Metal body resonator bass...

[Water buffalo]

I've been a builder for several years, my expertise is in acoustic resonator instruments. This evening, I became aware of a stash of NOS resonator bodies, most likely from the Dobro factory in Ca., shortly before they were purchased by Gibason USA in the mid 90's.

The majority seems to be metal bodies, with some wooden bodies included. I've already purchased the whole storage unit.

I've built resonators (including basses) since 2000. I will be building several different instruments from this purchase.

Pics coming as I go thrpough the unit.

 

[Don Hergert]

As you probably know, Dobro ownership went through a number of hands and a number of different body styles. The 30s saw steel bodies and wood bodies.

In the 60s under Mosrite ownership in Long Beach, Rudy Dupyera had a shop in back and made aluminum bodies. I have one of those, a full size aluminum guitar body assembled with a floor-sweep earlier period Dobro labelled square neck, resonator assembly and tailpiece.

In the collection you've acquired, what metal are the bodies?

 

[Matt Liebenau]

That sounds like a good time! I fooled with one of the Regal branded wood body resonater basses maybe 15 or 20 years ago when those were new. What scale length are you planning?

 

[2saddleslab]

I have a cheap short scale Regal reso w/ wood body that I added a lipstick pickup to at the end of the neck. It neither plays or sounds very good.

Good luck, I'll be interested in watching this progress.

 

[ole Jason]

Never heard a resonator bass that sounded good but I'm intrigued by the idea. Keep us posted!

 

[Water buffalo]

As you probably know, Dobro ownership went through a number of hands and a number of different body styles. The 30s saw steel bodies and wood bodies.

In the 60s under Mosrite ownership in Long Beach, Rudy Dupyera had a shop in back and made aluminum bodies. I have one of those, a full size aluminum guitar body assembled with a floor-sweep earlier period Dobro labelled square neck, resonator assembly and tailpiece.

In the collection you've acquired, what metal are the bodies?

View attachment 7139448

That is really cool. I've never seen one of these...

I am not sure what all is in there, mostly metal bodies, with a few wood ones. they look pretty dirty from being in storage so long. It will be around a month until I can make the time to go get them.

I purchased the lot from a builder that retired last year.

That sounds like a good time! I fooled with one of the Regal branded wood body resonater basses maybe 15 or 20 years ago when those were new. What scale length are you planning?

I've built resonator basses in 30", and 34" scale. I would like to try 32" scale. It mostly depends on the body/resonator type. The smaller body, most often associated with National style 9.5" biscuit bridge/cones, works better with the shorter scale necks, to keep from being neck heavy. The larger Dobro body (usually with a 10.5" spider bridge/cone) allow you to fit a 34" scale neck. I would like to try the smaller body with a 32" scale neck.

I've also had success with using a 27.625" scale for a six string guitar build.

I have a cheap short scale Regal reso w/ wood body that I added a lipstick pickup to at the end of the neck. It neither plays or sounds very good.

Good luck, I'll be interested in watching this progress.

Never heard a resonator bass that sounded good but I'm intrigued by the idea. Keep us posted!

Even the cheaper models sound decent when they're set up correctly. If you're going purely acoustic, a lighter hand spun (expensive) cone with make a huge difference. Like an upright, they work best with a higher action and a good string break angle over the bridge. If you are going electric, the lighter cone won't make that much of a difference. On a side note, while the lighter cone is an improvement, they are easily crushed under string pressure. If the instrument is lightly dropped even a few inches, it will flatten the cone. If one is using it for touring, you're best bet is is a heavier cone.

I well setup reso bass will acoustically keep up with guitars, mandolins, and even banjos. The reason why is the produce a lot of mid range frequencies, which really cut's through. The downside is the lack of bass. Check out Les Claypool's stuff on his reso bass, it's a great example.

I've been working on designs that will provide more bass, it is possible.

In this video by John Kay from several years ago, his bass player, Guy Devito is using one of my resonator basses. there's a good shot at 1:35.

Listen with headphones or at least good speakers.

 

[Don Hergert]

Fwiw, I also have and play an aluminum double bass, a 1930 Alcoa, functionally restored and hot-rodded.

One might think I specialize in aluminum instruments, but really it's just how things worked out.

 

[Water buffalo]

Fwiw, I also have and play an aluminum double bass, a 1930 Alcoa, functionally restored and hot-rodded.

One might think I specialize in aluminum instruments, but really it's just how things worked out.

View attachment 7140257

I have always admired those aluminum uprights...

 

[Water buffalo]

I had a chance today to go and look at the storage units... My first impression is it will take some time to go through everything. There is so much of so many things, two strage units full. There are other parts/guitars as well as the reso's, I am working with the owner, we will be going through both units.

