So, last Christmas, I ended up with a Johnson resonator. (Don't ask). This is one of the early really cheap ones. Cheap construction, lots of badly placed plywood for the resonator to sit on, and a WAY too heavy spider.
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| WHOA!! Six ounces is a LOT of weight. |
The good folks at Paul Beard sell an import spider "for experimentation only" that weighs in at a bulky 5.7 ounces, this is even HEAVIER. What a great way to deaden sound!
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| Shallow slot |
In Dan Erlewine's acoustic guitar repair videos (GREAT videos, by the way. Worth the money. Go buy them.) he spends a lot of time going over resonator upgrades. One key point is that the slots need to be a lot deeper to really hold the saddle correctly. That also removes a little bit of metal, not a bad deal.
I took the spider over to the belt sander and went to town, taking off material in the webbing between the legs. I also flattened the spider so that it no longer rocked on a flat surface.
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| Not bad, but could be better. You can see the curves in the webbing. |
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| Using three hack saw blades taped together to deepen the slot. |
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| I managed to take off .8 of an ounce. |
Lightening the bridge and improving the saddle slot really helped the guitar sing. It was amazing how much better it sounded. I'm sure I could do more, but I'm not sure how much more material I could remove without weakening the spider.
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