| Subject: | [RESOGUIT-L] Web site notes | | Date: | Friday, December 30, 2005 00:47:28 (-0600) | | From: | kbrown <kbrown @...........edu>
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For those of you contemplating the purchase of a fine rezzofonical instrument,
here are a few web site updates that may be of interest.
Tooter Meredith has a brand-new web site:
<http://www.meredithguitars.net/>;
Tooter makes instruments that, ahem, resemble Scheerhorns in external design
features, at least. I dunno about the innards. Note that the thumbnails in the
picture gallery are very slow-loading, and the images themselves are variably
sized.
Brad Harper has upgraded his web site, and I've got to say, this is just about
the best-looking web site anywhere. Come to think of it, so are the dobros. The
man is an artist and a monster dobro picker. How can he build these things,
build a web site, do all the photography, and play professionally at the same
time? Heck, it's all I can do to find my socks.
<http://www.dobrology.com/>;
His price list is a donwloadable PDF file (nice!). He has soundclips for four
different top/back wood combinations:
Rosewood/Cedar
Koa
Maple
Rosewood/Cedar
On my low-budget computer speakers, I can't hear a great deal of difference. I
wish he'd played the same phrase on each of the four soundclips, but they all
sound great.
Brad also sells parts, and you can get one of these Schertler pickups everyone's
talking about, as an option or separately.
And finally, most of you know this already, but if you're looking into
commissioning an instrument, Brad Bechtel's web page ("Brad's Page of Steel")
has just about the most comprehensive list of builders anywhere. Here's a
direct link to the luthier page:
<http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/acoustic.html>;
Now for some comments on fretboards. Both metal and inlaid frets have been used
for a long time. I have dobros with both kinds. I like the inlaid variety,
because they don't get in the way when installing a capo (I don't use the kind
that needs to butt against the fret)and if you select MOP or something similar,
they have the potential to show up better in poor light (better than tarnished
metal, at least).
As has already been mentioned, ebony and rosewood are traditional woods. It's
good to have a hard wood like ebony for squareneck fretboards, even though we
don't have to worry about abrasive wear, because you can bang that bar against
the fretboard once in a while when hammering-on. I've done it. I'd still like
to to have a neck with LEDs, provided it didn't look too garish. Whether or not
you need to oil the fretboard from time to time might depend on your local
climate. If you live where there are long winters and household furnaces
working for months, you might own a hygrometer and a Dampit, and conceivably
you might want to oil the fretboard once in a while. Where I live, the climate
isn't that dry (usually), and I keep my instruments in their cases. I don't do
anything to the fretboard except blow off the dust and wipe off the beer and
salsa verde stains.
Ken Brown
Austin, Texas
I have a square neck. Several, in fact.
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