Official Luthiers Forum!

Are we allowed to swear on this forum? (serious question)

The good: The body is original, as is the neck.

The bad: see pics







And yes, the cone is actually screwed to the body. No good for tone methinks.




But wait..... there's more......





Yes the neck stick that is one of the most critical parts of a resophonic guitar has been sawed into 3 completely separate pieces, screwed back together with F'ING giant screws and billy bob style sheet metal work. For absolutely no apparent reason at all.

So this isn't a paid job, this is one that someone literally gave to the shop. They said it would look cool "on display". I thought it'd be better to play it. Whoever did this I'm convinced were just trying their hardest to be as rough as possible. Just... why.

This is not going to be vintage correct at all for the repair. In fact there's literally no resale value in this thing, but I know a few bluesmen in the area who would jump at the chance to own a real pre-war national and to have raw sound that these steel bodies are known for. Even if the cone is new and the guitar has been put through the ringer. This is going to be a rare act of love from myself, the value outside of a playable instrument is not important.

I have no idea how long this will take, lots to disassemble and replace. Enjoy the pics in the meantime.

National made very few spiders, I'm guessing that what is going on here is someone tried to convert a biscuit to a spider. As you know, the neck stick on a biscuit goes all the way to the butt end, my 32 Dobro (at least) has it anchored in the front edge of the sound well. Cones would be a different diameter and depth, all sorts of other bad stuff going on. The guts of my Duolian biscuit and Type 27 spider





And while the spider wasn't butchered as badly as yours, it did have a crushed cover and cone and had been spray painted black

I've been working on one off and on for over a year. NEVER AGAIN. This is the result of when a body shop guy decides to build a guitar. (yes, the Dopyera brothers were body shop guys who thought it would be more fun in the music biz).

Yours appears to be more of a wreck than the one I've been working on... But mine was merely awful, and in about 15 pieces when I got it. I've about got the fingerboard puzzle glued back together.

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