KAY/ORPHEUM RESONATOR GUITAR

[oscar]

Not for sale, but very interesting anyway:

antebelluminstruments.blogspot.de/2014/01/c1950-kay-made-orpheum-k90-resonator.html

[blueshome]

Looks like the guitar Ralph Willis is playing in the latest S.Grossman video issue, also identified as a Havana.

[zak71]

Interesting...the guitar on the Antebellum Instruments page has a full-size 9.5" cone.
The soundwell looks different from the ones I've seen, as well.

Every other one I've seen had a smooth (no 'spirals') 8" cone like the ones used in 1133s and 1033s.
I really doubt the 8" cone was "Kay's own design" as stated on the Antebellum page.

Then again, it is very hard to take a guy seriously when he advocates Tusq saddles in a resonator guitar, or says stuff like "you can often eliminate any random rattle by crimping the very edge of the cone into the wall of the well."












He's probably correct about the "B stock coverplate" though, the one on my Santacilla "Arcadia" is also misaligned, but not THAT much!


The Kay-branded specimens I've seen all had this type of coverplate:

[jakewildwood]

Oh, well no offense on the 8" cone reference -- I was spitting out some info from elsewhere. (edit: I think it might have even been Notecannons?)

On the crimping of the cone edge -- the soundwell was not perfectly round and not perfectly flat even though the cone was, so fudging is often necessary to make these guys work well.

As far as saddle material goes -- that's personal preference. Tusq/bone sound just as good as maple to me on a reso.

So -- there. Maybe you should take yourself a little less seriously... it might be good for the bloodwork...

[zak71]

Jan 12, 2014 22:49:41 GMT jakewildwood said:

On the crimping of the cone edge -- the soundwell was not perfectly round and not perfectly flat even though the cone was, so fudging is often necessary to make these guys work well.

Ruffled some feathers? hahaha and I'm the one who takes myself seriously?
Good one! 

The correct way to proceed would be to properly level the soundwell. 
"Fudging" the cone, as you put it, is a the easy-way-out band-aid fix, but hardly "necessary" by any stretch of the imagination, and it doesn't address the underlying issue.

[jakewildwood]

Agreed, it sure is the easy way to do it, and the guitar sounds great as-is... it was just a suggestion for someone trying to maybe solve the problem on the fly.

I highly doubt that going to the trouble of completely leveling that soundwell would make the tiniest difference in tone you might expect worth all of the effort. We're talking about a 1" area where the cone doesn't make 100% proper contact. We're also talking about a cone whose foot was altered probably at the factory to begin with to fit inside that well. It was literally shoved up against the wall of it.

What ruffles my feathers isn't that you disagree -- we're all critics -- I just don't see why folks who have to disagree have to be so negative and especially when they haven't been inside the instrument in question. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

So what if I used Tusq I happened to have in my parts bin, asparagus, or gummy bears for a saddle? I've had customers come in to replace reso saddles with anything from aluminum to brass and even just a cut-off segment of threaded machine screw. It all worked fine with a bit of "fudging."

[zak71]

Jan 13, 2014 0:42:37 GMT jakewildwood said:

Agreed, it sure is the easy way to do it, and the guitar sounds great as-is... it was just a suggestion for someone trying to maybe solve the problem on the fly.

I highly doubt that going to the trouble of completely leveling that soundwell would make the tiniest difference in tone you might expect worth all of the effort. We're talking about a 1" area where the cone doesn't make 100% proper contact. We're also talking about a cone whose foot was altered probably at the factory to begin with to fit inside that well. It was literally shoved up against the wall of it.

What ruffles my feathers isn't that you disagree -- we're all critics -- I just don't see why folks who have to disagree have to be so negative and especially when they haven't been inside the instrument in question. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

So what if I used Tusq I happened to have in my parts bin, asparagus, or gummy bears for a saddle? I've had customers come in to replace reso saddles with anything from aluminum to brass and even just a cut-off segment of threaded machine screw. It all worked fine with a bit of "fudging."

That's right, I'm "negative" about "fudging" an otherwise viable vintage cone.
They don't exactly grow on trees.
I wouldn't really care if it were a modern NRP replacement, but crimping or otherwise "fudging" a vintage cone is a pretty barbaric way to achieve results.
ESPECIALLY when a wooden soundwell really isn't that hard to level.
If it were my guitar, and I had paid someone to correct a problem, I wouldn't be terribly impressed.

And yes, I've seen all kinds of materials used for saddles in resonator guitars (though never asparagus or gummi bears, those are new to me), and none of them have been an improvement over maple...unless you like shrillness. 

[Michael Messer]

Hi Jakewildwood & Zak71,

I am with Zak on this one; there will never be any more of these Kay-built resonator guitars, so preservation of all the components is very important. Future guitar collectors and musicians will not thank all the luthiers and dealers of this time who rebuild guitars and swap components just to make a sale of a 'working musical instrument'.

Fitting a compensated bridge saddle, is in mine and most experts opinions, a waste of time in a resonator guitar. They have been played in tune with straight bridge saddles for the past 87 years by some of the world's greatest guitarists. Why would anyone need to improve on that?

Crimping, or distorting the original cone to stop it from rattling in a soundwell that is not level, is not the right thing to do to a vintage component.

That is a rare vintage Kay guitar and it should be treated as such.

Having said all that, it's your guitar to do whatever you want with it. Enjoy!

Shine On
Michael

[Deleted]

Zak, in those pics you posted, I can see a couple of things that appear to be fake, and 'misaligned'....
TT

[jakewildwood]

Before you pass any more judgement, fellas -- did you look at the lip of the cone in the first place?

