Wood For Resonator Guitar

[Gary Meixner]

This question is for those who build or play square neck resonator guitars.

Does the choice of top wood play a significant roll in tone production on guitars with an open sound well design?

It seems to me that the top needs to be structurally solid to support the resonator cone and that birch plywood is a better choice than solid lumber.

I see builders who do use solid wood and wonder if the difference is that significant. There is very little surface area left and that which is there is heavily braced. Of course aesthetics is another matter which could addressed with some fancy veneer.

Thanks for your input.

Gary Meixner

[Tim Toberer]

I am skeptical that it has much effect. All the other factors seem more important. I think of it more as a speaker box. As far as resale, I think potential buyers want solid wood, and a spruce top seems to be popular. I made my first body with a birch plywood top, thinking it would be easier than thicknessing and joining wood, but when I was fitting the parts I had a bit of chip out on the top layer, ruining the top, which is easy to do if you are not careful. Point being, it isn't necessarily easier using plywood. Over all I just enjoy using solid wood better. I wish I could find a source of thick, solid birch veneer like the old Harmony guitars. My favorite guitars.

[Chris Clem]

I don't believe a solid wood top on a resonator wood make any difference in the sound. There just isn't enough wood on a resonator top, it is mostly cut away. It is solely a "selling point".

Unfortunate in today world fancy woods are the norm. Where a Baltic Birch plywood top is the better choice, very stable,and it will never crack. Like you said you can always add a fancy wood veneer on the Baltic Birch if you want that look.

I am building one right now and it is Baltic Birch.... by choice.

[Chris Clem]

I made my first body with a birch plywood top, thinking it would be easier than thicknessing and joining wood, but when I was fitting the parts I had a bit of chip out on the top layer, ruining the top, which is easy to do if you are not careful.

Yes.... Chip out can be an issue especially when routing binding or rosettes. What I do is to spray clear lacquer over areas that I know might chip, it will help hold the wood together. I have a good table saw and a nice jointer, that don't tend to chip on straight cuts.

[Andy Volk]

When I interviewed the late luthier Carroll Benoit, here's what he had to say ....

AV
You use some gorgeous exotic woods. What woods do you use and why and how do they influence the sound of your guitars?

CB
The hardwood naturally will give you a little brighter sound. A lot of my guitars have spruce tops which tome the brightness down a little bit and makes a mellower sound than then hardwood tops. Even the all-hardwood won’t be as bright as a laminated guitar. It just has a richer sound.

AV
Specific difference in woods and workability?

CB
Even with the same woods and building them the same way you can get two different sounds. A good musician will hear that. There is a difference in the different woods.

AV
Is there a particular combination that you really like?

CB
Koa is a beautiful tonewood and a beautiful wood period. Koa was my favorite for a long time than I started experimenting with other woods and I still like koa but I’ve just built for straight guitars out of macassar ebony. Everybody’s flipping over them. They’re really, really loving them. A couple had a spruce top on it; one had a maple top, one was solid macassar top, sides and back. I do the same things with koa. I use a lot more hard tops instead of the spruce. They all have a different sound. It’s kind of hard to explain but even with the same wood on different guitars they’re gonna sound different.

AV
How much influence does the resonator have versus the body wood?

CB
Well, as far as volume coming out of the instrument, I think it has everything to do with it but as far as the tone, the wood plays a heck of a big part in the sound of the guitar. Once the resonator makes the sound, the wood on the inside of the guitar picks it up and adds to it. One good way to say it is, if you had a metal guitar and put the same resonator in it and them put the same guts in a wood guitar you’ll hear a big difference in the sound. Wood just adds a lot.

[Howard Parker]

This question is for those who build or play square neck resonator guitars.

Does the choice of top wood play a significant roll in tone production on guitars with an open sound well design?

After playing close to 3,000 resonator guitars (a decade spent at Beard Guitars, final inspection, triage, new builds, etc) I can safely say that everything affects everything.

As to the significance of the options/choices, I leave that up to the purchaser's ears and preferences.

h

[Chris Clem]

The question was only about the TOP on the guitar not the sides or the back. The top would have a much smaller impact on the sound. Yes everything makes a difference on the sound of a guitar. But the solid top on a Reso just isn't going contribute much at all. Save the good woods for something else.

[Howard Parker]

I respectfully disagree.

[Gary Meixner]

Gents,

Thank you for the responses. It makes sense that like any musical instrument, every components has an affect on the overall sound.

