Having been informed by she who must be obeyed that I will be losing my Garage/Workshop in mid December for an unspecified period, but about a couple of months, due to family soft furnishing storage, I determined to use my power tools whilst I can and rough out my future builds. Mainly in my head at this time, there are a few that I shall document and then I can do my finishing work indoors, (she has agreed small works but no power tools in the kitchen) Number one of this series is the Reso-T, basically a slightly jumbo Tele with a resonator, single coil in the neck position and piezo on the cone. I have a Regal Resonator acoustic and have had some success with piezo pickups when recording.
I started with some seasoned pine, glued the 3 pieces and clamped. I drew the shape, (later modifying to give me some more meat). I measured the 25.5 scale length with my chosen maple neck loosely clamped in place. I worked out the position for the cone, spider and cover. The extra wood on the rear will permit me to use a hardtail string anchor. (I have had problems with the regal trapeze anchor. The other issue with my Regal is the intonation, Resonators traditionally use a maple fixed bridge, a bit of engineering needed!
I levelled the wood bridge supports on the spider and drilled either side to enable a tunomatic bridge to be used. I tapped the holes to M4 and fitted machine screws. I fitted brass bushes to the bridge holes that gave me a snug fit on the M4 screws. I drilled a centre hole in the bridge and filed slightly the D and G saddle sides so as to enable an allen key to be inserted once the guitar is assembled to adjust the cone tension (it was originally a cross head screw, substituted now for an M3 machine screw. I still have some tweaking to do on the bridge/spider assembly, including replacing the nuts with knurled height adjusters.
I have started some body shaping while still clamped (impatient!) and the alignment all looks to be ok (at this time) My plan at the moment is for an Aluminium back to this guitar to assist with the reflected tones. This will also enable me to run the electrics as and where needed as the back will be screwed on. Probably going for simple 3 way switching 1V 1T, I may need a pre-amp on the piezo, but getting ahead of myself there.
As previously stated I will do the rough work on this one then put it aside to finish later
reso (1).JPG (110.2 KB)
reso (2).JPG (155.9 KB)
reso (3).JPG (98.4 KB)
reso (4).JPG (120.7 KB)
Reply With Quote