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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 4, 2017 7:55:11 GMT
For yonks I've been looking at faux bro resonator guitars and now have one on its way to me. From what I've been able to gather from t'net there were two types made and sold during the 1930/40s. One type with a metal Nationalesque "coverplate" and the other without it, just a silver painted disc on the front with the bridge as the centrepiece. The one I've got coming is the model without the coverplate. There are no signs of it having fixing screw holes and the silver painted disc is decorated with what look to be original art deco transfers. Can anyone furnish more history / detail of these beasties please? Should I really add a non standard coverplate (unless someone has an original I can have) to such an old original instrument just to "improve" it's sound? I ask this having perused Bottleneck Johns thread: michaelmesser.proboards.com/thread/2402/faux-resonator-guitar-pickup-installedThanks. PD |
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Post by jono1uk on Nov 4, 2017 9:01:00 GMT
so ..is it a reso with an "empty well" so to speak?
Jon
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2017 9:29:56 GMT
There's a certain amount of collectability in these, but more as a curio than as a serious instrument. As long as you don't pay too much for one, I'd say do as you please with it. I've got one with a "Dobro" style coverplate, which isn't original, so the neck has been clumsily messed around with to alter the action to clear the coverplate, and it looks as though the headstock has been altered with an overlay, but I'm quite attached to it, one of these days I'll get round to sorting it out properly. There's pic. somewhere of Muddy Water playing this type of guitar. This is mine..the coverplate should be a simpler one with largish round holes, and the headstock has the old Oscar Schmidt "Stella " script, which I'm sure isn't right, some were branded "Melofonic".  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2017 9:33:30 GMT
PD. I read that when Schireson was sued by National-Dobro and lost their patent on their cone system, the other outfits building resonators either went to licensing cones from Nat-Do or simply went with the flat faux-bro to avoid being sued.
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 4, 2017 13:02:49 GMT
so ..is it a reso with an "empty well" so to speak? Jon No Jono. there is no well - it's a flat top acoustic with no end of fretboard sound hole but with f holes in the standard reso positions. Have a butchers at Chicken Bone Johns above, there is nothing except a bridge and silver paint under that coverplate. They were made to look like resos but were cheap as a cheap thing.  |
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Post by toremainn on Nov 4, 2017 22:08:25 GMT
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 6, 2017 19:04:50 GMT
so ..is it a reso with an "empty well" so to speak? Jon It has arrived and it looks that I got it wrong and inadvertently told a porkie  This is intriguing..... There is a "well" or hole in the top. The silver painted disc is not just paint. It is, in fact, a painted decorated wooden disc resting in the hole held down by string pressure on the bridge! I need to get a higher bridge to lift the action for slide use and fit new heavier strings so I'll take it apart for a pukkah butchers. I'll then post some photos over the next day or so. |
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 7, 2017 13:40:17 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2017 17:36:03 GMT
Very cool - it's ages since I've seen pic of one of these. I'm on the case with the bridge, I think I may have some ready to go with the right height. So the round disk just drops onto the top? Is that a glued on "lip" I can see on the underside of the disk, to help locate it?  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2017 20:12:50 GMT
Hmm, you don't fancy one of my home-made bridges eh? With adjustable cocktail stick saddle? Nice guitar BTW - sound clip please.  TT |
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 7, 2017 20:17:24 GMT
Very cool - it's ages since I've seen pic of one of these. I'm on the case with the bridge, I think I may have some ready to go with the right height. So the round disk just drops onto the top? Is that a glued on "lip" I can see on the underside of the disk, to help locate it? Yup, the glued on lip locates the disc in the hole and the whole lot drops in, held in position by the string pressure on the bridge. I'm thinking about putting a contact pickup on the underside of the disc and running the lead out of one of the "coverplate holes".... That is unless anyone has got a Stromberg pickup to spare, a la www.vintageguitar.com/3657/stromberg-electro/Anybody?  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2017 10:37:06 GMT
Couldn't understand the point of a faux resonator till I listened to a few on YT. Wow!
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Post by Pickers Ditch on Nov 8, 2017 11:52:45 GMT
This one is a bit quiet at the moment, the bridge is not brilliant and it's fitted with light strings.
I'll get a better idea when I up the string gauge and fit CBJs bridge.
Oh, and a clean up too!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2017 12:42:28 GMT
Couldn't understand the point of a faux resonator till I listened to a few on YT. Wow! Agreed - that one of bottleneck John's has a great honky tone. TT |
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Post by Keith Ambridge on Nov 9, 2017 15:00:25 GMT
I have a friend on a Greek luthiers site has built one of these.
He calls it a "convertable flat top / resonator". It has a well in it, he can put a cone in or a braced soundboard.
I suggested he could make a banjo skin insert for it, he says he's seen it done!
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