A few years ago I wanted a guitar that sounded like what I thought of as a classic soundwell style guitar. I built the instrument with a baltic birch top and back, solid birch sides and a maple soundwell. The results were very close to what I was looking for.

I would now like a more modern sound, and am planning another guitar with an open soundwell and solid wood. I haven't settled on a specific tonal pallet but it appears from your answers the top can noticeably affect tonal response. There are many variables and no substitute for experience.

I used to be in the hardwood lumber business and have a stash of woods to choose from, although no Koa or Ebony. I will give the top further consideration and then build the thing and see how it turns out.

Best,

G. Meixner

[Tim Toberer]

These are the types of threads that can cause pointless internet arguments! Choice of materials, along with design tuning etc. is sometimes deeply personal and is a reflection of the builder. I am a firm believer that there is no wrong or right way to build an instrument. For me it is most important to design and build instruments that keep me excited about building, this includes using materials I am comfortable with. If I were building for someone else, I think I would be open to other ideas, because I would want to build the instrument that they would be excited about playing.

As far as fancy woods go, especially exotic hardwoods, I think they are more beautiful as trees. I have always preferred player grade instruments for the same reason I wouldn't want to be married to a supermodel.

[Andy Volk]

Hard to get more subjective than what are you hearing and what are you looking to hear from an acoustic instrument.

I agree with Howard: it's all important as well as whether the instrument has had a proper set-up. Some people are looking for lots of overtones from their resophonic, others want a punchy, fundamental-leaning sound. The latter skews toward laminate, I'd say, while the harmonics are enhanced with hardwoods - at least in my subjective opinion.

[Tim Toberer]

I made my first body with a birch plywood top, thinking it would be easier than thicknessing and joining wood, but when I was fitting the parts I had a bit of chip out on the top layer, ruining the top, which is easy to do if you are not careful.

Yes.... Chip out can be an issue especially when routing binding or rosettes. What I do is to spray clear lacquer over areas that I know might chip, it will help hold the wood together. I have a good table saw and a nice jointer, that don't tend to chip on straight cuts.

Thanks for the tip! I am entirely open to the idea that plywood is a good material for resonator guitars. I am planning on giving it another shot. I think it is suitable for other instruments as well especially amplified archtop and flat tops. In this instance you would want fewer overtones and less chance of feedback. I looked quite a bit to find a good source because Baltic Birch is fairly tough to find and a bit expensive. I found this thread where the guy from Cumberland acoustics near Nashville, TN describes a different type of plywood he prefers. https://www.resohangout.com/archive/10238

It is Birch-Poplar-Birch and used In cabinetmaking. I believe it has a thicker top veneer. He says it is closer to what they used in the old days. I think I found it as a special order through Menards, but I really would like to be able to pick my own sheets.

[Chris Clem]

Tim, Here is my take on the plywood you mention. I was a journeyman cabinetmaker at one time and have used both many times. When I build a plywood guitar I always use Baltic Birch it is just far superior in every way. So what is the difference? Baltic Birch has no divots in the plys, and the top layer birch veneer is one piece over the entire width, no veneer flinches joined together . If you don't know already it comes in 5ft x 5ft sheets.

The other 1/4" ply you mention does have divots,it is not as stiff and usually not as straight or as flat. It comes in 4ft x 8ft sheets. It could be used but personally I don't think it is good enough to use on a guitar. But then again a lot of guitars in say the 30s/40s used some pretty cheesy plywood.

[Tim Toberer]

Tim, Here is my take on the plywood you mention. I was a journeyman cabinetmaker at one time and have used both many times. When I build a plywood guitar I always use Baltic Birch it is just far superior in every way. So what is the difference? Baltic Birch has no divots in the plys, and the top layer birch veneer is one piece over the entire width, no veneer flinches joined together . If you don't know already it comes in 5ft x 5ft sheets.

The other 1/4" ply you mention does have divots,it is not as stiff and usually not as straight or as flat. It comes in 4ft x 8ft sheets. It could be used but personally I don't think it is good enough to use on a guitar. But then again a lot of guitars in say the 30s/40s used some pretty cheesy plywood.

There is a good chance I would come to the same conclusion, I am always stubborn when it comes to good advice. If I could find a local supplier I would play around with a bit of it, but so far the only 1/8 ply I can find is a really bad Luan plywood that is filled with voids and actually has sinew glued into the center ply. I will probably just stick with solid wood for the moment.

I believe this guitar is from the plywood I mentioned, doesn't look too shabby. This plywood might be good for experimentation, especially considering the cost and recent scarcity of Baltic Birch.
viewtopic.php?t=235054&start=0&postdays ... highlight=

[Chris Clem]

I live in the rural Calif desert so I have no choice but to have it delivered, no more going to the lumber yard for me, it is just to far away.

