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ESR-1 Resonator
I've had this kit for a while but haven't done anything with it yet. I like the sound of resonators and quite like the look of the electric resonator hybrid. So when I saw it was on sale and I had a voucher on eBay which made it even cheaper I took the plunge and bought it, even though I knew I wouldn't start it for quite a while.
So I'm just going to start this thread to give some feedback as to what my kit is like compared to others who have purchased and started building this same kit.
First off, the kit on first glance seems to be of quite high quality. The wood and binding all seem to be quite good. It's quite a large bodied guitar but it's quite light. I think the wood is light and the arch back is hollow and it's also supposed to be chambered? The fretboard is ebony, which isn't what is pictured or described on the website, but I'm not complaining as I honestly prefer the look of it over the maple.
As to the problems which others have found. Yes the cone doesn't fit properly as it sits on the bottom of the cavity so I will also need to cut out the bottom like others have. The cone is just pressed aluminium unfortunately. Likewise, the mini humbucker cavity is too close to the neck so the mounting ring doesn't fit and the screw holes do not line up with the mounting ring either.
The fake sound holes aren't quite round but the tea strainers fit and you won't notice the of shape of the holes. They may be in slightly different locations though but I'm not sure if the body is perfectly symmetrical so hard to tell.
The scale length is also a bit off. Measuring to the 12th fret gives me 313.5 mm but measuring to the bridge gives 629~630 mm. So that's a few mil too long. The neck heal looks to not sit flat with the inside humbucker hole wall, but only on one side as it looks like the hole's not straight. That may be the source of the few mm but even so there is a slight discrepancy between the 12th fret length and the 24.75" scale length. I haven't checked the centre line yet though so it may be possible that the whole cone hole is off.
The supplied bridge is a single thin piece of wood, maybe ebony or rose wood. Together with the supplied rod piezo is probably high enough but it wouldn't be if just the wood alone was used. The bridge is also loose so will fall out rather than being snug like described online.
Both the piezo and humbucker have short wires and will need extra wiring to reach the control cavity plus holes will need to be drilled for the wires. The control cavity cover will also sit on top of the back as they're hasn't been a recess routed for it.
Even though there are these problems they aren't really that major and can all be dealt with. I'm still really looking forward to the build and already have a couple of different piezo options and a piezo preamp which I'll try out when I'm wiring it all up. I also found a cheap spun alloy cone on eBay which I'm going to buy. For $12 including shipping I might as well try it out. I'm still not sure if I'll set it up as a slide guitar, with higher action, or just regular. I even saw online when researching a while back a TOM style bridge on a spider.
Later though. I still have 3 builds to complete before getting onto this one.
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But of luck with it mate!
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I'm just going to put this here so I don't have to go search for it later again. TOM bridge for a resonator. It's for a biscuit bridge though so different to the spider. I reckon the spider might actually be easier. Tempted to buy a second spider and just try it out.
https://www.resohangout.com/archive/18041
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Seeing the other build threads got me looking at this build again. So I already bought a preamp earlier as I had been planning on putting it into another build that never eventuated. I also have a few piezo rods and piezo discs. This should give me a few different options: single rod under saddle, two split piezo rods under saddle, disc under bridge and finally disc under cone. I also have an iRig Accoustic which doesn't work with my phone so I reckon I could pull that apart to get an apparently good mic and mount that somewhere.
In addition to the parts I already have I've now also ordered a few more things: a new cone, a couple of maple and ebony saddles, another spider bridge, and an ABR-1 style TOM bridge. I'm going to modify the second spider bridge and put the TOM on it. Then I can try out a few different designs and see which one I prefer.
