MIMF

The fretboard is 0.300" thick walnut (a little thicker than the typical 0.250" thick fretboards). The scale length is 25", the same scale length we used for the archtop guitars. Here we are laying out the fret positions. Measured with a 6" dial caliper and struck across with a kn...

With the cone and spider assembled, we can lay the fretboard blank on the front plate and use a straight edge to project where the strings might meet the bridge saddles. We did this same measurement on the Wechter-Scheerhorn and Mastereso dobros, and based on that this looks pretty good, and confirm...

We need to check the neck angle geometry, so the spider and cone will need to be assembled. The spider from Resophonic Outfitters (Beard Guitars) is cast aluminum and very good quality. As received, the spider legs/feet were rough leveled, and we can refine this with some sanding to 600 grit by usin...

Test neck in the fixture, ready for the router. A wood screw through the guide and into neck heel locks it to the guide plate, and a 3/4" dovetail bit in the router makes the cuts. D064 - Test Neck in Fixture.jpg Test neck and body mortis look pretty good after some trial runs.The test neck hee...

Been a while, busy with other projects, but back to the dobro... Our neck dovetail tenon fixture was designed with the 3 degree angle needed to match the archtop guitar geometry and bridge height. The Dobro needs a 0 degree angle - in other words a square cut at the heel. So we need a new fixture. D...

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My lovely and patient bride Dianne helped wrangle the tape as we trimmed and glued the binding and purflings. Titebond original applied with a trimmed flux brush. This Scotch Edgelok tape is thicker and stronger than typical blue masking tape, and holds up well to pulling the binding tight. D053 - G...

This is the binding rig I used for the archtop instruments. The body is clamped on the rims with padded bolts in threaded inserts in the blocks attached to the 3/4" plywood frame. With my archtops, the rims are a uniform depth around the perimeter (2-7/8" for a guitar), and the arched plat...

We made our own binding from a 0.250" thick curly maple board and 0.050" thick walnut, glued with Titebond 3. Sliced off the binding strips 0.075" thick on the table saw. Got about a dozen binding strips from this one glue up. D047 - Binding Blank - Curly Maple and Walnut.jpg After tr...

The interior rims and back get a couple coats of waterborne polyurethane to seal the surfaces, plus it looks cool. Attached the labels by laying them on the last coat. D044 - Sealed Interior and Labels.jpg I realize that this could cause problems for future repairs, but this is for me to play, and I...

Did some more carving on the back braces now that we can see how the front and back plates will line up: D040 - Final Carve on Back Braces.jpg Back in the mold to glue on the back plate. The little maple fingers act like cam clamps, tightened with the screws. D041 - Gluing Back Plate.jpg Flipped the...

I am a relative rookie, and progressing on my 9th build - a squareneck resonator in curly red maple with walnut accents. I videoed my bend process and posted on YouTube https://youtu.be/NRdh_jVhQUY Two of my archtop guitar builds had walnut back and sides, and I found that walnut is more forgiving t...

Thanks Peter! I was in part inspired by your older post on building a reso... Here we go with some more: The tail of the rim gets a curly maple tail wedge with walnut purfling. Looks fancy and relatively easy to do, and it hides any errors where the sides meet at the tail - not that I would have any...

Cross-grain strips to reinforce the center seem on the back, and a red maple patch to support a couple of sound posts near the tail block: This GoBar thing is really working well!

The back braces are carved to create a flat area to support the sound posts connecting the front plate sound ring to the back plate, and extra material is removed. No plans available for this, so we are just going with what looks right. D031 - Carved Back Braces _r.jpg I notched the rims to capture ...

Once the glue has cured, I scraped and sanded the joined plates to 120 grit. Traced the rims and cut outline with a fine blade in a jigsaw: D027 - Back Plate sanded and cut _r.jpg Selected some SPF (spruce-pine-fir) as close to quartersawn as possible for the back braces. This wood is harvested duri...

Now on to the back plate. Used some alcohol on the 0.090" thick red maple to select the best match for the curl: D023 - Alcohol on Back Plate to Select Bookmatch _r.jpg We want these joints to be perfect! Clamped the bookmatched sections together between two pieces of 3/4" plywood. Jointed...

A 1 inch thick red maple plank provided the material for the interior brace: D021 - Red Maple Brace Layout _r.jpg Hand planed to level out some cupping and twisting, then planed to 5/8" thick in our Dewalt planer. This is some hard stuff and took a while to plane down with light passes. Laid ou...

Side braces and reverse kerf linings are glued in. These stiffen and strengthen the rim assembly and provide more glue surface for attaching the front and back plates. D017 - Side Braces and Reverse Kerf Linings _r.jpg The linings and blocks are leveled by clamping the rim assembly in the mold. Inte...