This is who I get my Baltic Birch from. Basically I just buy a 5x5 sheet and have it cut to size.They cut it box it up and deliver it UPS to my shop (which is at my house).

https://www.cherokeewood.com/

[Tim Toberer]

I live in the rural Calif desert so I have no choice but to have it delivered, no more going to the lumber yard for me, it is just to far away.

This is who I get my Baltic Birch from. Basically I just buy a 5x5 sheet and have it cut to size.They cut it box it up and deliver it UPS to my shop (which is at my house).

https://www.cherokeewood.com/

Thank You!

[Mark Eaton]

In Andy's interview with the late Carroll Benoit, Carroll states that a (solid) spruce top tones down the brightness a little bit for a mellower sound.

A different top material was obvious to me a number of years ago when the dobro player from a Minnesota based family bluegrass gospel band was here in Northern California. I listened to, and after the show hung out with this player - he had a Tim-built Scheerhorn (not a Nati-horn) with a cedar top and mahogany back and sides. Cedar on a flattop definitely imparts a mellow tone. I have been around a fair number of Scheerhorns over the decades - and this guitar stood out as having the most mellow, non trebly sound I've ever heard in a Scheerhorn guitar, or just about any resophonic guitar.

Pretty much any time these discussions regarding wood choices for squareneck reso guitars comes up, the old "speaker cabinet" analogy is mentioned.

In the case of Tim Scheerhorn, he has stated in one or more interviews that his design philosophy was to build a guitar where the character of the wood is very prominent, more like a flattop guitar along the lines a D-28, but working in conjunction with the tone provided by the cone and spider bridge combo.

Another builder who uses all solid woods is Kent Schoonover. I have heard him say that he believes the top has little or no effect on the tone, but he has a very different bracing pattern under the top wood, he has referred to it as being something like the frame of a tennis racquet. It would appear to be very stiff and allows for little movement of the top.

Again, the keyword is design.

Check out the Schoonover top bracing.

[Chris Clem]

To me that Kent Schoonover bracing looks to be 1/2" Baltic Birch. In a strange way this similar to be what the original Dobro's were trying to do. That being to neutralize or negate the top from contributing to the sound and letting the cone do all the work. Adding other tone woods to the build is not without risk, it can color the sound and add resonates that might do more harm then good....it gets tricky at that point.

[Mark Eaton]

To me that Kent Schoonover bracing looks to be 1/2" Baltic Birch. In a strange way this similar to be what the original Dobro's were trying to do. That being to neutralize or negate the top from contributing to the sound and letting the cone do all the work. Adding other tone woods to the build is not without risk, it can color the sound and add resonates that might do more harm then good....it gets tricky at that point.

It's actually Finnish birch, which from what I have read is considerably more expensive than Baltic birch. I should have written earlier that he is indeed using a laminate/veneer under a solid wood top. Paul Beard also uses Finnish birch veneer (as the actual tonewood) in some of his models including the superb Mike Auldridge Signature. But the majority of the Beard models are made from a variety of solid woods.

Rob Anderlik, a very good dobro player in Chicago had done a number of interviews over the years on his Squareneck Journal website. Some with players, others with builders. Link to one he did with Kent Schoonover:

https://squareneckjournal.com/tag/kent-schoonover/

And another, with Tim Scheerhorn:

https://squareneckjournal.com/tag/scheerhorn/

[Chris Clem]

I do remember using Finnish Birch, sometime in the 1980s when it was offered as an alternative to Baltic. At that time it was cheaper then Baltic. We use it on a few Cabinet jobs and I liked it but was not the quality of Baltic Birch.....But gee that was 40 years ago it could be a different story nowadays.

Thanks for the links.

[Gary Meixner]

Mark,

Thank you for your response and including the link to the two articles. I read them both and the information is very helpful.

G. Meixner

[Mark Eaton]

You're welcome Gary. If you haven't already you should take a look at the link Tim Toberer posted about earlier to the resophonic guitar building piece in the archives at Resohangout. It was originally saved on the no longer Reso-Nation Forum and then moved to the hangout because Reso-Nation was going away.

The fellow who wrote it was also named Gary - Gary Dusina. Gary lives or lived at the time in Red Bluff, California up there toward Merle Haggard country in Redding near Lake Shasta. As I recall Gary was a retired police officer and took up guitar building.

