Restringing Resonator

[ExStageMage]

Hi Folks,

I'm about to restring my single cone resonator guitar for the first time. Hoping to avoid disaster, I'm hoping for a little guidance here:

1 - Is it true that you can't (or shouldn't) remove all of the strings when restringing, but replace them one at a time? And if so...

2 - How do you clean the fingerboard with the guitar strung?

3 - Any other suggestions/warnings/tips that might help?

I've never been nervous about restringing a guitar before, but I have to tell you...that whole biscuit/cone thing staring at me is scaring me to death.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

[dthumb]

Yep..one at a time from the center out, generally speaking..

here's a site you might find helpful and informative...

http://www.reso-nation.org/forum/mis...ringing-a-reso

HAVE FUN!

[Dan Carey]

Another yup...one at a time, from the center out.
Use a toothbrush (and some naptha if it's really grungy) to clean the fretboard.

[stoney]

Yep and nope. One at a time, but it doesn't matter what order. You are going to have each string off sometime, so why start in the middle? On the dobro website there is a lot of talk about this all the time, but since you will have string 1 off while the others are on, and string 2 off while the others are off, etc, etc, the cone doesn't care in what order it happens . The idea is to keep pressure on the cone so it won't move around and develop a buzz or get out of proper tension.

Some folks have suggested elsewhere that you need to take the two outer strings off first, replace them, then the next two "inboard" strings, then the two middle strings. This, too, is a pain. The idea behind doing this is that the bridge will remain "balanced" during the process. Of course, you would have to remove and replace the pairs at exactly the same time for this to be true.

Reso myths are more prevelant than flat top myths...

OK; flame on...

Stoney

[Wade Hampton]

Well, Stoney, I'm not going to flame you, but I do recommend restringing a resonator instrument from the inside out.

Why? Because the cone can and will shift. The cone is not affixed permanently, so it will move around some if given a push, which is what an unbalanced restringing amounts to: you can shove it one way or another.

Which is no big deal if it happens to be a squareneck played strictly with a slide. But the intonation on a roundneck reso guitar will suffer when that happens.

I follow the same restringing procedure with mandolins, banjos and archtop guitars: anything with a movable bridge can move in the wrong direction if allowed to.

Incidentally, this isn't something I learned from online resonator guitar forums, or some folklore I picked up somewhere. It's something I figured out on my own, the hard way, when I restrung my instruments any old whichaway, and paid for it with slightly skewed intonation.

So it's a wise practice to string from the inside out on resonator guitars, mandolins, banjos, archtops, and anything else with a cone or movable bridge.

Dobro-style spider cones are less susceptible to this sort of movement than National-style biscuit bridge cones, and as I mentioned on squareneck Dobros played with a slide or steel it doesn't matter much at all.

But on anything where you touch the string to fixed frets it does make a difference.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[stoney]

If it works that way then by all means do it. I just wonder what difference it makes if the middle string is off first or last, since at some point the outside strings are going to be off. Won't the bridge shift then? If not, then why does it shift if the outside string is changed first? No argument here, I just don't understand why the bridge will shift if an outside string is changed first. If all the strings are changed, each condition will occur. (outside string off, all others tensioned, inside string off, all others tensioned.) Order shouldn't matter.

I, also change the strings on my mandolin on at a time, but from side to side. Never had an issue.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to win (or lose) this discussion, but only wanted to alleviate some nervousness on the part of the OP with information that seems to be logical. Probably wrong again.

Have a nice day!

Stoney

[Wade Hampton]

Stoney, what I observed when I started stringing either a banjo or mandolin beginning with an outside string was that it quite literally shoved the bridge in the direction where the tension was lessened. So by pulling off an outside string, the bridge went THAT way, in the direction where the string had been.

On my banjos, I have a pencil mark where the bridge is supposed to go, so it's no big deal. But it's easier still if I don't let it shift at all.

Sideways motion is not a major problem, since eventually proper tension is restored. But what can happen is that the bridge (or, in the case of resonator instruments, the bridge AND cone) can get jiggled a bit closer or farther from the nut. And with a resonator there's no easy way to put a little pencil mark down as a reference point like you can on a banjo head.

So resonator instruments are actually a bit more difficult to deal with in this regard than banjos or archtop instruments like mandolins and jazz guitars.

And National-style biscuit bridge resonator instruments in particular are really vulnerable to little shifts like this.

So on my National guitar I start with the D, then change the G, then the A, then the B, and so forth. On my National mandolins I start with the inside D string, then the inside A, then the outside D, and so on.

