Squareneck wood body tricone

[Xavier Baron]

Hi guysn

Some pictures of my just-finished Black acacia tricone:





























Took me 5 months to build it

And I like it

Xavier

[Xavier Baron]

I forgot to tell That I could built it from a DWG file that was sent by a MIMF member, Freeman. Thanks, Freeman!!
The finish is satin polyurethane two parts applied with a pad, not a spraygun (8 coats) over an epoxy seal.
The most challenging part was to bend the glued jointed back...

Xavier

[Hans Bezemer]

That is some nice work Xavier!

[Chuck Tweedy]

Oh Yea!
Love those closeup shots. The acacia is NICE.
Gee... I wonder who's a wood junkie around here??

What is the binding?

[Xavier Baron]

Hi Chuck,

Thank you for the kind words

All the woods are coming from Tasmania, the tasmanian blackwood and the binding is tiger myrtle (only the fingerboard is african ebony, and "frets" are hard maple)

Xavier

[Chuck Tweedy]

Tiger Myrtle - that's a new one to me. I see other pictures on the web of it, and that is some amazing looking wood.
Great stuff, good work, good on'ya!

[Nate Scott]

Really nice! -- I thought it was koa until I read your post above. Well done!

[Xavier Baron]

Nate,

Yes... Black acacia (acacia melanoxyton) really looks like Koa (acacia koa), they are cousins... but black acacia is (still) cheaper...

Here's a link to a sample sound file

Please don't shoot at the guitar player...
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/465 ... s%20XB.mp3

Xavier

[Freeman Keller]

Wow, Xavier, that sounds as good as it looks. I particularly like the way the Weissenborn style neck fit onto that body - it just looks "right".

The wood body seems to mellow the bite of the cones but it also seems to have a sharper attack than a spider bridge - its a great combination. More people should be making square neck tricones.

Good job all around!

[Hans Bezemer]

I like the sound sample!

[Xavier Baron]

Thanks Hans
here's the link to soundcloud:

http://snd.sc/14bG2Wo

Xavier

[Yair Fine]

Great job Xavier, she is a real beauty.

can you tell us about the hardware? which cones / cover / T bridge did you use?

Thanks
Yair

[Xavier Baron]

Thanks Yair

There parts are hard to find ones... mostly coverplate

NRP cones and T bridges are available fom NRP and Elderly, highly priced : $135 and $150 plus shipping/customs
Paul Beard sells NRP tricone cones too, and sell his own cones too for $75

I got Continental cones in a complete set sold by republic guitars for $125 (coverplate, T bridge with maple insert and cones)

The coverplate is just perfect, the T Bridge is exactly the same as the ones National provided on some early releases. I just had to enlarge the cone holes to fit the bridge pins with a small round rasp.
I may change the cones for NRP ones, it seems that it could even improve the overall sound.

Any advice?

[Yair Fine]

Thanks Xavier

That's what I thought. this hardware cost a lot of money.
I read reviews about republic guitars. some liked it some don't. apparently they are not US made.
I wanted to build myself a round neck Tricone, and I have the same confusion.
Its easier to find single cone and spider cone hardware. some even near you , in UK
http://www.janika.co.uk/Resonator_Guitar.php
and http://www.deltaresonatorcones.co.uk/tricones.html
But for tricone, I haven't found economy T -bridge. so I guess I'll go for same option you did for my first resonator.
It sounds reasonable; any way your recording sounds great and I liked your work.

I cant talk about tricone without mentioning the late Bob Brozman, whom I had the chance to see in act and talk to him.
As far as I concern we was one of the greatest guitarist living among us.
Too bad he went to his next journey. Always thought that I see him again.

Yair

[Freeman Keller]

Yair, I don't want to hijack Xavier's wonderful thread on his lap style tricone but I was the one that sent him the AutoCAD drawing that he used. I did not make the drawing, it was in the public domain, but I have it both in dwg and pdf format and I feel that it can be distributed without copy issues. It gives the basic layout of the cones, grills and some fundamental dimensions for a "standard" tricone - 25 inch scale, 11-1/2 frets clear, 000 sized body, etc. You can easily modify it for any scale length or body size you want (as long as you make it big enough for the cone well of course). It is a round neck, Xavier modified the dwg for his Weissenborn style neck.

I built a wood bodied round neck tricone from those plans and can give you a link to a build thread where I worked out some of the construction details. I used a standard bolt on neck rather than a neck stick - it has held up fine under medium strings in open tunings.

I can also send the dwg or pdf to you - you can have any engineering business print it full scale. Btw - I did use NRP hot rod cones and tee bridge in mine, but purchased the cover plate from Beard Resophonic. Beard also sells some less expensive cones, but I have liked the new hot rod cones in my biscuit bridge reso and feel that they are worth the extra money.

PM me if you would like information or the drawings.

btw - somewhere deep in the MIMF archives is a great thread on building a metal bodied tricone - very detailed. I play metal bodied single cones but feel (and Xavier's clips bare this out) that a wood bodied tricone is a wonderful guitar - it can be almost acoustic sounding if played gently but has a nice reso bite if you really dig in.

[steve poskitt]

Hi
I know this is old post but am planning a wooden tricone and would be interested in any drawings/plans as very little information available online...
Thanks
Steve

[Freeman Keller]

Hi
I know this is old post but am planning a wooden tricone and would be interested in any drawings/plans as very little information available online...
Thanks
Steve

PM me an e-mail address. I have both the original body only and Xavier's square neck plans in both autocadd dwg and pdf format. The dwg drawing you can edit with any compatible cadd software, the pdf you can just print and go to work. I also just sent the plans to a builder who wants to incorporate them into a Weissenborn shape, I can give you his name and contact information.

Here are some recent threads from the other lutherie forum

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/view ... 04&t=29796

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/view ... 04&t=47475

I've also got a bunch of pictures of the insides of mine that might help you think about the cone well, neck attachment, stuff like that. We can also talk about geometry unless you already know how you want it to play.

[Xavier Baron]

Hi Freeman,

I'd be happy to get the files again as I may have lost them

Like to see that this post is still of interest
Xavier

[Freeman Keller]

Hi Freeman,

I'd be happy to get the files again as I may have lost them

Like to see that this post is still of interest
Xavier

I might still have your e-mail address but PM it to me anyway. Hope you are well and enjoying your tricone. I also sent your files to a builder in Australia who wants to make it into a Weissenborn shape. I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.