DIY Reso conversion

[Poxican]

I've finally finished my acoustic -> resonator conversion. I was going to put this in the guitar section but I figure it's as much about DIY so whatever.

I found this old piece of junk in an abandoned store room. So it looked like this to begin with:



And now looks like this:



There's loads of info and inbetween photos on my blog if you fancy havin a look

I would say that only about 30% of the guitar is original now, what with a new fretboard, new tuners, big bits of wood missing, new sound well, paint, reso cone, grille, new tailpiece, biscuit bridge, and new strings

[guitargeek62]

That is frickin awesome! How does it sound?

[Poxican]

Cheers

Aside from a little rattle that needs sorted (I think its the coverplate) it sounds better than I expected! I didn't want to get my hopes up about how well the cone would work, as it's actually a saucepan, but it sounds pretty cool. It definitely doesn't sound like a regular acoustic guitar. I've only got electric 10's on there too which aren't ideal, so some heavier gauge strings would probably sound a little bolder.

I'll get some mp3's recorded over the weekend.

[T-Keith]

Great job!

[boogie man]

Wow, some seriously clever improvisation there! Nice job.

Are you still going to put the silver surrounds on the F holes? They would look great against the black I think.

[sammo303]

Badass. There is no other word for it!

[Poxican]

Thanks for the kind words gents

I sorted the buzz, it was indeed the coverplate! A few extra screws did the job.
I've lowered the action slightly as well by filing down the bridge, but it's still super high. There's not much more I can do though as I've realised (too late) that the neck is actually not parallel with the body. It creates kind of a shallow V, but it's perfectly playable for just slide, and you can finger frets, though the intonation isn't perfect.

It sounds grand though I reckon!

I put the silver surrounds on to see how it would look but it makes it look a little busy I think. The other thing is that the edges of the surrounds might catch on clothing/skin. I think the white paint does the job though, although I might do a second coat.

My girlfriend is a photographer so I'm going to take it to her studio on Monday and she'll take some sexy photos of it for me

[Poxican]

Just recorded my first attempts at playing!
Excuse the general shiteness of the playing, I built the thing to start learning so I don't really know what I'm doing yet.

Hopefully this link will work: [edit] didn't work, link is in signature though

[boogie man]

Linky no worky. I get the web page with the player, but there's no content.

[Poxican]

Bummer, oh well this should work
Click!

It's the one called 'First Homemade Resonator Test' though you're welcome to listen to the other rubbish too