An Inexpensive Resophonic Guitar

by Lee Herron

Originally published in American Lutherie #132, 2017



I’ve become fascinated with slide guitars. My son-in-law is a great pedal-steel player, and we were talking several years ago about the Weissenborns. So I made a baritone version for him and one for myself. I’ve since made a resophonic guitar, slightly modifying plans from Beard Guitars and purchasing his cone, spider bridge, cover, tailpiece, and so on. All of these slide instruments turned out well with great traditional tone. When my granddaughter visited recently, she asked what my favorite song was, and we went to YouTube and pulled up the Paul Simon song The Boxer featuring Jerry Douglas on Dobro. Clearly I’m hooked on the sound.

My two Weissenborns and the resophonic each had perhaps $300 worth of material over and above the cost of typical flattops I’ve made, and just about all of it in commercial/official resonator parts. As you’ll see, a few YouTube videos pointed me towards some creative scrounging and innovative thinking that let me reduce the $300 ticket to less than $20 for resonator parts and plywood.