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Does anybody on this site have experience with steel body resonator guitars? I'm hoping extensive experience.

Thanks, Mike

Fixing em, or building em?


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Fixing.

I have a recording king, steel body chicken foot. Had to attach a new neck with a new center beam. Went to string up and noticed strings were going to be VERY high at 12th fret.

Nothing in the geometry of the body or neck suggests I have the wrong neck angle. Any more neck angle and the fretboard would have to slope down after 14th fret. And that is not how it was when I recieved it.

Crazy thought: Does the cone compress down under full string pressure (drop string height)?

Yes, cones can compress under string tension and of course the neck moves too, needs adjusting to correct relief etc. So you need to string to pitch and even leave it to settle a little while to really evaluate the action.

Mike, as you have discovered, resonators have neck stick like banjos. Metal bodies ones have the stick extend under the cone and terminate at the butt end of the guitar. They have two (or sometimes four) flat head screws under dots on the f/b extension. Spider bridges are similar but he stick ends at the cone well.

Like a banjo the string action is set by adjusting and shimming the neck stick. Thats what those mushroom looking things are for. There is a small amount of cone compression but there should not be very much, you can damage the cone. I set up my resonators with the cover plated off, I keep shimming the stick, then put the cone back in and check where the fret plane is hitting the saddle. You should be able to do that with a straight edge on the frets, when you are close string it up and shape the top of the saddle and cut the slots

You also need to be aware of the string clearance inside the palm rest. Check that by putting the cover plate back on.

I play a mix of fretted and slide on my resonators and like the action just a hair higher than I would set a normal acoustic. I give the bridge a slight amount of compensation by moving the break point to the extreme back side of the saddle, there isn't much else you can do (you've got a compensator on your pinkie)

By the way you can calculate the downforce on the cone if you can measure the break angle (do it before you put the cover plate on)

https://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae/downforce.htm

Depending on string gauge it can be in 40-50 pound range, one reason that I always tune down

Freeman,

The angle the fretboard makes with the heel plane is identical with the original. It looks like my stick is parallel with the fretboard, and the orginal was tilted down slightly. Could that be the issue? and if so, can any amount of shimming make up for this? Can I see your stick outside of the body?

Could you also provide a little more detail when it comes to shimming? If I want the neck to tilt up, then ... where you are doing this?

I don't believe I ever too the neck completely out of the body, when I replaced the cone I simply loosened the screw that holds the tailpiece on which goes into the end of my neck stick. That allowed me to move the angle slightly just like you would do if you were setting up a banjo. I don't remember if I actually took the fretboard screws out or just loosened them.


My neck stick is sort of dished out on tope where yours is straight. I have a set of the Resophonic Outfitters plans for a round neck metal body which looks pretty much like yours. The drawing shows two methods of making the tail block, in once case it consists of two pieces cut and angles to make a sliding wedge, in the other case it just says "shimmed to fit in body". Your neck and stick look like the RO plans which I'm pretty sure are a National, my guitar was a Dobro Duolian. Is it possible that you are trying to put a Nat or NRP neck on a Recording King and they are enough different to screw up the angle?

As I recall with the butt end loose I was able to just slide the mushrooms to change the neck angle. You have very little height adjustment at the slots in the saddle, you need to get pretty close with the angle.

I no longer have that guitar and looking back thru my old photos I don't seem to have anything else that would be helpful.

The mushrooms on this guitar are glued down. On another forum, someone provided an excellent side view sketch of the issue and solution

https://michaelmesser.proboards.com/thr ... lTo=110651

The mushrooms on this guitar are glued down. On another forum, someone provided an excellent side view sketch of the issue and solution

https://michaelmesser.proboards.com/thr ... lTo=110651

Freeman, An interesting side note. You mentioned the tailpiece screw was into the neck stick. Not so on this one, though it occurred to me that would be nice if it did (pull neck up tight to body). I am going to go find a stainless screw for this purpose.

Mike