Ok, Ray, you said you would pay for this post… I hope the money is on its way. Here is the [shortened] conversion breakdown of the job.
I have seen a few accounts of others who have done this, but they have been very basic conversions. If you are doing this for yourself you may get away with shortcuts, but this was for a customer, and my name is on the job, so it must be done correctly.
A resonator guitar has a greater strain/tension due to the strings being much heavier. In some designs there is a rod from the tail block to the Heal, to stop the string tension from shortening the guitar. Haha.
A - This shows the guitar as I received it. It's left-handed but any guitar would have done as the bracing that Favors Left or right-handed guitars is removed…
B - First, I work out the scale length and cut the hole for the cone so that the saddle ends up in the correct spot. And then route out the top for the cone…
C - This shows how I cut the top, I then sawed through the braces. I then prepared the fill pieces for the sound hole, remembering to match the grain.
D - This shows the hole is cut, and filler bits are tested…
E&F - Looks good, pickup also fitted well. An extra brace is added under the soundhole area for added support…
G – Removing unwanted braces…
H I j - Due to the extra tension on the guitar's body, I added extra support to the neck and tail blocks…
K L M - These three photos show the reinforcing cross brace added at the neck area…
N O P -Here is the support ring for the cone, it is glued under the top to provide a ledge for the cone to sit on…
Q R S - Shown are the supports I use. These couple the top and back together. A “sound well” could be used instead. This is like a Tamborine-type structure that surrounds the hole under the top and fits between the top and the back. Also shown is the inside depth measuring tool I devised to get the upright supports spot on.
Note, that with a resonator guitar the top and back play a limited part in the sound-creating department, the cone does that job.
T - The finished guitar and a happy customer.
A
The finished Guitar.
All done, That's a few hours of my life I will not get back.. Lets Hope it posts
Taff
Replies
Hey Taff! Send me your address!
Sorry I haven't responded sooner, but my 'puker hasn't played well with the posting software in all the updating..,. got a couple of things fixed on my end and Shane seems to have this end working some better. Impressed and thankful for your being so thorough, - I really appreciate all the hard work that you put into this "How-to". I will be putting this to good use, Taffy!
Ray
Hi Tim, thanks for the comments. Left-hand Resonators are a bit thin on the ground, especially with a cutaway. He already had the guitar and the job was the same as buying a new resonator, but it would not have been a stand-alone unique guitar. This one had gold hardware even the soundhole covers, cone cover plate, and tailpiece were gold. You would be surprised how many people pay four or five times their worth for repairs or modifications on their guitars.
Brian, the issue with this post was not the size of the photos, but the fact that the photos were removed at times, for some reason, so the sequence was out. That's why I could not put captions under the photos as the caption would not match a photo after a while, as the list grew. That's why I did the ABC thing so I could keep track of the order of photos.
Cheers Taff
Great looking job Taff. would it have been cheaper to buy a LH reso? or couldnt find one?
You might want to make it a two part post if you're using such big picture files? Having 2 rows of smaller pics going down the page instead of one will buy some space for captions or more pics? Don't worry about the pics not being big enough to see the details, if people want to see the details closer, they can always click on them to make them larger?
Hi again. Well part of it was posted, I had so much trouble posting this four attempts, emailing Shane, experimenting, and still photos missing. Anyway, you got most of it I hope it makes sense.
Taff
Wow, great tutorial. Thanks, Taff!