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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 17, 2014 at 6:24pm

Homemade Biscuits. Mmmm. With butter. And Honey.

Oh. Sorry.

You could purchase a biscuit and saddle combo with a rod piezo pickup from Randy Bretz here at CBN, if you want a gorgeous custom jobby, if don't feel comfy doing it yourself. Or Old Lowe also sells biscuits, if I'm not mistaken. Or you could order a biscuit and saddle from one of the resonator guitar manufacturers, or search biscuits out online, and do it that way. Or you can make your own from a disc of maple, mahogany or other hardwood, slot it for a saddle, and make your own saddle from bone, Corian, or hardwood.

Here:

http://elderly.com/accessories/cats/MIRS.html

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Parts/All_Hardware_and_Parts_by...

http://www.deltaresonatorcones.co.uk/index.html

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 17, 2014 at 6:51pm

lol Oily - we wrote effectively the same response at the same time :)

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 17, 2014 at 6:55pm

Hehehe...great minds.

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 17, 2014 at 7:00pm

...think of biscuits?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on July 17, 2014 at 7:01pm

Dangit, now you got me hungry again!

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 17, 2014 at 6:26pm

Well, you just need some flour, some sugar and some butter... sorry :)

Have a look at Randy S. Bretz's page - he makes some amazing looking biscuits. Round piece of material which sits in the centre of the cone, with some kind of bridge material (bone/corian etc) on the top for the strings to rest on at the right height.

I've never made a reso myself - the thing I worry about is getting the scale length exactly right - i.e. if the biscuit wasn't in the dead centre of the cone I would cry. It wouldn't matter if you were going fretless though. Anyway, I'm sure someone with more experience will weigh in soon.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on July 17, 2014 at 6:43pm

It's easy enough to make a biscuit bridge -  take a piece of hardwood, preferably something like maple, take it down to about 1/4" thick and use a holesaw of the appropriate size to cut your blank. Fill the hole in the middle with a plug of dowel, cut a slot for the saddle across it, make a saddle out of hard maple and drive it into the slot (don't glue it, just make it a tight friction fit). That's it, ready to install and slot for the strings. A little time consuming, but not too hard.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on July 17, 2014 at 11:05pm

Someone say biscuit...how about some eggs and a piece of bacon with that...lol.             

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on July 17, 2014 at 11:06pm

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/albums/rod-biscuits

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on July 18, 2014 at 12:15am

I think I'm pretty somewhat nearly averagely OK at building these instruments and parts.  Every time I build a biscuit bridge I wish I had just ordered one from Randy.  Not to say that I can't make one, but I've been very, very happy with Randy's work and when I compare mine, well, I don't measure up.

If you want function at low cost and fair time investment, make one.  If you want beauty (and a superior function and a very fair price), then see Randy.

In one person's opinion, anyway.

Mojobone Works on the left and my homemade on the right.

How I made mine, if you want an idea.

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