I brought home two wooden Dobro cutaway bodies. They are painted black and the lacquer has cracked, I have guitar scale necks for both but they may make cool basses. I also have a metal body, I will need to complete the solder jpoints around the top. There is a fairly large amount of metal bodies in this condition.

I'll post pics of what I brought home soon.

 

[Don Hergert]

My aluminum Dobro from the 60s uses headless pins (almost like rivets) to hold the sides to the top and back. They are almost invisible, you have to look for them carefully. There was no welding or soldering, it's the way Rudy Dopyera was making them at that time. Anyway there must have been a fall at one time with mine, such that the back had puckered out from the side at the lower bout... All I had to do was press it back together and let the pins fall back into the holes, and it was like new again. That was decades ago and I've never had another problem with it.

If you run into any of these 60s aluminum Dobro bodies, you may find that paint does not adhere well on them. As seen in my pic above, all of the original sunburst finish is gone from mine; the neck and heel still have the finish, which is how I knew what the body originally had. I had thought about mirror polishing the body, but decided I'd rather leave it as is.

Some of the older steel body Dobros were mirror polished and had beautiful Hawaiian scenes hand engraved. Did you run into any of those?

 

[Water buffalo]

My aluminum Dobro from the 60s uses headless pins (almost like rivets) to hold the sides to the top and back. They are almost invisible, you have to look for them carefully. There was no welding or soldering, it's the way Rudy Dopyera was making them at that time. Anyway there must have been a fall at one time with mine, such that the back had puckered out from the side at the lower bout... All I had to do was press it back together and let the pins fall back into the holes, and it was like new again. That was decades ago and I've never had another problem with it.

If you run into any of these 60s aluminum Dobro bodies, you may find that paint does not adhere well on them. As seen in my pic above, all of the original sunburst finish is gone from mine; the neck and heel still have the finish, which is how I knew what the body originally had. I had thought about mirror polishing the body, but decided I'd rather leave it as is.

Some of the older steel body Dobros were mirror polished and had beautiful Hawaiian scenes hand engraved. Did you run into any of those?

Interesting info on the aluminum bodies, I didn't know that.

I did see a couple of engraved bodies, one looked to be older (pre-Gibson, so not really old), it had the Hawaiian scenes. The other was Gibson era, it had bayou/swamp engravings, a big alligator was on the back. Both of these were plated (nickel?).

The owner is keeping these two, I'm hoping there may be more. Both of them were pretty much in mint condition.

 

[Water buffalo]

This is the model of the two wooden bodies that I brought home with me.

They are painted black, I'm not sure what's underneath that. If an instrument had a cosmetic issue, Gibson's answer was to paint ot black. Lol. Plus, the lacquer is cracked on the ones I have.

The thing about these (and most Dobro models) is that they utilize a wooden extension that went from the neck heel, into the body where it was attached to a wooden support on the inner back of the body. There is no neck block, or at least not much of one. The metal bodies have an open interior, so adding proper support for a different neck style is possible. However, these two bodies have a (traditional) interior wooden soundwell that the aluminum cone sits upon. In the case of the 90's Dobro, they cut round holes into the soundwell to allow the frequencies to move throughout the body.

For what it's worth, traditional Dobros used "parallelogram" cutouts for their soundwells. Whatever the design, the problem is that the soundwell prevents me from adding additional support to the neck attachment area. If. I'm going to make this a bass, I'm going have to use the orignal neck attachment design.

I'll try to get some pics of what I have soon.

 

[Water buffalo]

This is a current resonator guitar build that I am working on. The body is all solid flame maple, as is the neck. It's a 12 fret, 24 3/4" scale, roundneck model.

The neck blank pictured is the 12 fret model. I am also building a second (roundneck) neck that will be 27 5/8" scale. That allows the neck to join the body at the 14the fret. It can be tuned D-D (a step down from standard), but using .012's, tuned to standard pitch, make these things spank.

Notice that this body has the traditional parallelogram cutouts.

 

[Don Hergert]

Regarding the fancier polished and engraved metal Dobro bodies, they may have been nickel plated, or they might have been chrome plated, or they may even have just been highly polished steel. Most likely nickel, but there are some caveats...

The problem with nickel plating is that a lot of people are allergic to it and their skin will break out with contact sores, which over time also degrades the nickel plating. Nickel plating is also subject to staining and even thinning due to contact with certain chemicals, although the likelihood of a nickel plated Dobro coming in contact with those chemicals is pretty small.

Chrome doesn't have either of those problems, but it may not have been easily available when the ornate Dobro bodies in question were made.

It takes a lot of polishing work to get steel to a mirror finish and then there's rust to be concerned about, so this may not have been practical.

