My First Paying Job As A Luthier ! " RedNeck Resonater "

Hello all . I have a customer in my regular business who found out I do Luthrie as a hobby . He had this Mid 1930s Resonator guitar and wanted it redone . I agreed , with the proviso that I make NO GUARANTEES and NO PROMISES . He readily agreed . When I took the Resonator plate off , I found what you see below . SOMEONE had taken a guitar and tried to make a "Faux Reso " and painted a silver circle on the guitar top .

When I stopped Laughing , I called the customer and told him what I found . He said he still wanted it Done . So the Following Pics are a story of What I did .

Pained circle above , Top cracked in a dozen places and not repairable . Has to be replaced.

The Resonator Cover , I used Steel Wool and turtle wax to clean as well as possible.

The Pic above shows the "reinforcing I glued in to help stabilize the cracks in the guitar back.

The neck was warped and in bad shape , I sanded it down and used a hand plane to try and straighten the fret board side , it was "partially" successful.

The back and sides after I sanded and filled cracks and re glued any loose areas.

The above is the new top , I made it out of 2nd grade Walnut lumber I had in stock . It is re-sawn and book matched . And Yes that IS a $3.00 Metal Pie Plate to be used as a resonator cone to make the reverberation sound out .

The bracing has been glued in and the "F" holes redone to match the original guitar.

View from the front that shows the Pie Plate in place . It is held in by a screw and glue with a maple "dowel" and the bridge sits right over that screw to help with the sound vibrations.

The neck has been reset and painted black , I am using Black and Cherry stains so the neck will be part of the overall black and red theme

Gluing the top back in place .

After staining , during the Lacquer Stage , Note my Lacquer booth needs work "LOL"

The back of the finished product , Black stain in the wood grain and Cherry stain over that. You can see how the black Painted neck ties in nicely now.

The front of the finished Guitar . The Top is black stained walnut and the fingerboard is Cherry stained . So the whole effect turned out well.

The Customer paid $200.00 dollars and was Quite Happy with the results achieved . The Guitar is tuned and very playable . The sound is Actually very good for a Redneck Resonator .

I was actually impressed that it turned out to sound as good as it did , I did have my doubts .

So goes my first paying job as a luthier . The amount was not really enough to cover my time , however I did learn allot and the challenge was quite fun .

I hope you enjoyed my short trip through Redneck Luthrie