Southern Tonewoods seem reasonably priced!

I have not looked at a pickup for my resonator. I'm not sure if a piezo type pickup would be better suited than a coil type!

As far as setting the neck angle for the resonator: I think the action should be clearly low when the saddle is off and the strings are just resting on the spider.

I'm not sure if there is a good rule for quickly working out if you have a good neck angle! I read on a Benedetto Archtop site that a "rule of thumb" for a "good" neck angle is that a straight edge sitting on the fret plane should touch the bridge in its lowest possible setting. I have not tried this! Maybe for the Resonator this could be the spider with no bridge!