1932 National Style O Resonator Guitar

Old Nationals are just plain fun. This one's pretty quirky, too, and sounds... I don't know.... spooky? It's had a (previously-done) newer ebony board installed and its original cone was replaced with a '90s NRP cone that's suspiciously Beard-like in design. It definitely has its own tone going because of that.

Work on this guy was not as bad as I thought it would be -- I just had to seat all of the frets (tacking them down with glue and filler, too), level and dress them, and then compensate the saddle and set it up. While I had the cone out I also added a big old shim/extra "island" on the inside to keep the heel from rotating or being "spongy" at the neck joint. I shove this big shim up under the dowel and against the back.

It's now playing nicely. The neck is a little more comfortable than many of these, too, with a medium-heft C-shaped profile that's rather quick (for a National of this age). I didn't have time to take measurements but the nut width is about 1 3/4" and the scale (despite the replacement board) is the standard 25" National length.