Resonator Tenor Guitar (IW#112)

A while back I found this beautiful 1950's (I think) Slingerland tenor guitar on eBay.  The price was good, the post said it was playable, and the fretboard was pearloid, which just made me drool.  How could I NOT want to own it?!?

Slingerland Tenor on eBay.

A wiser head in my life pointed out that there was no goddamn good reason for me to buy any instrument, and that I should just make one.

Damnit.

So I did.  In the process I also remembered being at this place in Portland Maine where a fella had a metal-bodied resonator tenor guitar, which I very much enjoyed playing, so I decided to make it a resonator as well.

I ended up buying a LOT of parts for this one, what with the resonator set-up and the pearloid.  I struggled mightily with the pearloid, which I had not ever worked with before.  I got this particular stuff from Sweetwater Sound, an outfit in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  It was a real struggle to find a piece of pearloid material long enough for the fretboard, and they were kind enough to sell me a big old sheet of it.

Of course, then I had to face the fact that I had no idea how to glue it to anything.  You could put everything I know about plastic in a shot glass and not spill any whiskey at all.

So a great deal of research and trial and error later, and I ended up using contact adhesive (pro tip).  Then I embarked on a whole different set of explorations about resonators, how to install them, how to set them up, how to make them play.  There are a LOT of stumbles in this instrument, but it was a great learning experience.  I know a lot more about plastic (I hate it.  Don't use it), more about resonators (at least I have learned enough to know I need to learn a lot more about them), and as always I learned a little more patience.

Sounds good though.