When I was in college in the early '70s, one of my buddies had a beautiful, highly polished hand engraved full-size Dobro round-neck guitar. I think it was older than him, so it was probably an early or pre 1950s instrument. He didn't appreciate the significance of the instrument and eventually traded it off for a new (1970s) Martin dreadnought model of some kind. Oh well.

 

[rangothesis]

That is really cool. I've never seen one of these...

I am not sure what all is in there, mostly metal bodies, with a few wood ones. they look pretty dirty from being in storage so long. It will be around a month until I can make the time to go get them.

I purchased the lot from a builder that retired last year.



I've built resonator basses in 30", and 34" scale. I would like to try 32" scale. It mostly depends on the body/resonator type. The smaller body, most often associated with National style 9.5" biscuit bridge/cones, works better with the shorter scale necks, to keep from being neck heavy. The larger Dobro body (usually with a 10.5" spider bridge/cone) allow you to fit a 34" scale neck. I would like to try the smaller body with a 32" scale neck.

I've also had success with using a 27.625" scale for a six string guitar build.





Even the cheaper models sound decent when they're set up correctly. If you're going purely acoustic, a lighter hand spun (expensive) cone with make a huge difference. Like an upright, they work best with a higher action and a good string break angle over the bridge. If you are going electric, the lighter cone won't make that much of a difference. On a side note, while the lighter cone is an improvement, they are easily crushed under string pressure. If the instrument is lightly dropped even a few inches, it will flatten the cone. If one is using it for touring, you're best bet is is a heavier cone.

I well setup reso bass will acoustically keep up with guitars, mandolins, and even banjos. The reason why is the produce a lot of mid range frequencies, which really cut's through. The downside is the lack of bass. Check out Les Claypool's stuff on his reso bass, it's a great example.

I've been working on designs that will provide more bass, it is possible.

In this video by John Kay from several years ago, his bass player, Guy Devito is using one of my resonator basses. there's a good shot at 1:35.

Listen with headphones or at least good speakers.

Do you have any recommendations for hand spun cones?

I’m thinking of picking up an ozark metal body resonator bass to play completely unplugged with 1 guitarist/singer. I’m worried about volume keeping up while maintaining good tone. I’ve read so many conflicting opinions on here about resonator bass guitars, you seem to have expertise on how to make them work. I was looking at the metal body reso to help with volume, and I think I’d swap out the strings for flats or tapes. what do you think?

 

[Flaked Beans]

Fwiw, I also have and play an aluminum double bass, a 1930 Alcoa, functionally restored and hot-rodded.

One might think I specialize in aluminum instruments, but really it's just how things worked out.

View attachment 7140257

I have played John Scofield's bass player bass couple of times and it had aluminum body! Sounded great!

 

[Don Hergert]

I have played John Scofield's bass player bass couple of times and it had aluminum body! Sounded great!

Nice. FWIW...

Was it a ca. 1930s double bass? If so, do you remember if that aluminum double bass had a wooden neck or if it had an aluminum neck? That identifies which of two companies made it during that time period;; either all-aluminum Alcoa in the USA or aluminum body / wooden neck Pfretzschner in Germany.

There's only one modern "advertising" builder of aluminum double basses, that being AliCat Double Basses in Australia; either all-aluminum or aluminum body / wooden neck.

 

[Gosho]

Fwiw, I also have and play an aluminum double bass, a 1930 Alcoa, functionally restored and hot-rodded.

One might think I specialize in aluminum instruments, but really it's just how things worked out.

View attachment 7140257

How do you define sound compared to wooden construction?

 

[Don Hergert]

How do you define sound compared to wooden construction?

With my aluminum Dobro, my perception is that the sound is just about the same as a wooden Dobro, but maybe slightly louder, which may just be the result of different strings. The resonator hardware is exactly the same as a similar wooden body Dobro, with the exception of the bridge, which is also aluminum.

In contrast, I'm very careful about strings with my Alcoa double bass to stay with either synthetics or plain guts for a less metallic, more old-school sound. Internally from a design standpoint an Alcoa double bass is very similar in build to a 3/4 wooden double bass, except for being aluminum, so it naturally would sound more metallic...

But my Alcoa is unique in that it has been treated with acoustic paint over the whole inside back of the instrument to try to tame down that metallic tone, plus the whole instrument has been powder coated which even takes that a step further. Most of the bluegrass people I jam with say my Alcoa sounds like a wooden double bass; I've even had an owner of a mirror-polished Alcoa tell me he would play his Alcoa on stage if it sounded like mine.

I will add, my hearing like everyone else's is very subjective. When it comes to tone and volume, I trust more what people around me say.