Cone advice

[Lloyd Graves]

I bought a tricone!

Well I paid for it, anyhow. It hasn't arrived yet. But I'm just working on the assumption I wasn't scammed, and I am planning ahead.

After reading (on this forum) other folks experiences with tricones, I am thinking I might need new cones.

National sells a set of pain aluminum for $150.

Beard sells a standard set for $90, or a vesper-coated set for $140.

What's a boy to do? I like saving money, AND I want the best old-school tone I can get. So should I look at National or Beard? And Beard says the Vesper coating gives "new increased sonic attributes," but no indication of what that means.

What do you all think?

Thanks.

[Howard Parker]

The Vesper cones tend to be a tad "crisper" . The uncoated aluminum cones are a bit mellower by comparison.

At least that is what my ears tell me.

h

[Glenn Wilde]

Which one did you get? I have a Republic and it's stock cones sound great, I also had a Johnson that sounded good. My '28 still has stock cones too. I did move the supports around(mushroom mod) on the Republic and Johnson and strip the paint off the T bars.

[Joel Jackson]

I got national cones for my '29 that came with a couple crushed cones and think they sound great. I'd do it again if I had to without a second thought.

[Gary Meixner]

Hey Lloyd,

Looking forward to hearing you play that thing. I am confident any of the replacement cones you mentioned will sound great. Without trying them all in your guitar it would be immpossible to know which sounds better. My guitar (1928) came with what I believe were the original cones and a new set of National cones. I have swapped them back and forth and find them to be vey similar in tone and volume. I have also found making small adjustments to the placement of the support post, which were very loose to begin with and needed work, to have much more of an impact on tone than changing the cones. I also found adjusting the saddle height and general set up to be a big factor. As I am sure you know, these guitars don't play themselves, and I discovered I needed to adjust my technique a bit to get the most out of mine - all well worth the effort though. You are a good player and I bet you and that guitar will sound pretty darn authentic right out of the box.

Best,

Gary

[Jack Hanson]

My '29 Style One came with its original cones, and they were well into the process of disintegrating around their edges. I replaced them with new cones from OMI, which were the only ones I could find that were currently available. They were better, although still somewhat lacking. After National Resophonic began reproducing cones with the embossed spirals similar to the originals, I replaced the OMIs. The new National cones were a tremendous upgrade. Richer, more rounded, less brittle-sounding, and significantly louder.

[Cartwright Thompson]

I replaced the tired original cones in my ‘28 with ones from National Reso and it was a huge improvement

[Lloyd Graves]

Thanks all.

Glen, it is a vintage National. 1929, I believe, but I cannot recall the exact serial number now.

I'm always a bit stressed until a package arrives, but the tracking number pinged earlier today. So the guitar is last known to have been in Newark, NJ, with an ETA of Friday. I'll upload photos when I can!

It'll be in high bass A, though Steve Dawson and Ken Emerson make fair arguments for low bass A. And I like the idea of playing walking bass lines, so a low E and A might be interesting to try.


Gary, you are too kind. I love listening to your playing and look forward to trying and double steels again soon! If this guitar needs anything, I'll be up at your place ASAP so you can walk me through opening up this antique and fussing with supports, etc.

I sure wish there was a place i could go and try all the different cones in the same guitar, but that's not going to happen, I reckon. So thanks, Jack, et al, for the input. It sounds like I'll go with a set of National cones, if needed, as I want a mellower sound. And maybe I'll buy a set of the vespers in the future, just to try them out. For now, they are out of stock, though, so it's less tempting to spend more right now.

--------

As an aside, I've been happy enough (for the past 4-5 years) with my OMI, steel-bodied, square-necked, Dobro. As Gary Meixner has pointed out, it has most of the sound of a tricone for a fraction of the price. But while I was in Nashville I was able to play this (https://cartervintage.com/shop/national ... EQh3lgtCN6) 1927 National tricone. (They call it a style 2, but the engraving is way more intricate, I think.) And I was able to see the Volcano Bros and get an in person lesson with Steve Dawson. All that exposure to vintage tricones really infected me, but for the instrument and for practicing.

Fortunately, my wife was supportive of my pseudo-impulse purchase, and Gary M gently guided me away from some of the less-than-spectacular specimens available through Reverb right now.

And now I will be able to play around with a second tuning on the Dobro. (My band does some western swing and country, so I'll probably end up in a 6th tuning, or B11.)

[Glenn Wilde]

That's great Lloyd, you're getting a classic, it took me years of buying everything but a vintage one, when that's what I always wanted
I don't know why I do stuff like that!!!
The '27 you tried is a very early one so the engraving was not standard at that time, It would've had a wood cone support too, so your '29 will sound different, generally a bit louder.
There's a recent thread discussing the early ones.
Anyways, congratulations and I can't wait to see it.

[Lloyd Graves]

I received the tricone last Saturday afternoon. It is better than advertised, weirdly. The store photos had showed a missing tuner button and a crack in the headstock, and mentioned nothing about the cones. The button was replaced with a perfect match, the crack is repaired and the cones are brand new (with the damaged originals included in the package).

Much to my dismay, however, we left home for a family event 30 minutes after delivery, didn't get back until 11pm, then I shuttled my son around most of Sunday (which was lovely, actually, as I like to have the 1:1 time with him), worked Monday and Tuesday (and shuttled kids around), all leaving precious little time to get to know the guitar.

I'll string it up like my dobro, in high bass A using Sebastian's recommendations, but there are two threads about string gauges right now that got me wondering about what I'm putting on the guitar.

At 25.5", Sebastian's set "16/18/22 (all plain) and 30/39/47" works out as:
E4 - 16p - 45.6#
C#4 - 18p - 40.9#
A3 - 22p - 38.5#
E3 - 30w - 33.1#
C#3 - 39w - 36.3#
A2 - 47w - 32.7#

Total = 227.1# of pressure.

It works well for me - and I know there are limitations based on the flat wound sets - but this is not a very balanced set of strings! I might try experimenting with SITS flatwounds, to come up with a more balanced set of strings, and in low bass A.

What is the recommended total pounds of pressure for a tricone, out of curiosity? And do you all focus much on making even sets of strings?