Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all,

I know I know, this really belongs over in the resonator area, but most of you probably never look there, and I thought this would interest more than a few reso builders.

So .... A local jazzer who has an 8 string electric wondered if I could change his 6 string reso into an 8 string multiscale, ala Charlie Hunter. I said, sure why not !!!

So here it is in all its glory, finished, set-up and delivered today. I created a completely new neck, 3 piece, mahogany with a 3/16 wenge centre strip. two 1/4 x 3/16 Cf bars and a 2 way truss rod. If you have never seen how a reso neck attaches to the body, its fairly bizarre - there is actually a chunk of maple that is dowelled into the heel that then goes into the body all the way to the end, and the tailpiece screws into it. The bottom of the cone well also screws into this piece, and then there are in this case, three screws into an internal piece of baltic ply under the fretboard extension. The bottom scale is 29 inch, the top is 25.75. The striaght fret is somewhere atround 12, but the scales had to be calculated and laid out from the biscuit bridge - it was the only way to do it.

The onwer was blown away Monday when he came over for a quick try out to see how hte neck felt, and then I put a quick wipe on poly finish on and did the final setup. The saddle had to be lengthened a bunch, and I reinforced it by tripling its width above the biscuit. Its very solid. The nut had to be made from two acoustic saddle blanks CA'd together, and the width is about 2 5/16+.

Amazingly, the bass sounds pretty strong, and hte tone is even across the spectrum. The guitar overall is very loud, and sounds amazing in this players hands. He is off with it now to get used to the size of the neck - he also has an 8 string electric, but its a plain old 25.5 scale straight fretter. Oh yeah, the strings are tuned low E, A D, (105, 90 and 75 gauge) then its a stock A to E guitar tuning with medium phosphors.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Here is Jason giving it a workout - or maybe its giving him a workout !!!!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Very cool! and interesting guitar.I'd love to hear what it sounds like!Any recordings Tony? BTW-Great job

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Thanks guys ... it was interesting figuring out exactly how to measure it all up. As well, forgot to mention the two low strings have their own little plate at the end of the body to feed thru - have to keep in mind that at a 29 inch sale, and with the low E being the first tuner, the string needs to be longer behind the saddle or it wont fit the tuner slot - the winds will still be too big (remember bass strings taper down in windings at the tuner end down to the core, but they are definitely not made for this scale !!)

No recordings yet, this guy mainly just gigs out (and busks in the subways in Toronto - that will turn some heads for sure), but really its just a stock reso with some bass added on - OK so thats not normal, but other than the fact that the player can do wild stuff with walking bass and melody or chords, its still just metal body reso tone really. Nothing angelic or cosmic about it. I have asked for a sound bite if he ever does any recording, so maybe down the road. For now he has to figure out how to get around on it. Its not bad at all for him in the mid fingerboard range, but grabbing the low F or F# can be nasty depending what you want to play on top of it. When I first strung it up I tried to play a little Peter Gun on it, the bass and the melody, and it was crazy, but do-able after some practice !!!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Outrageous Tony! Talk about thinking outside the (metal)
box! :D
How about a close-up of the cover and saddle? I can't
tell whether you cut a slot in the cover or if the saddle
is cantilievered above

Hey you got'er done! Good stuff. (Bet Marion is happy too )

Here is the closeup of the front .. I had to cut the original saddle cover off, then grind out slots at the 30 degree angle I set the saddle at in the FB calculations. Jason may get something fashioned up, but with his technique, he never really touches the saddle anyway. So its the same old reso setup, just longer and at a 30 degree slant.

BTW, it intonates very well, I had to figure that in when calclulating the fret slot loactions on each scale, top and bottom.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Tony that is great! I remember you telling me about this project when I was at your shop a few months ago. Great to see it turned out so well.

I have got to give this fan fret thing a try before to long. Thanks for the great inspiration!

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Thanks for sharing this beautiful experience with us Tony, i love them reso guitars, i just wish i knew how to play mine properly though!

Serge

I think you deserve the next set of freebie Bubinga that Lance is giving away--you know, for your courage and ingenuity!

Say, do you have any pix of the back of the neck? It sounds pretty.

Good job,
Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

that is friggin awesome!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

A couple more pix and some thoughts as well ....

Here is the back of the neck. It was finished in Minwax wipe on poly, satin finish, about 6 coats, the third or fourth was put on with 400 grit paper. Then cure for a day, then 0000 steel wool the heck out of it. It is smooth and completely drag free. The absolute easiest satin finish ever, and has a nice color to it as well.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

For those who havent tried the multiscale thing, something to keep in mind during the design phase - the headstock is flat, but angled down on the treble side - I wish I had thought to take a shot of this, maybe this week when it comes back for a little more setup tweaking now that Jason has had a couple days with it. So what you need to consider is to make the neck blank up at the headstock thicker around the nut area, down to the end of the headstock. The more severe the nut angle, the more thickness you will need to keep the headstock from thinning out to much, leaving you high and dry in need of more wood up there! On this one, in order to not thin too much, I left some of the fretboard beyond the nut, thus decreasing the effective tilt angle on the headstock (this is the tilt from side to side, not the original down angle which in this case was about 10 degrees, which it still is on the bass side only) I then tapered the remaining ebony down on the treble side to match the headplate thickness, and to let the higher strings stay above the wood there. It worked out fine.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Looks really good, Tony.
Thanks for the peek.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com