The Chetboard

A buddy of mine has Chet's first McGill resonator for sale. It's the dark-colored resonator that was the first one Paul built for Chet I believe. He has a letter from Chet and Paul McGill both documenting the guitar. It's a beauty and sounds great. I have attached a picture below. It's the guitar Chet is holding in the Vintage Guitar magazine article from 1996. If interested, give Jim a call at 740-532-6756.

Hoo Wee!! Son, that's a beauty! My guess is that Chet didn't play the Mcgill's that much and preferred that short scale and long scale DV that Doyle gave him.

It would be interesting to see how many DV owners there are here on the chetboard.

Chet play a McGill resonator (not sure if it is this one) on the single note solo on "You Do Something To Me" on the Almost Alone album. It sounds good....but not the same as the DV. Not saying it was worse, but it is different. The guitar was practically new, so it might have opened up and been much better in later years if Chet had lived to break it in.

Beautiful guitar. I've told this before, but Bill Piburn had the best McGill resonator I've ever heard. It sounded incredible. When he sold it through Gruhn's, I went down and played it in the store for awhile when I was in town. The whole store literally stopped and listened (and it was busy- NAMM week). Everyone was coming over asking "What kind of guitar is that?"

Whoever bought that guitar got a great one.

Craig

I always liked that light catching screen material Paul McGill used on those resonators. And also the fact that he gold plated the rings. I emailed him awhile back and he said that the tailpiece is just some standard tailpiece he buys and he actually cuts the left and right rods down and rethreads the little caps and makes it shorter. One day I'm going to get a new tailpiece and try it. He did tell me one crucial part - DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON THE BISCUIT/SADDLE IS EVERYTHING. That's why I think on his resonators you see the tailpiece slightly bent downward.

That's right, Phil. Chet's tailpieces had a slight downward bend, as did most old DVs. On my DV, I rigged up a rosewood bar that gives downward pressure and also mutes the over-ring behind the bridge. Mine also has the short tailpiece like you mentioned, installed by Paul before I got it.

Craig

I doubt a slight bend in the tailpiece would do anything to change the downpressure on the bridge: The strings will angle down towards the hinge where the tailpiece is anchored at the butt of the guitar whatever the shape of the tailpiece rods. In order to increase the downpressure, one would have to rig something to pull the tailpiece closer to the guitar or lower its attachment closer to the table. To decrease the pressure, you would need to shim the tailpiece up or raise its point of attachment.

Craig, Paul did the same thing to mine,,,installed a short tailpiece with downward pressure. Mine is an old 60's (got the pink tuning keys), long-scale, it came from Gruhn's ages ago. It always sounded great but it had a '"ski lift" on the fretboard end so Paul called Charlie Derrington, who had his shop in Nashville at that time and we had him plane the fretboard and refret the guitar - - Paul thought it was such a good sounding guitar, it would be worth doing. Boy, that REALLY made a good player out of it. Of course, I ended up with a lot of money in the darn thing, (as you can easily do on an old DV) but it sounds fine and plays fine, so I enjoy getting it out from time to time. Its hard to find a really nice one and as we all know, if you do you're going to pay a big price on today's market.

Gayle

I think in one of the letters that document this guitar from either Chet or Paul McGill, that it was mentioned that this guitar was used on one of the tunes from the 'Simpatico' album with Suzie Boggess.

I recently acquired a Del Vecchio that I think is similar to Chet's long scale that Doyle Dykes gave him. Boy it has the Del Vecchio sound! The intonation is really good but the action may be a little higher than I'd prefer. But I'm not gonna mess with it! I've attached a picture below.

One thing I remembered to look at when Chet's guitars were at the HOF was the Del Vecchio. It was the one Doyle gave him. And let me tell you, the action was really high on that guitar.