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

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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

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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

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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

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In this shot, both the neck and tail blocks are glued and clamped in place

Kerfing is added to 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 times before drilling and make sure everything is secure

There, that wasn't too bad

Trisha works some magic with the router

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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!

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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 is an old Craftsman radial press

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Checking to see if the neck bolts will fit

Using the a 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

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After the Accident (guitar dropped on endpin)

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.

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