally, how would you prioritize these upgrades from most effective to least effective? Excluding the installation of the pickup. I am not an expert but when I set out to do a job myself I learn much about it and take my time to do things properly….. out of all these upgrades, is there any that I should not attempt to do by myself? Does Bob Brozmans book “THE HISTORY AND ARTISTRY OF NATIONAL RESONATOR INSTRUMENTS” have much in the way if technical instruction?

Thanks for reading through this outrageously long post… Any help would be GREATLY appreciated….

[Deleted]

Markus, am I right in thinking you've screwed the cone down to the soundwell? Or have you screwed the biscuit to the cone with more than one screw? Either way, I'm sorry to say that this was the wrong thing to do to cure the buzz, and that you may have damaged the cone. To go back a step, buzzes on resos can be difficult to diagnose (although often relatively easy to fix, once you know what's causing it.) Here's some common sources - cone buzzing in the soundwell, biscuit buzzing on the cone, strings buzzing in the saddle slots, coverplate buzzing against the body, tailpiece (or string ball ends ) buzzing against the cover or body. You need to track down and identify or eliminate all these likely sources one by one.

Sound like you've given yourself a heap of trouble by screwing the cone down, and you may need a new cone, which will probably be just as likely to to buzz and rattle as the original one, plus it may not be exactly the same size as the original (particularly in the height). I think I'd be inclined to sort out your guitar properly (even with the damaged cone) before spending time and money on a new cone), at least you may get a better understanding of how it works. If you don't have any experience how these things work, I'm concerned that you'll wreck the new cone too... is there anyone near you who can fit a new cone for you?

The bridge is usually two piece, maple biscuit with a maple or ebony capped maple saddle...that's normal. A bone nut may help a little with tone and sustain, but of course when you start fretting the guitar this counts for little. Tailpiece - it's the break angle over the bridge that is important - almost every reso has the generic National type tailpiece, and I doubt that this needs changing unless its actually broken or damaged. The only bridges with variable angle adjustment are the types for banjo and those designed for archtop jazz guitars..I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Also one vital thing with sorting out ANY guitar, is to look at one thing at a time, and to work very methodically rather than chasing around all over the place. I've got to say, I'm concerned you say you 'think' that the neck angle and the seating of the cone are wrong...I'm presuming you don't have any experience to base these assumptions on - you need to be sure so that you can effect a proper cure. Not to be rude, but if you don't either have any experience of repairing and setting-up guitars, you can cause more harm than good when tinkering with a resonator, UNLESS you take a very careful and methodical approach to identifying and correcting the problems. I'm sure Pete Woodman will have lots of valuable stuff to contribute...so please don't do anything else until you have clear idea of how to proceed. As for thepickup..I'll let the other chip in here....

[Michael Messer]

Hi Markus,

Welcome to our forum.

The advice that John has given you is excellent.

My immediate thought when I had read your post, may not be the answer you were hoping for, and may not be affordable, but unless you are pretty good with guitar repairs and have a very good understanding of resophonic guitars, you may be better off buying another instrument. The Epiphone resophonic guitars that I have seen have many faults in their design & structure. You have pointed out a few of these in your post. One or two of these are serious faults that may stop your guitar from ever sounding great, however much work you do. Rebuilding your guitar may be a project that you will enjoy. But because you are correcting major structural problems, it may not be such fun and it may be expensive. Personally, I would consider getting another budget priced guitar.

I hope I have not upset you with my response to your question. I am just trying to give you my honest advice based on my experience. The last thing I want to do is scare you off! If you do decide to go down the rebuilding route, you will be well looked after and guided by our forum members.

Answers to some of your questions:

National cone is best for any National-type of guitar / Quaterman cone is best for any Dobro-type of guitar.

A bone nut will improve the tone, but IMO you have a long way to go before dealing with the nut.

A screwed down cone is not worth keeping. In the days before spares I would have repaired it with Araldite, but these days spares are easily available.

A new cone will be useless unless you rebuild the soundwell.

Tailpiece - is the least of your problems.

Bob Brozman's book is the definitive text book on the subject of vintage National guitars and their history. It does not cover any new guitars (apart from a small chapter about about National Reso-Phonic) and does not give much technical advice that you haven't already read here. It really is a book about collecting & owning antique 1920s & 30s Nationals.

Keep in touch,

Good luck,
Shine On,
Michael.

