Old gold: Del Vecchio Dinâmico Resonator

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Introduction

While Brazilian rosewood is famous enough as a tone wood, Brazil itself has enjoyed less celebrity as a guitar-making nation.

However, thanks to Chet Atkins this model still enjoys some notoriety - he used a Dinâmico quite frequently on recordings and during live shows after being given one by Brazilian duo Los Indios Tabajaras.

Made at some point in the 60s by the Sao Paulo-based firm, founded in 1902, the guitar is a wood-bodied resonator with a single cone doing the work of amplifying the guitar’s acoustic tone although in a nod to modernity there’s also a magnetic pickup at the neck of this example.

It features a biscuit-style bridge, in which the saddle is fixed in a small biscuit-shaped disc of wood that is in contact with the amplifying cone, while the scale length is a slightly off-Fender 25.4 inches, with a zero fret taking the place of a conventional nut at the headstock end of the neck.

While manufacturing standards at Del Vecchio were patchy at times, its resonators nonetheless have plenty of sonic character and, well, they were good enough for Chet, right?

This particular, charmingly retro example resides at Vintage & Rare guitars in Bath.

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Body

The Dinâmico is a wood-bodied resonator with a single cone doing the work of amplifying the acoustic tone.

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Bridge

It features a biscuit-style bridge, in which the saddle is fixed in a small biscuit-shaped disc of wood that is in contact with the amplifying cone.

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Pickup

In a nod to modernity there’s also a magnetic pickup at the neck of this example.

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Controls

There are tone and volume controls for the single neck pickup.

(Image credit: Neil Godwin / Future)

Headstock

A zero fret taking the place of a conventional nut at the headstock end of the neck.