The Steel Guitar Forum

Yes dobro players/owners, I am just curious to why Regal strung up my recently purchased square neck Black Lightning RD-52 guitar with the string balls going down thru the tail piece slotted holes and under the tail piece and out with the string balls protruding upward in exposed positions instead of balls slipped in down in the notches and strings then traveling over the metal tailpiece slightly raised ridge hump like my two older model square neck orginal Dobros have always been and came that way new which I have had for many years. Is this correct or new way to string up to tail piece and across the resonator etc.? Have I missed something? If you look on web site "www.folkofthewood.com, there you can magnify the Regal adds and the RD-52's are strung up like this in that ad....I would appreciate any input from any dobro player/owner just to satisfy my curosity why is this like this. thanks boys and girls...
Carter s10, Emmons s12 pp, Nashville 112, Nashville 400. Evans custom LV, 2 sq.nk. dobros, 1 RD-52 Regal sq.nk.

That's normally done to provide greater tension against the bridge, if I remember correctly. I've done that on some less expensive guitars in the past and it did make a difference in the tone.

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As a tech I had to do that for someone once that told me the added tension was the reason. I tried it both ways on a Regal RD45 and couldn't tell the difference, except with the ball ends sticking up it looked like dreck.

I agree with Keith. I re strung my RD45 that way once and if there was a difference in sound it was negligible.

Sometimes that's the only (quick) answer on a reso with a low bridge, high tailpiece angle, or both.
But another possibility is it was set up at the factory by someone who wasn't a reso tech...

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My experience with my RD45 squareneck was different. It came with the strings running under the tailpiece like other Regals. It makes it harder to restring. I tried stringing it over the bridge and found that there wasn't enough pressure on the cone. The sound was significanly worse - kind of "flabby" sounding.

Mine was a 1999 model. The "strings under the tailpiece" is the main reason I'm glad I don't own it anymore. Otherwise, with a Quaterman cone it wasn't a bad instrument.

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Gary Anwyl on 07 January 2006 at 03:59 PM.]</p></FONT>

Thank you everyone for your input on the Regal reso string positioning. I may just leave this guitar strung up like this as a topic of conversation when/where performed or until next set of string change. It does have a nice clean sound like this...But I have come to the conclusion that Regal may be trying to remedy a problem they have encountered with this fix during the course. Again, thanks fellows for your thoughts on this issue.