The Steel Guitar Forum

You guys convinced me, I just hit the "Buy It Now" button. I'm all jacked up, can't wait to play it.

Any string gauge recommendations for this instrument?

For open D I like these.

Chris Drew wrote:If you want a go at cutting your own nut-slots & don't want to shell out for a set of expensive nut-files, buy a set of welder's "tip cleaners".

Top tip that Chris, I just bought some for £1.50...they look ideal.

I'll be testing them out over the next few days as I am making a new nut for the 6 stringer I am building

Roger Palmer wrote:Top tip that Chris, I just bought some for £1.50...they look ideal.

I can't take credit for that tip Roger, someone else on SGF suggested it first!

I think they're "ok for having a go", they may last/work better if you reinforce them with something, ie tape it to the edge of a steel rule or similar so they don't bend so easy.

Just out of interest, do you want a custom fretboard for that project?

I have noticed your fretboards and they look very nice and I'm thinking about it. I have just made the fretboard for this project but I have another one lined up and have just bought a nice piece of ash for another one. I'll PM you regards price

Thought I'd jump in and say how pleased I am with my 99$ guitar. Ordered on Wed.it shipped on Fri. and I received on Monday. Received an e-mail from Vicky on Fri. that the guitar was shipped.In my estimation, this is worth every penny. Freight to San Francisco, was 19$. It looks and sounds terrific.

i agree, super fast delivery. i enjoy mine a lot but not before the mandatory string change. could use a nut but a great value, nicely done and sounds pretty good to me. regards rob now about the asymetrical rondo with the non adjustable stand.

Man, you guys are tempting me to buy one of these myself, and I don't hardly even play any kind of nonpedal contraption.

I've got one of these on the way too.

Any recommedations for a reasonably priced pickup to go on this guitar?

There have been a bunch of questions asked in this thread that have been covered in detail in other Rondo related threads. You might want to search for those because they cover replacement bridges, nuts, pickups, strings, pots, etc, etc.

I've done all of the above plus some

Mine showed up last night and I'm very pleased. The instrument is well constructed with attention to the details. It plays nice and sounds nice - of course I'll have to learn to keep my right hand away from the sound hole!

I hit Buy It Now the afternoon of the 6th and it was at my house in the Midwest on the 10th. As mentioned before, the packing job was spectacular.

No buyer's remorse here, with shipping included it was $145 well spent.

Mark Mansueto wrote:There have been a bunch of questions asked in this thread that have been covered in detail in other Rondo related threads. You might want to search for those because they cover replacement bridges, nuts, pickups, strings, pots, etc, etc.

I'm not sure how much Rondo-related threads will help with questions about Weissenborn copies...

Jeff, if you want to "keep it budget" how about a basic transducer bug ?

Chris Drew wrote:Jeff, if you want to "keep it budget" how about a basic transducer bug ?

I think a not-very-good sounding pickup is worse than no pickup (a mic is better) - the K&K Pure Western Mini is a fantastic (bridge plate transducer) pickup that can be had for about $65-70 on eBay where K&K sell their seconds (cosmetically flawed but working perfectly).

Fred

Good point Fred, a K&K would sound far better than a basic bug!
$65-70 is pretty cheap!
I'd say the K&K Pure Western Mini sounds sweeter than a lot of more expensive pickups.
( Although having said that, I've heard cheap bugs that sound a great deal better than some more expensive undersaddle piezos! )

That K&K is three bugs you stick to the bridge-plate, right?..Tricky job on a thin-bodied Weiss-copy, but not impossible.

I know we don't want to rock the forum boat by directing too much traffic to ebay, but I really want to thank Bill for bringing this to my attention. I got one of these lil' pups and am more than satisfied. Tuned to D with decent strings the tone is rich and full, great volume. A few little tweezes and this will be a remarkable little guitar. Thanks again for letting us know about it!

Uke Richard, over on the Martin Forum, posted something about these little jewels with a link to this thread. After reading a few comments from you guys I went to Ebay and hit the buy button on what was supposedly the last day they were being sold at that price. I had great communication from Vicky and it showed up at work today.

Nothing new to add to you more knowledgeable folks. I know squat about Weisenborns, being a Dobro player and a pedal steel hacker. But the little thing looks decent, sounds very nice with the factory strings on it. That'll be the first change to make, but I've got to figure out from those who know:

What is the heaviest gauge strings people use on guitars of this type (not Newtones, but regular PB strings) for:
Open D?
Open G?

