1936 Dobro M32

This is a 1937 Dobro M32 all steel body, fiddle-edge. It has the original neck and a new 24.75″ scale fretboard. It also has an original stamped, lugged cone with the original offset spider (offset for improved intonation), the original tailpiece and replacement, vintage, style three-on-a-plate tuners.

I did a lot of work on this guitar to get it back in shape. When I got it, the fretboard was fractured and badly repaired at the 14th fret. The cone had been replaced with a modern spun cone. All of the internal supports had been removed (not a good thing). And the tailpiece had been grossly mis-shapened. Although to the untrained eye it looked like a typical vintage fiddle-edge, it was in dyer need of attention to get it back to good playing condition. So work began with reshaping the tailpiece, then finding an original, lugged cone. Followed by replacing the fretboard. New internal supports also needed to be made. A bit of metalwork was done to the coverplate. Finally, the new finish was applied to the body and neck.

The new frosted duco finish on this guitar is based on the original Walnut finish found on Triolians. But it was also based on a brown fiddle-edge I acquired. When I first got the brown guitar I noticed the brown finish didn’t look like other finishes I had seen. It was more luminous. After more careful examination, I discovered the brown was semi-transperant and it had been applied over gold. Not a typical way to do a brown finish, but sensible for Dobro, since most fiddle-edges were finished in a satin gold finish. They just put a brown burst over it. I decided to make this finish a hybrid of the Walnut Triolian finish and the brown Dobro finish. What you see is the result.