dobro construction?

[ayavner]

Hey all,

Does anyone know how the neck attaches to a metal bodied dobro? are there neck/tail blocks made of wood?

i imagine they don't attach to the sides with glue - are bolts used?

Do tops/backs have a radius?

Discuss...

[Freeman]

Most metal bodied resonators (remember, "Dobro" is a trademarked brand, which builds mostly wood bodied guitars, altho I happen to own a brass bodied Dobro (tm) biscuit bridge Model 33H) have what is called a "neck stick" which extends from the neck block to the tail block (that is what the tailpiece screws into). The neck connects to it and is also bolted or screwed thru the top thur 2 or 4 of the postion dots on the fretboard (you pop the dots out to get at the screw heads.

Here is the inside of my 33 when I was doing a cone transplant and setup - the neck stick is that wooden thing in the back (notice the two "mushrooms" that space the top and back and give some rigidity). It is kind of weird that they stopped the plating in the middle of the lower bout.



The back has a significant radius, mine is fairly domed and of course has the sand blasted Hawaiian scene (old Nat were hand engraved). The top has a slight radius, as does the coverplate to clear the biscuit. He is another shot with the cone in, strung up (I'm setting the action) - that is the new NRP cone and a carbon fiber biscuit (most will be maple, cheap ones might be plastic).



Is this what you wanted to talk about?

[ayavner]

yes sure is!

any pics of how the neck attaches? I am guessing its not a typical dovetail or M/T joint?

[Freeman]

The ones I'm familar with do not have a neck block in the conventional sense nor is there any sort of M&T routing. The heel of the neck is flush against the metal body and the neck stick goes thru a 5/8 slot in the body, then extends to the butt of the guitar. I have not had the neck off of this one (I did take it off my old woodie when I refinished it) but I do have the plans for a round neck metal body reso from Resophonic Outfitters - it show the neck joint clearly.

I also know that there have been some metal reso build threads on MIMF that have showed the joints. There is a picture in Brozman's book of a tricone with the cones out that clearly show a neckstick so I assume they are the same (assume the square neck tricones don't have one).

edit to add - if you look at the instruction that StewMac provided for their metal reso it (they no longer offer the kit but the pdf is in their Free Stuff) you will see that they use a bolt on M&T style neck with a wooden neck block just like a normal bolt on, and their "neck support" (what I've called a neck stick) is a separate piece that screws to the underside of the top and to the cone well. So it looks like there are several ways to skin this cat.