It was entirely curled up 180 degrees when I bought the guitar, presumably to fit the cone in at the factory as the well is slightly tighter than on a metal-body Nat'l. It doesn't have the "stairstep" at all. So, crimping that already-distorted edge maybe 2mm more than it already is (!!) in a few places to kill a tiny amount of overtone ring (it was woofing on the low A open, to be exact) isn't going to kill anyone's day. This whole explanation would be so much easier if we were all in the same room together and could take it all apart and talk with one another. As is usual for the old cones, it still sounds good despite that.

Finally, fitting a compensated bridge saddle makes playing these guitars a lot more fun if you ever go past the 7th fret on them minus a slide. Experts can be experts but straight saddles will not get you an in-tune B (and only passable low E & A) right off the bat. I'm playing bits of swing and old-timey lead on this with fairly light gauges so folks would hear it when I'm playing up near the f-b extension. Material is in the eye of the beholder for me. When I put maple back into these guys I always recut and compensate that, too. What's the point of not doing it? It takes maybe three minutes to properly cut and compensate a maple saddle to play in better tune. It's totally ridiculous not to do it unless the only thing you do is play slide (in which case straight = advantage).

FYI -- pics above are not of the guit in quesiton.

And last -- please note that despite how I might sound over the net I'm not hostile -- I like talking about this stuff.

[zak71]

Jan 13, 2014 15:00:18 GMT jakewildwood said:

It was entirely curled up 180 degrees when I bought the guitar, presumably to fit the cone in at the factory as the well is slightly tighter than on a metal-body Nat'l. It doesn't have the "stairstep" at all. So, crimping that already-distorted edge maybe 2mm more than it already is (!!) in a few places to kill a tiny amount of overtone ring (it was woofing on the low A open, to be exact) isn't going to kill anyone's day.

I would still have opted to level the sounwell, perhaps enlarge its perimeter by a mm or two to accommodate an un-crimped cone, and re-shape the cone rim. This is MUCH easier to do with a wooden soundwell. The way I see it, these instruments are older than we are, and will probably outlive us all by many decades if treated properly. I really doubt that your woofing A string was on account of the cone's edge, or the soundwell. Improperly cut saddle slots are most often the culprits.
Our ownership of them is temporary, and as stewards of these instruments we have the responsibility to treat them with respect and, when necessary, to repair them un-invasively.
There will never be any more vintage National cones, and since they are the voice of these instruments, we should be taking care of them.

Jan 13, 2014 15:00:18 GMT jakewildwood said:

ng a compensated bridge saddle makes playing these guitars a lot more fun if you ever go past the 7th fret on them minus a slide. Experts can be experts but straight saddles will not get you an in-tune B (and only passable low E & A) right off the bat. I'm playing bits of swing and old-timey lead on this with fairly light gauges so folks would hear it when I'm playing up near the f-b extension. Material is in the eye of the beholder for me. When I put maple back into these guys I always recut and compensate that, too. What's the point of not doing it? It takes maybe three minutes to properly cut and compensate a maple saddle to play in better tune. It's totally ridiculous not to do it unless the only thing you do is play slide (in which case straight = advantage).

I have no problem with compensating the saddle, this is usually done with the saddle slots' break point.
The question "should they 'V' towards the neck or towards the saddle" comes up often, and while the people who set up the original Nationals didn't seem to care a great deal about accurate intonation, it is entirely possible to get very close to accurate intonation with careful shaping of the saddle slots (break point towards the neck on the treble strings, and towards the bridge on the bass strings, in something of a diagonal line across the saddle), the original saddles and the current replacements are wide enough to allow for this.

Sometimes a slight rotation of the saddle itself (we're talking one or two degrees, at most) is necessary to get it just right.
Personally, poor intonation drives me bonkers, even when playing slide I do a lot of finger fretting above the 7th fret, so it does matter to me.
On the other hand, I've never had a problem getting the stock saddle to intonate accurately, and every time I've heard a National outfitted with a saddle made with some substitute material other than maple, it sounded as wrong as two left shoes.

Jan 13, 2014 14:28:39 GMT @deuce said:

Zak, in those pics you posted, I can see a couple of things that appear to be fake, and 'misaligned'....

   And hideously so, I might add. 

[jakewildwood]

Woofing A = certainly from the cone and not the saddle. I do guitar work 24/7 all year long and it's my primary source of income. Intonation and saddle work is meat and potatoes and I've had access/worked on at least a dozen 30s Nat'ls, which isn't a lot but I also work on all manner of instruments. I literally nudged the edge of the cone just a tiny bit to bite just that one section in and it was gone. You know how you sometimes get a bit of a woof at certain freqs if a speaker cone is just slightly "soft" at one edge? That was the sound.

Now, to be fair, there were no sound issues when I had a 50w-11 set of strings on as the cone seated itself perfectly to the well (since the well is only a very tiny bit off) at that tension. I actually backed tension off further because I wanted to string it with a Selmer-Mac style tension set (usually 46w-11) as I've been going with those gauges to get a bit more of a springy sound in the mix with my jamming buddies.

I agree totally that on many old Nat'ls the maple will sound better than other options. My very least favorite is bone and a lot of people ask me to do that on their resos (not knowing the effects of treble boost, of course). It has to do with the freq response of the wood vs. bone or plastic or metal. But you know that. Rosewood is also a nice choice, too, to my ears. This guitar was quite warm to begin with so I threw the parts-bin Tusq saddle in just to try it while I was seating the cone and whatnot. I liked the sound so I left it.

The other obnoxious bit about this guitar is that because the cone was forced into place to begin with it meant that I didn't have much wiggle room if I wanted to keep the original biscuit without filling and re-slotting it. I had just enough room to get a 3/32" saddle in there, slightly shimmed up in front, and with the slot angled just so to get the int. spot on.

So anyway -- dinner -- and g'night! Good chatting.