Dobro Spider Bridge & Cone Upgrade

Beard cones and spiders are considered a high end upgrade for most dobros. Here's how we did the cone and spider upgrade on Josh Steven's dobro. The first part of the video talks about the difference between dobros and resonators.

[@songbyrdsings1]

Great video Jim you're the Man!

[@SergeCeyral]

Thanks for that great video, especially the nice trick for leveling the spider legs. We never think enough about the importance of that detail (focusing only on the cone sitting flat on the body rim!..). On a roundneck model (with spider cone), both played with the slide AND left hand fingers, do you think that a small bridge slant could help improving intonation? (or do you think the bridge should always be kept perpendicular to the strings?)
Greetings from France, across the pond.

[@markh7523]

routing! ballsy move

[@dereknolin5986]

Thanks for the informative video! What brand is the Dobro that had the oblong hole?

[@Kanji101]

My bridge is what I think you would call a biscuit bridge, its on a plastic disc, however this disc is not fixed onto anything, so when I changed strings my bridge moved a lot, what angle do I want to put it back at?

[@JimKozel]

Sounds like you're describing a single cone resonator. The biscuit bridge should NOT be plastic. The base and actual bridge are usually rock maple that's painted black. It should be carefully attached to the top of the cone, usually with a small wood screw. To adjust, install with the bridge straight/perpendicular to the strings and tune up. If intonation is good, then leave it. If intonation is off just a bit, rotating the bridge and cone about 2 minutes counter clockwise should fine tune it. Again...the biscuit bridge needs to be attached to the cone. Leaving it loose may result in damage to the cone.

[@Kanji101]

Thank you, it probably is painted black as you said, I cant really get that close a look at it as there's a metal part above it. 2 mins counter clockwise is the correct angle for bridge? I guess I can estimate that. if I can get all strings in tune both open and at the 12th harmonic then it's fine?