2000s First Act Super-Modded Resonator Guitar

Nope, this isn't one of mine! A customer of mine loves to hack-n-slash funky used instruments to turn them into new toys. This was a junkpile First Act guitar (it's like an oversized baritone uke -- like a quart guitar) that he converted to a classical-strung resonator guitar using an old aluminum lid for something-or-other and a ton of effort.

He cut the hole and soundwell lip, moved the cut part to serve as a new headstock veneer, added a lengthwise reinforcement bar from neckblock to endblock, and stepped the neck angle way back. It has a break-angle on the bridge like a violin or double bass, now.

While the thickness of the resonator means the tone and volume is only so-so, the project was pretty ambitious for such a funky instrument and I'm pretty impressed. As a bonus, though, the 8 1/8" size of this resonator pan-lid means that if he gets his gumption up, it'd be really easy to drop a Beard repro 8 1/4" biscuit-bridge cone (like the ones on '60s National resonator guitars) into this project and have an instrument that'd sound really good.

It's shocking how much natural wear there is on the fretboard of this guitar. Some kid really played the heck out of it!