Fake Resophonic Mandolins (and making them real)

[brian mastro]

I bought a broken resophonic mandolin but realized it was not actually a reso, and a little reading showed me these were fairly common back in the 30s-40s. The heel block is cracked and the sides are split where it's cracked, I'm hoping glue and clamping can fix this part, the top had a 3" circular hole cut into it by some industrious person and the wood around the F holes had broke away so I considered the top a throw away, this got me thinking... what if I made it a real resophonic mandolin? has anyone attempted such foolishness on here before?

[FRANK]

show us a pic

[brian mastro]

how about 3?

 

top after removal:

 

 

 

 

 

 

back near heel:

 

 

and the inside after removing the top. The only marks inside are "1209" in rubber stamped black ink. the fingerboard was broken at 10th fret, I still have the board above that but it was hanging by a thread.I measured from top of the bridge to the wood back and I have a total height of 3 5/16" to work a resonator cone and biscuit bridge in there.

[charley erck]

Brian, this sounds like a harebrained idea I would get! As a dilletant I have worked on resos.That top disc, is that spruce? It looks to me like it might be a homemade conversion to a wood disc laid on the old top?

I think that if there is a cone small enough to fit the body and have the center be at twice the 12th fret distance,Then you could install a cone  mounting well and make it work. I think you want to put in a thrust tenon( could be a big dowel) from the neck block and wedged up on the bottom edge of  a hole in the sound well.The wide open reso top doesn't give the stiffness to support the string tension very well. That's if you get all that glued back together again! If you had to make a new fingerboard with a different scale length that could work too. Could turn out to sound great!  By the way , if that "1209" turns out to be the year it was made , then it is an antique indeed!

[brian mastro]

the top disc is painted on silver paint it's a single piece of (probably) spruce. there is no metal on this guy except bridge, frets and tuners (and I assume a trussrod), . the bridge was in the right place for a resophonic to have it, it was just sitting directly on the wood top though. the coverplate (not shown) is 10" in diameter so I was thinking a 9" cone in well would fit nicely in there. or I could just put a flat spruce top on there and call it a day.

[Ron Frazier]

I have a old Regal mandolin that dosen't have a cone in the soundwell. It has a wooden cross with the bridge set on it.  The cover plate is Regal.  The peg head has been repaired a few times and I did the last and it never worked so I have reworked it again and it will never do that again. I will finish it in the next 10 years. That is how fast I am! I dont have any pictures here at this time.

 

Ron