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Pie pan reso with real spring reverberation.

After a 6 month break I though I'd get back to my 3 strang-ger and made some progress the last few days. It'll be unique fer sure.

It has a removable neck, pie pan resonator and real spring reverberation. The bridge is a round disc of cherry placed into a metal PVC glue top with a solid brass screw saddle and nut. The top is 3/16" luan plywood inlaid into walnut sides. The neck is maple with walnut fingerboard and heel cap. A buffalo nickel and a indian head penny are inlaid into the head and fingerboard. I'll probably add maple dowel fret makers on the fingerboard and side dots. For frets I'm using galvie fence wire that I'll be filing a "V" on the bottom and supergluing in place. NOT conventional I know but I've never been. I still need to figure out a way to have a hand rest somehow. I'm kinda letting the thing build itself.

I stayed pretty close to the original drawing. I'd like to find a eagle, hawk or owl feather to attach to a lanyard on the head.

Nobody could say that I stole ideas on this one.

SOME PHOTOS:

SOUND SAMPLES:

"To ear is human...good tone, devine".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10000602@N04/show/

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on May 26, 2011 at 3:46pm

I'm sure everyone will want to hear this one. Can you post a sound file or video? I have heard of people attaching springs inside their cigar box to help add to the resonating sound of the box, but with a resonator, I guess this is a first. I like the buffalo head nickel in the headstock, too. Nice touch.

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on May 26, 2011 at 3:49pm

Oh, and an Indian head penny to mark your 5th fret! Nice. I also checked out your photos and see that you build the box from scratch. A very nice design.

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by HERMIT on May 26, 2011 at 4:32pm

Thats gonna be a sweetheart fella.....very cool.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Harrison on May 28, 2011 at 9:56am

I like your thinking. Very good idea on the reso.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Alvey on May 29, 2011 at 1:25am

What a Koool looking guitar, I hope it sounds great !!

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on June 1, 2011 at 11:48am

Wow, I'm lovin' it!

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Permalink Reply by Lowatter on June 1, 2011 at 12:19pm

Thanks a bunch guys for the positive responses. I'm going to re-enforce the top where the pie pan sits in with a 3/8" ring of 1/4" birch under the top. This will give the square-head bronze screws that will hold the pan in place some material. I may need to re-locate the controls to the upper left top side of the box to have more room for them. If that's the case then the controls and wiring would be seen through the holes so I was thinking about placing some gold antique radio grill cloth under them to cover the guts and make the holes more outstanding. I'll be doing alot with it this weekend if it's not too hot. It was 102 degrees today with the heat index here in NW SC and it's not even summer yet!

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on June 1, 2011 at 6:31pm

Hi All...

One of the fellas that did a "spring loaded" CBG was jeremy lee. He added springs in the box of his first CBG to create an acoustic reverb and he says that it really works. Here's a photo of it:

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Permalink Reply by Lowatter on June 1, 2011 at 11:24pm

Thanks for that pic Rand. That's really cool. When I do mine I'm going to try placing a piezo under each side of the pie pan directly under each spring flanking behind the biscuit bridge. I'll have a 3-way switch to use the single coil pickup, the piezos or both. After I finish I'll try different size springs to see what works best.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on June 2, 2011 at 1:20am

I think this line of research has great potential. Good luck with your experiments. And keep us informed as to what works and what doesn't. And how you went about doing it. Build photos would be great.

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Tom in the Swamp on June 2, 2011 at 5:28am

How do the springs in the non-reso CBG create resonance? It looks like the springs are attatched to the sides of the box, but are they connected to the sound board as well? This is all fascinating!

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on June 2, 2011 at 6:04am

Interesting ideas here. My daughters have a couple of those cheapy "microphones" with a small metal plate and spring inside and they produce a pretty cool effect. I thought about doing the same with a spring tensioned sheet metal plate inside a deeper box, under a thru-neck. Might have to give that a whirl.