The battery is almost shot on my calipers, but I got:
.011/.015/.024/.030/.040/.048
for what shipped on mine. Does that sound even close to right?

Thanks,

Dave

p.s. Shipping was only $19+ for me in the Silicon Valley area.

I haven't seen one of these guitars, so I can't say for sure, but I have seen the Vineyard and Lark in the Morning Weissenborn steel guitars, and I would be very careful not to put too heavy a string gauge set on them, regardless of what tuning you're using. These are not braced and reinforced like a Dobro®-type resonator guitar, so if you put a .016-.059 string set on, you might end up causing some damage.

That, plus I think the guitar will sing out a bit better if it isn't struggling against strings that are too heavy.

I would personally go no thicker than .013-.056 and probably less than that, depending on which tuning you'll be using.

Loren Claypool wrote: - of course I'll have to learn to keep my right hand away from the sound hole!

Loren -- surely I'll agree that it's all personal taste, but I found having my thumb right in the middle of the sound hole and my index and middle finger just at the top right of the hole was the richest sound. A little more volume and twang if you're picking to the right of the soundhole, of course. As for pickups, I stuck an old D'Addario sound-hole pickup in, and it does a nice job.

Brad Bechtel wrote:I haven't seen one of these guitars, so I can't say for sure, but I have seen the Vineyard and Lark in the Morning Weissenborn steel guitars, and I would be very careful not to put too heavy a string gauge set on them, regardless of what tuning you're using. These are not braced and reinforced like a Dobro®-type resonator guitar, so if you put a .016-.059 string set on, you might end up causing some damage....

Brad is absolutely right, and this applies to all Weissenborn-style guitars. A resonator guitar such as a Dobro has a tailpiece which takes most of the string tension, with only slight downward pressure, and no twisting at the bridge. Any guitar with a classical bridge has enormous torque on the bridge. The string tension is taken entirely on the bridge support, and the strings are trying to tear the bridge off. That's why a regular guitar needs a lot of bracing under the bridge, and the x-braces under the top. Those of you who studied physics will see how the triangle of forces works. The higher the bridge, the more torque is applied, and a Weissenborn has a much higher bridge than a regular guitar. If you imagine where the fulcrum is, right at the join of the bridge and the top, or slightly under that, the bending force is the tension of the strings multiplied by the distance from the strings to that fulcrum. This is about double that of a regular guitar, so the bending force is double.

The answer, of course, is to always use light gauge strings, as Bred recommends.

Al Terhune wrote:Loren -- surely I'll agree that it's all personal taste, but I found having my thumb right in the middle of the sound hole and my index and middle finger just at the top right of the hole was the richest sound. A little more volume and twang if you're picking to the right of the soundhole, of course. As for pickups, I stuck an old D'Addario sound-hole pickup in, and it does a nice job.

Thanks for the tip. This acoustic steel thing is new ground for me and I'm very much enjoying the discovery. I initially found myself a bit to the left of what you described and realized I was blocking a ton of sound. I started inching to the right and the volume change was amazing. Too far, as you point out, and it's twang city. I'm finding that sweet spot!

Alan Brookes wrote: The answer, of course, is to always use light gauge strings, as Bred recommends.

Thanks Brad and Alan. So on this instrument tuned to D, is .013-.056 appropriate or lighter still?

Loren Claypool wrote: So on this instrument tuned to D, is .013-.056 appropriate or lighter still?

That's what I use for D and G (lowbass) on my Lazy Rivers, works fine (I use Martin SP Bluegrass strings, they have a twang in the bass register that I haven't found in other strings).

After reading this discussion I am interested. Seems like a lot of happy users. Does anyone have any complaints about the tuners? Thats usually a dealbreaker for me because even an inexpensive guitar can get costly if you have to start replacing hardware.

Thanks
Super Kristen

I'm guessing that the supplied tuners will be the same as or very similar to the ones that came on my Vineyard Weiss copy.
They will at least do their job, though with less stability/accuracy than better ones.

The Grover/Wilkinson "Sta-Tite" tuners aren't an expensive upgrade, and the 18:1 ratio makes them better than a lot of more expensive "sealed" or locking tuners imo.

Where are you based? If you're not happy with the tuners on there the Sta-Tites are available from Stew-Mac in the USA or Axes'R'Us in the UK.

As these Weiss copies are $99 I guess some new tuners represent a fair percentage of the original cost of the guitar, but I certainly wouldn't call that a deal-breaker.
Even with the added cost of tuners, nut, saddle, bride-pins or any other "pimping" ( for example, a custom fretboard overlay ) these are still a bargain!