[Markus]

Hi…

Thanks for the advice… greatly appreciated. And don’t worry about upsetting me. A hard truth is better than no truth!

I realize that screwing the cone into the wood that houses it was the wrong thing to do…It was actually my ‘luthier’ that did it! I purchased the guitar at a major music shop and my reasoning was as follows:

I’ve already spent money on this instrument and have already tried everything short of rebuilding the soundwell to eliminate the buzzing. If I had been able to find information relating to rebuilding the soundwell I probably would not have brought it in at all. I was reluctant to take it somewhere else and pay money to get it in normal working condition. The place I got it from (Long & McQuade) offered to look at it for free. As soon as he told me what he had done, I knew that he had made a mistake and that the tone would be compromised. That said, I would probably be doing these same upgrades with any inexpensive resonator guitar. For that reason, I have decided not to take it back for return. Also, I don’t believe that the guy who worked on my guitar will at all agree that he has done damage. Yes, this is unfortunate but the hassle of trying to return it is unnecessary considering that I wanted to change the cone and soundwell anyway. He actually told me that he had never worked on a resonator before mine…! Mine turns out to be his guinea pig.

Before taking the guitar back to the shop, I did a lot of research on what could be causing the buzzing. I had determined that the buzzing was coming from the cone and soundwell and not anywhere else. 1) as soon as the cone was secured, the buzzing was gone. 2) When the action was raised at the saddle to a point where it was too high to play, the buzzing disappeared. This also told me that if the angle of the neck were greater, I wouldn’t have quite the same problem.


I have had success in my past guitar repairs. (Changing acoustic bridges, changing fingerboards, bracing repairs, inlays, finishing…ect.) I would be very interested in rebuilding the soundwell to properly house a new cone. I would probably learn a lot and I also believe that it would be a very pleasant adventure. I just can’t seem to find any info on that procedure.

Michael, you mentioned that there are some structural flaws that cannot be repaired. Which flaws are you referring to? If they are substantial, I won’t bother rebuilding. So here’s the question:

Do the irreparable structural problems outweigh a proper soundwell with a properly fitted quarterman or national cone?

From what I have gathered in this thread, if the answer is YES then I should not bother rebuilding. If the answer is NO, I will do the repair myself or get a professional to do it for me.

If one is willing and IMHO able to rebuild the sound well and fit a new cone where would one get all the proper info?

[Deleted]

Presumably Long & McQuade are a large music store (Canada & USA?)...it's scandalous that they butcher stuff in this way. Even a budget reso needs sympathetic attention...jeez, I'd have punched their guitar "repairman's" lamps out if he'd done that to my reso...why don't these people admit they can't do the repair instead of causing more problems. I'm not familiar with the Epi biscuit (apart from trying one a long time back), but from what MM says, it might have inherent problems..even so, a buzz should be fixable, no matter how crappy the construction.

[Bill Stig]

It does seem a sad fact that there are too many bad guitar repair men that all seem to work for major guitar shops. I've seen too many bad jobs done by shops that customers think they can trust. There must be exceptions, but I've not come across any in the north of England.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Markus,

I am amazed that a guitar repairer did that to your guitar. Regarding your question about Epiphone resophonic guitars; well the ones I have seen are really not up to the job and even with your patience & woodworking skills, you are taking on a difficult one. Howver I also agree with John that a repairman should have been able to improve your guitar without butchering it. I will send the resophonic police around immediately to revoke their license!

Regarding getting info about building & repairing your guitar; I would say you are talking to the right people on this forum. I am not able to advise you, but I am sure other members can. I know about these instruments, having been around them for 30 years, but I am not a guitar repairer and therefore only attempt simple jobs.

[Michael Messer]

Here are a few paragraphs from the Long & McQuade website:

Location
Long & McQuade is the largest chain of musical instrument retailers in Canada, with 28 locations from British Columbia to Ontario. This means that if you're a touring musician, you'll have the benefit of dealing with a familiar store with consistent sales, supply, service and support – no matter where your home base is.

Repairs and Service
Our service departments have some of the most qualified electronics and instruments technicians out there. You'll appreciate the convenience of needing only one place for all of your sales and support needs.

Support Staff
Need professional help? Our trained staff can answer the simplest to the most difficult of your questions -- from what strings your guitar needs, to what software will allow you to record an album at home. After all, we're here to help.