It just minimizes the cone shifting problems. They still can and will shift a bit as the instruments get played, but not as quickly or as radically.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miler

[DaveG]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how you are restringing, but it seems to me that no matter what order you go in you are going to have one of the outer strings off with the rest on. Doesn't matter if you do it first or last, you will still have the same situation. If that is going to cause the cone to shift it will do so either way. I've always restrung mine one at a time starting from low to high and have never had any problems.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by DaveG

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how you are restringing, but it seems to me that no matter what order you go in you are going to have one of the outer strings off with the rest on. Doesn't matter if you do it first or last, you will still have the same situation. If that is going to cause the cone to shift it will do so either way. I've always restrung mine one at a time starting from low to high and have never had any problems.

Dave - do you have a spider cone bridge resonator like a Dobro or a National-style biscuit bridge?

To be truthful, the only time I've had a problem with a resonator instrument was in restringing my first National mandolin. There's so much tension on a mandolin that just taking the outside G string off first definitely caused the cone to shift a bit to that side.

Whereas when you restring from the inside out the tension is almost equal and coming from both directions at the same time.

It's on banjos where this effect is the most dramatic, then on traditional wooden mandolins after that.

After I forgot and started restringing my National mandolin like I would a pin bridge guitar, I went "Whoa!", shifted it back as best I could, then proceeded going inside out.

Anyway, as I wrote earlier, I think this matters less on a spider cone resonator than on the biscuit bridge instruments. And I'd guess that it's more dramatic on a resonator mandolin than on a resonator guitar, just because the tension is cranked so high on the mandos.

But they need to be restrung one way or another, so I just make it a habit to proceed from the inside and go outwards. Better safe than sorry and potentially pushed out of exact tune, y'know...


whm

[brahmz118]

Originally Posted by ExStageMage

Hi Folks,

I'm about to restring my single cone resonator guitar for the first time. Hoping to avoid disaster, I'm hoping for a little guidance here:

1 - Is it true that you can't (or shouldn't) remove all of the strings when restringing, but replace them one at a time? And if so...

2 - How do you clean the fingerboard with the guitar strung?

3 - Any other suggestions/warnings/tips that might help?

I've never been nervous about restringing a guitar before, but I have to tell you...that whole biscuit/cone thing staring at me is scaring me to death.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

It's almost always a disaster when I restring my Delphi. The slothead gives me the most trouble, with the wound strings whipping around and sawing at the wood. It's also hard to estimate the slack to get just the right amount of coiling around the shafts, though I'm getting better after about half a dozen restringings. (I've also switched to flatwounds, which scrape the wood a bit less.)

I also used to get frustrated with the ball-ends coming out of the tailpiece, but I started using a piece of tape to keep them in place while winding. Problem solved.

Count me among those who don't understand the difference between changing the 6th string with old 1 - 5 strings vs. changing the 6th string with new 1 - 5 strings, pulling more or less the same tension.

[jt1]

Originally Posted by DaveG

no matter what order you go in you are going to have one of the outer strings off with the rest on. Doesn't matter if you do it first or last, you will still have the same situation.

Dave is right about this. A string of the same gauge tuned to pitch, whether it’s been on the guitar for a while or has just been changed, will exert the same downward pressure on the bridge. So, whether one removes that “outside” string first or last, the other five strings, regardless of how many are new and how many are old, will exert the same pressure on the bridge. Order of replacement, if done one at a time, simply cannot make any difference.

So, why the myth? Because order of replacement does matter when one removes all strings at the same time to level frets, replace frets, etc. Similarly, if one changes the string gauge, order might make a difference. But, if restringing with the same gauge as is on the resonator guitar presently, order of replacement makes no difference. Simply restring one string at a time in the order you find easiest to manage.

As for those pesky ball ends popping out of the tailpiece while you’re trying to get the string threaded through the tuner, I recommend shoving a golf tee or chopstick in the offending hole ‘til the string is tuned to pitch.

[DaveG]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Dave - do you have a spider cone bridge resonator like a Dobro or a National-style biscuit bridge?

It's a biscuit bridge. I still don't see how it would make a difference if you change one string at a time. It would make a difference if remove and replace them all at once.

[ayavner]

Well I no longer have my resonator, but I now know why the intonation was always so bad. Oh well, live and learn

[ExStageMage]

Thanks all for the response, help and information. I'll do the restringing today and let you know if I still have a functioning resonator when I'm done.

But first, a stiff one for courage...followed by several more if i end up with an expensive wall decoration.

[ExStageMage]

Success! Thank you folks for helping prevent a disaster!