Jimmy Heffernan put on a workshop near Sacramento in 2003. Gary attended and brought one his resos that he built. I remember it being a really nice guitar. I brought my early 1930s Model 37 Dobro that I've owned since 1976 and Gary enjoyed checking it out, I guess he hadn't been around prewar Dobros very often - if at all.

He wrote that instruction manual for building a reso, then as far as the community of dobro players out here on the west coast, he just sort of dropped out of sight. Really nice guy and I enjoyed spending time with him at Heff's workshop.

[Gary Meixner]

Mark,

I have a copy of Gary Dusina's manual that I downloaded a couple years ago and have referred to it often when planning my first guitar {ultimately a traditional soundwell design} and the one I am now planning on building {open soundwell}.

I am continually knockout by the generosity of so many on this forum, and others on the internet, who share their knowledge so freely. Often the work, like this manual, represents a tremendous gift of their time, not to mention the years of work, experimentation, struggle and commitment contained there within.

Best regards,

G. Meixner

[Martin Lindsay]

I very much enjoyed the discussion here and the points of view expressed.

The amplified signal of a resonator used a (speaker) cone to achieve greater volume than possible with an acoustic guitar; however, I think that volume and economy, not fidelity, were likely the main goals in these guitar designs.

I’m coming at this from a couple of perspectives, but it seems these converge in the case of resonator guitars.

Resonator as a Speaker

The first perspective is the tendency to view the body of the resonator as a speaker box. In order to promote high fidelity sound and avoid distortion, the box of a speaker should be stiff as possible. If largely a speaker, the wood top of the guitar also should be as stiff as possible. Then, plywood becomes a good choice. Plywood is also a very economical choice as in the 30’s when resonators were produced.

If a speaker analogy is strictly applied, then acoustic transparency should be important. Any grille placed over a speaker must be as open as possible. However, I doubt most coverplates are close to acoustically transparent, and sounds bounce off of the coverplate and back onto the cone, causing freq-dependent cancellations. I’ve heard from one manufacturer that a resonator without a coverplate does not produce the desired sound.

In speaker design, it’s also important to damp sounds coming off the back of the speakers for similar reasons - so that they don’t mix / interfere with the original signal. The sounds produce at the back of the speaker are out of phase with the front. The sound makes it out of screen/F holes, and, while these may be subtle compared to that of the front of the cone, they make up part of the overall sound.

Resonator as combination complex factors

If you came up with an equation to represent the sound a resonator makes, I think it would be very complex. There are major and minor contributing variables, and, as usual, it’s a challenge to determine which may or may not be significant.

To my ear, the highly colored sound of a resonator is controlled by factors which impart a unique tonal ‘signature’ to the instruments. Controlling and shaping that sound seems to be where we go from the dominant sound coming from an aluminum ‘speaker’ cone to the construction of the box and aspects that contribute to how that sound is shaped or filtered on its way out of the box.

The best way to conclusively answer this question would be 2 resonators, identical in construction apart from the wood top on the body. This would allow an A/B comparison to determine if there is an audible difference. Subjectively, does one top material outperform the other in key aspects of sound, like dynamics, or are they simply different? Trying to be able to measure the performance differences may prove difficult.

Alternatively, early 30’s resonators used steel bodies which contributed a highly-colored sound. The result became the classic National biscuit resonator sound. Over time, the body construction changed, and the tops of modern versions were soldered onto a pre-formed body, making them stiffer (smaller, rolled (rather than cut) F-holes also contributed slightly to increased stiffness). In this case, top stiffness did make an audible difference in terms of dynamics and tone. To most players’ ears, stiffer was NOT better in terms of the desired sound characteristics. I encourage you to play a 30’s steel bodied National vs a modern NRP version to discover this for yourself.

[Tim Toberer]

Tim, Here is my take on the plywood you mention. I was a journeyman cabinetmaker at one time and have used both many times. When I build a plywood guitar I always use Baltic Birch it is just far superior in every way. So what is the difference? Baltic Birch has no divots in the plys, and the top layer birch veneer is one piece over the entire width, no veneer flinches joined together . If you don't know already it comes in 5ft x 5ft sheets.

The other 1/4" ply you mention does have divots,it is not as stiff and usually not as straight or as flat. It comes in 4ft x 8ft sheets. It could be used but personally I don't think it is good enough to use on a guitar. But then again a lot of guitars in say the 30s/40s used some pretty cheesy plywood.

Chris, what thickness are you using? I found a local place that stocks it. Picked up an 1/8 (3mm) sheet today just to play around with. They have the other thickness up to 3/4 as well.