No Lemon Policy
You won't get stuck with equipment that doesn't work. At Long & McQuade, our gear really stacks up, and we're willing to back it up!

[LouisianaGrey]

Don't knock bad workmen in shops - I get a lot of business fixing their mistakes

Firstly, almost anything is repairable, it just depends how much time and money you want to throw at it. If you can do the work yourself that changes the economics of the process.

Secondly, you'll appreciate that we're all pretty much working in the dark here because we haven't seen the guitar and we haven't heard the buzz.

If your neck angle really is too shallow (and I must admit from what you describe it sounds like it could be) then that's the biggest problem and the one that's the most difficult to fix because the only answer is a neck reset. You need to sort that out before you do anything else, because if there isn't enough break angle over the cone then you will never stop it buzzing. Changing the soundwell will not alter this because it's about the basic geometry of the neck, its relationship to the guitar top (which is the thing you can't move) and the position where the strings terminate. As you've already found out, getting a good break angle over the bridge may mean raising the action to the point where it is unplayable (how did you do that, by the way? I hope it wasn't just by slackening the trussrod).

A Randy Allen tailpiece is great - I love them and I fit them to some of my guitars but I'm skeptical about the tone improvements that some people claim for them. It might help you insofar as, although it's shorter and therefore flattens the angle, it also terminates closer to the top of the guitar which increases the angle. However, you can save your money and get the same effect by taking the strings under the front edge of the regular tailpiece so the ball ends sit on top of the tailpiece. I don't like doing it in general because it pulls the tailpiece up rather than along but it's a quick and dirty way to improve the break angle, in the short term at least. It might at least show you whether you need more break angle.

Once you're sure the neck angle is OK then you must make sure that the base of the soundwell is flat and level. How you do that depends on whether it has humps or dips, how big they are, how thick the base is, whether it's got a neck stick and so on. You might need to rebuild the whole well, or you might be able to bodge it by, for example, adding wood to the underneath and then routing the surface away till it's flat or building it up from the surface - like I said, it depends on a lot of stuff we don't know yet.

The fundamental problems need to be sorted out before you think about the nut or the tailpiece, what kind of cone you should buy or whether it's a one or two piece bridge. Those are all elements that will change the tone but they're not likely to do much for the basic problems. A new cone would raise the action anyway, because they're both taller than the cone that's in (Nationals are slightly taller than Quartermans) so if you want to keep the action the same you will need to make sure there's enough bridge height for you to be able to reduce it.

Of course, if all else fails there's always the option of raising the bridge and nut and playing lap style ...

[BigBadDom]

Hi Markus,
I had an Epiphone Biscuit which I had upgraded with a bone nut, new biscuit and quarterman cone. The new cone apparently dropped straight in without rebuilding the sound well.

I was disappointed that with all the mods it didn't sound a whole lot better. However, having heard other budget resos, I don't think it was a bad guitar to start with and perhaps my expectations were unrealistic.

The thing is, it ain't a national and few new bits ain't gonna make it sound like one!

For a ~£200 guitar, it wasn't worth spending 50%+ of its value to achieve only a slight improvement in sound (imho). It's the old 'sticking a 3-litre V8 into a Fiesta' quandry... it might go like hot $hit, but it's still a Fiesta! (Apologies to Fiesta owners, I'm not a Fiestaist - in fact I used to own one).

I may still have the original Epi cone kicking about somewhere if you're interested. I'll have a look and let you know. I've got a feeling though that the original cone was screwed into the soundwell?

Regards,
Dom

[Markus]

Hi All….

Thanks for the super quick replies.

Even though these guys bluntly don’t care about ‘quality’ I still find myself giving them business because of the convenience of it… it’s less than ten minutes away from my home and they have all the strings, cleaners, accessories that I would ever need. I ended up at Long & McQuade last night to pick up a few things. They had a new Epiphone MD100 resonator:

www.epiphone.com/default.asp?ProductID=168&CollectionID=11

To my surprise, this thing sounded great. It was actually a very different sound than that of my guitar. It was much thinner sounding but the sustain was great. Now they call this guitar ‘MD100’ and the one that I have ‘Biscuit’ but they both in fact have the same biscuit bridge. The salesman told me that it was a factory second. The specs are almost exactly the same as mine:

www.epiphone.com/default.asp?ProductID=104&CollectionID=11

Aside from the metal body and the slightly wider nut, everything should be the same. Is it the metal body on the MD100 that’s giving it a thin sound or is it the Mahogany/Spruce body on the Biscuit that is warmer sounding… I would be interested to hear what you guys think….


