Homemade Resonator Project

[Poxican]

So I'm on to my third instrument building project, and it's a doozy!
Some of you may have seen my effort at building a Seasick Steve inspired Diddley Bow, which was followed up more recently by a Cigar Box Guitar, which I was quite pleased with.

Well I came across this guitar the other week:



It was abandoned in an old store room at work. It's 3/4 size. The strings were rusted through, the bridge had pulled nearly right off the body, and there was a scary spider living inside it. It had steel strings on it, which I think it probably the reason the bridge was pulled away from the body.
It was in a sorry state but I took it anyway, thinking I might be able to use the neck for another cigar box project. But today I came up with a better idea.

I'm going to turn it into a resonator, using the same 'found items' philosophy as on the others. Well, as far as possible anyway.

I was thinking of setting up some kind of Blog to chart my journey, but I've never done it before. Is blogging the best way of doing it? If so, can anyone suggest a site? I want to put up lots of pictures, descriptions, and be able to archive it chronologically.

Heres some more pics to whet your appetites.

[DaveMcK]

The scary spider bit made me laugh, thanks. You seem to have a nack for this kind of thing so Im looking forward to seeing the end result.

sorry dont know anything about blogs and the like.

[Poxican]

Ok so I got myself one of those fancy 'blogs' and I'm gonna put loads of pictures and progress and that up on it here:
http://poxican.blogspot.com/

Hopefully some people show interest

[urbanpagan]

Brave project, best of British!

PS loved the soundclip of CBG too. Do you have any of your seasick steve guitar?

[Jonny]

Nice one! Blog duly bookmarked.

[WezV]

i love the found item philosophy but would recommend at least getting a proper resonator cone.

no reason for it not to sound awesome - you dont need fancy woods for resonators!

[Poxican]

I never got around to recording the diddley bow but i will in the next few days!

Wez I thought seriously about getting a proper cone, but aside from being broke i really want to stick to the challenge of using things in ways theyre not intended to be used. Ive found a particularly resonant saucepan lid i think i might use
I know it wont sound as good as a proper cone, but i fully intend to build a Resonator from the ground up next time using quality parts!

[Lewy]

Originally Posted by Poxican

I never got around to recording the diddley bow but i will in the next few days!

Wez I thought seriously about getting a proper cone, but aside from being broke i really want to stick to the challenge of using things in ways theyre not intended to be used. Ive found a particularly resonant saucepan lid i think i might use
I know it wont sound as good as a proper cone, but i fully intend to build a Resonator from the ground up next time using quality parts!

If you invest in proper cone then you're going to have to invest in a proper biscuit and bridge too and that's going to put you over £60 which sort of defeats the object (I presume). More fun to improvise....whatever you create isn't going to sound like a conventional reso so you may as well get really left-field with it.

Your biggest challenge I forsee is making the soundwell for whatever you use as a cone to sit in.

If you pm me your email address I have the assembly instructions for a single cone kit in PDF. It won't directly help you but it will show you wood bodied resonators are put together and you may be able to bastardise some of the info.

[Poxican]

Lewy pm sent, thanks loads man. Ive been looking at 70 year old patent applications i found online for inspiration but some of them are incredibly complicated or unclear.

As for the sound well, i have some thin fibre board i was thinking of cutting into strips, wetting, and then bending into a circle the appropriate size. I settled on what to use as a cone today so i think ill work on that tomorrow.

What i cant quite figure out is how to mount the cone without muffling its resonance... Do they normally sit on a rim inside the well?

[Lewy]

Originally Posted by Poxican

What i cant quite figure out is how to mount the cone without muffling its resonance... Do they normally sit on a rim inside the well?

Yep. That's basically what the well is for. Looks like this:



And the cone just sits inside like this:



...kept in place by the downward pressure of the stings over the biscuit/bridge. So you'll see that the depth of the well, in combination with the height of the cone and the height that you cut the bridge to will dictate the action of the guitar.

Another key condiseration is where you locate the centre of the well, because that's going to dictate intonation. Even if you're not planning on fretting many notes, you'll still want the centre of the well (and thus the centre of the cone where you'll be fixing the bridge) to be roughly where the old bridge of the guitar was so you can still use the frets as a guide as to where the notes are. This may dictate what you use as a cone.