Building a Resophonic Guitar
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Building A Resophonic (Dobro Style) Guitar

A Pictorial Review 
by
Ken & Trisha Brooks

This was our first attempt at building a resophonic guitar.
We thought you might enjoy the pictures and maybe learn from our experience.

This guitar had an incredible sound but we felt it could have used more bracing as it was made of thin solid woods. You will see, in the last two pictures, that extra bracing  was added after the guitar suffered an accident which resulted in a cracked top.

Click any picture for a larger view

1 A Spruce Soundboard.jpg (44469 bytes)

2 A Back Inlay.jpg (89200 bytes)

3 A Bending Side.jpg (50041 bytes)

4 A Side Forming.jpg (87624 bytes)

5 A Soundwell Placement.jpg (120655 bytes)
A solid spruce top cut to shape. Book matched rosewood back with exotic wood inlay. Bending a rosewood side. The bent side being made to conform to a mold. Checking placement of soundwell and braces.

 

6 A Glueing Braces.jpg (158544 bytes)

7 A Glueing Back Braces.jpg (156946 bytes)

8 A Back Bracing.jpg (117200 bytes)

9 A Kerfing SW.jpg (94075 bytes)

10 A Glueing Kerfing SW.jpg (117542 bytes)
Setting the location of back braces. The plywood form underneath is the work board. Gluing the braces. Finished back with braces. A glue kerfing is added to the soundwell to give more gluing surface. More kerfing being clamped on with clothespins.

 

11 A Soundboardbracingwell.jpg (41633 bytes)

12 A soundboardwell.jpg (52322 bytes)

13 A Blockfit.jpg (44722 bytes)

14 A Fittingneckblock.jpg (53916 bytes)

15 A Fittingnb.jpg (45422 bytes)
Fitting the kerfed soundwell and braces to the spruce top. Here's a shot from another angle. Checking the fit of holes drilled in the neck block. Now they fit. The neck block is glued in position after checking a dry fit.

 

16 A Bothblocks.jpg (49984 bytes)

17 A Kerfing.jpg (60158 bytes)

18 A Morekerf.jpg (67669 bytes)

19 A Checkingside.jpg (53744 bytes)

20 A Gluingside.jpg (55587 bytes)
In this shot, both the neck and tail blocks are glued and clamped in place. Kerfing is added to a rosewood side. Kerfing gives more area for the glue to hold on the top and back plates. Checking the first side for fit before gluing. Many clamps make for even pressure. We made these clamps before starting the guitar.

 

21 A Sameside.jpg (56226 bytes)

22 A Side2.jpg (50745 bytes)

23 A Side 2 glued.jpg (49130 bytes)

24 A Cleaningoutglue.jpg (71443 bytes)

25 A Lsandingboard.jpg (47016 bytes)
The glued side seen from the inside. Fitting the second side. Glue and clamps to hold it together. Cleaning out glue. Sides, soundwell and end blocks are leveled with a large sanding board.

 

26 A Boardagain.jpg (46838 bytes)

27 A Enoughclamps.jpg (67962 bytes)

28 A Cleaningglue.jpg (72706 bytes)

29 A Endstrip Inlay.jpg (64856 bytes)

30 A Neck End Inlay.jpg (52229 bytes)
It took a lot of sanding and frequent checking to get everything level. Attaching the top. You can never have too many clamps! Cleaning out excess glue. The wood inlay goes around both ends of the guitar. Here it is seen at the neck end. Another view in which you can see the top and one of the sound holes.

 

31 A Routing Binding Channel.jpg (65813 bytes)

32 A Routing Channel.jpg (67660 bytes)

33 A Binding Top.jpg (57854 bytes)

34 A Top Binding Again.jpg (65534 bytes)

35 A Binding Back.jpg (70988 bytes)
Using a Dremel with a binding router attachment to make a ledge for the binding. Here you can see the attachment on the end of the Dremel tool. The binding is glued into the ledge around the guitar and clamped in with tape. The pieces of strapping tape hold the binding very well while the glue dries. After routing, the back of the guitar also receives binding.