LG, you say that the neck is the first thing I should look at. Is the reasoning as follows?

“With more of a radical angle on the neck, the action can be raised at the saddle to a higher point then previously possible and therefore give me more down pressure on the cone discouraging buzzing..”



If that is true, do you believe that this correction may compensate for possible construction flaws in the sound well?

Also, I don’t follow that bit about the tailpiece.

“although it's shorter and therefore flattens the angle, it also terminates closer to the top of the guitar which increases the angle”

If It’s a shorter tailpiece wouldn’t it give me less down pressure on the cone because the angle is much more obtuse??

What is a ‘neck stick’ inside the soundwell??

Would it help if I took a few pictures of the soundwell??


What I know definitively is the following:

When I raised the action to a point that was uncomfortable (I raised it by putting temp shims in between the saddle and biscuit.) I had eliminated the problem. But with that much down pressure, I believe that my sustain was compromised. When my cone was screwed into the sound well, it eliminated buzzing but tone was compromised.

Should this lead me to believe that my problem is a combination of both the neck angle and the sound well construction? And that the solution is a medium between the two?


The wood on the inside, in the sound well is a laminate and it is very rough to the touch. I’m prophesizing that maybe a little sanding and leveling would help too. Or maybe even adding some smoother wood to the top of at and routing it to fit properly. Do any of these sound like reasonable solutions? How close should the sound well be to the cone around the diameter of the base? In other words how tight should the little - o fit in the BIG – O looking from the top??? I have about half a centimeter all around. Is that normal? I ask because I estimate that the buzzing could have been coming from the sides of the sound well rather than the bottom.

Also, I didn’t mention this before. The tuning I use on the guitar is standard half a step down. (D# - G# - C# - F# - A# - D#) this is probably also contributing to the problem.

WOW, How much easier this would be if I could actually talk to you all… maybe I should go see you LG. Are you in Louisiana??

I agree with you there Dom. It’s not all that bad to start with. It has a nice ‘Bite’ to it which is probably because of a little hump at around 300hz. Sometimes it can get piercing but I very much enjoy playing it…

Thanks again…

Markus

[Markus]

I don't know how that frowny face got in there.... thats totally out of context.. disregard it...

[LouisianaGrey]

Hi Markus,

I wish I was in Louisiana, I loved it when I visited there (hence the handle).

The thing about biscuit bridge guitars is you need enough pressure on the cone so it doesn't buzz but not so much that it kills the sound. The neck angle needs to be somewhere round 4 degrees off the horizontal plane and the same from the bridge to the tailpiece (neck angle is about one and a half degrees for a regular acoustic).

Again I stress it's difficult to be sure without seeing it but it sounds like you don't have enough downward pressure on the cone. And Yes, more of a neck angle would give you a higher bridge and hence more downward pressure. If you're tuning down that will give you less pressure too. Does standard tuning make a difference?

Yes, you're interpreting what I said about the Allen tailpiece correctly, the shortness would make the angle more obtuse giving you less pressure. BUT because of the curve of the coverplate a regular tailpiece sits higher up relative to the top of the bridge, whereas the Allen tailpiece is lower so it tends to give you a more acute angle.

Photos of the inside would help. The cone should be a pretty close fit in the soundwell, I doubt if that's the cause of the problem. In fact, unless you've got a good reason (e.g. obvious unevenness) I wouldn't blame the soundwell at all.

As far as the "Bluegrass Collection" Epis go (no bluegrass player would be seen dead with either of them, incidentally, bluegrassers would think they were just plain weird) the metal body will certainly contribute to the difference in sound. However, just because they're both labelled Epiphone it doesn't mean they're necessarily made in the same factory or have the same cones and they may be completely different inside. If you open yours up you will see if it has a "neck stick" or not, it runs under the soundwell, you can't miss it.

[Markus]

LG,

I will open it up tomorrow and post some pictures for you to see. So without seeing or hearing the guitar, based on the information I gave you, you would not blame the soundwell?

If a ‘neck stick’ is present would that make resetting the neck easier?

Markus

[Michael Messer]

Hi Markus,

I told you this was the right place to ask your questions! I would stick with the advice you are getting from LG and others on this thread.

Good luck with your project.

Shine On,
Michael.