At a recent gig, the pickup on my dobro started misbehaving, so it was time to get it into the workshop for a service. I needed to put in a new jack socket and, while I was there, I also wanted to give the cone a good clean and check everything was in order underneath the cover plate.
So, when you're servicing a resonator, the first thing to do is get the strings off, get the tailpiece off and then lift off the cover plate and it's all going on underneath there.
So with the Dobro, you've got a spider bridge, which is attached to the cone by a tension screw, so we loosen the tension screw off and that separates the spider bridge from the cone and then you can take the cone out and give it a good clean. I usually use glass cleaner, but couldn't find it today so I used isopropyl alcohol instead, and I gave it a good old polish.
The cone in this Dobro is a Paul Beard Legend Cone, so it's a very nice cone - I upgraded it a few years ago - but it has benefitted from a good clean because they pick up grease and fluff and all sorts from gigging and it helps to brighten the tone.
If you want to check how your cone is sounding, you can balance it on your finger, give it a flick with your finger and listen for a nice bell-like, pinging tone.
If you want to check how your cone is sounding, you can balance it on your finger, give it a flick with your finger and listen for a nice bell-like, pinging tone.
New jack socket needed, so just a case of re-soldering that on. Jack sockets do go funny over time because the contacts on the inside get pushed out of position and you can feel when you push the jack in and the contact doesn't feel very tight anymore that it's getting towards time to change it.
If you put off changing it, you will find that you don't get a good connection and you get hums and ground earth hum issues and so on - which was what was happening with this one.
So it's just a case of de-soldering, soldering a new jack socket on, putting it all back together and tightening everything up, then adding new strings and polishing it up so it's feeling almost like a new guitar!
Happy sliding!
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