 

36 A More Binding.jpg (86768 bytes)

37 A Scraping Binding.jpg (74835 bytes)

38 A Scraping Binding 2.jpg (72326 bytes)

39 A etchedboard.jpg (62170 bytes)

40 A Routingboard.jpg (44448 bytes)
Now we just wait for the glue to dry. The binding needs to be scraped flush to the sides of the guitar. A cabinet scraper works well for this job. For visual clarity, the fretboard was painted white then etched where the inlays will go. The fretboard is routed to receive the inlays.

 

41 A Route.jpg (56868 bytes)

42 A Epoxinlay.jpg (47278 bytes)

43 A Sandingboard.jpg (49440 bytes)

44 A Notyet.jpg (64817 bytes)

45 A Finishedboard.jpg (39873 bytes)
Trisha will use a diamond shaped inlay for this marker. She then epoxies the pieces into their holes and places the board under a heat lamp. After the epoxy dries, the board is sanded to remove excess paint and epoxy. Not Yet. Still more sanding needed. The finished inlay work on the fretboard.

 

46 A Setting Frets.jpg (76289 bytes)

47 A Fret Press.jpg (71713 bytes)

48 A Binding Fretboard.jpg (60661 bytes)

49 A Headstock Trim.jpg (74896 bytes)

50 A etchinginlay.jpg (48630 bytes)
Setting fret wires. Pressing frets into final position with a caul on the drill press. Binding is then added around the fretboard. Trisha cuts the peghead shape at the band saw. Here, she is painting and etching the headstock.

 

51 A Drillingpegholes.jpg (53288 bytes)

52 A Holemaking.jpg (51550 bytes)

53 A Pegholes.jpg (55724 bytes)

54 A inlaysetchedhead.jpg (51265 bytes)

55 A Headrouting.jpg (51631 bytes)
It's scary business to have to drill holes in the head but it needs to be done. Does a nice piece of curly maple really need all these holes? Check many time before drilling and make sure everything is secure. There, that wasn't too bad. Trisha works some magic with the router.

 

56 A Routinghead.jpg (47035 bytes)

57 A Messinghead.jpg (41517 bytes)

58 A Messonhead.jpg (37718 bytes)

59 A Heatlamp.jpg (42607 bytes)

60 A Yech.jpg (45731 bytes)
The router base attachment that fits the Dremel tool does a nice job for inlays. Now she messed it up with that goop. Black epoxy is used to set the inlays. A heat lamp is used to cure the epoxy. Ugh, yech!

 

61 A Sandinghead.jpg (61894 bytes)

62 A Stillmore.jpg (77941 bytes)

63 A Morehead.jpg (40820 bytes)

64 A Head close 1.jpg (153817 bytes)

65 A neckdrill.jpg (63618 bytes)
She says she can fix it. I don't know.......... Back to the old sanding board. I knew she could do it. This is the jig used to drill neck holes. The drill was an old Craftsman radial press.

 

66 A Neckfit.jpg (33459 bytes)

67 A Fineadj.jpg (45575 bytes)

68 A Hung out to Dry.jpg (51196 bytes)

69 A Finished Reso Front.jpg (215207 bytes)

70 A Finished Reso Back.jpg (154663 bytes)
Checking to see if the neck bolts will fit. Using the fine adjuster (don't try this at home). After some finish work, the parts were hung out to dry. Here is the finished project with Quarterman cone, bone nut and maple with ebony capped bridge. ....and the back.

 

After the Accident (guitar dropped on endpin)

71 A Dobro carbon fiber supports.jpg (60938 bytes)

 72 A1 reso reinforce.jpg (96891 bytes)

2 carbon fiber rods and an extra tail block were added for longitudinal strength. (holes in the soundwell needed to be widened)  After the epoxy set, the rods were plucked and gave off a G# pitch. That couldn't be good...........

....so, posts were added to break up the ringing length of the rods which adds more support to the back. It's almost like having a 2x4 running down the center of the guitar without the added weight.