I have decided to call this one The Spaghetti Western, yes, it’s a cheapo western guitar (that’s what acoustics are called in Germany) and a kitchen sieve kind of thing.

A friend gave me the guitar, it’s in a sorry state, he said “It’s really good, there’s just one string missing” .

Update is here.

Anyway, first step was a general check out, the bridge was falling off, there is a dent on the front, the nut was broken and the tuning heads too. The neck is fine (surprisingly), it’s really quite straight.

It has a “zero fret” before the nut. The frets are still good, so I will not replace them.

Now, I know real resonators are not make like this, the resonator is upside down on mine; normally you would build a wooden ring with a lip with some dowel posts inside the guitar and mount the actual resonator the other way up; but on this one I have decided to do it like this.

Regarding using steel strings, other people have told me there are no problems, despite the fact that it doesn’t have a truss rod; we’ll see; worst case would be to tune it down a tone and use a capo; but it has quite a short scale length, so the tension will be lower than on a standard 25″ model.

The steps for the conversion:

1. remove the parts that I don’t need; tuning heads, bridge, nut
2. cut out a hole for the sieve and re-enforce it (already done at time of writing)
3. sand her down, correct any problem areas
4. add some dowel posts to re-enforce the resonator area
5. make the holes for the output jack and volume control
6. mount the pick up (I have a cream coloured vintage pick up – it may be a Gibson)
7. screw on the resonator
8. build a biscuit and mount it on a threaded steel rod (as I did with The Distressor)
9. build the saddle (probably aluminium)
10. spray the body and neck (masking the fingerboard)
11. make a tail piece
12. make a nut (probably aluminium)
13. re-dress the headstock for the new tuning heads
14. assemble and string her up
15. adjust the action etc.

SOLD: If you would like to buy a guitar similar to this, I can make you one, just mail me.