Jose, since you've aleady got a nice regular acoustic guitar, and *especially* since you're interested in branching out into the blues after many years of playing a variety of styles, that resonator might be your best bet after all.

If you're gonna have two guitars, the more different the better!

Since you were unimpressed by your friend's wood-bodied dobro, what you really want is probably a metal-body job, the type of instrument used in so many great old blues recordings.

There have been a few Mudcat discussions about resonator guitars during the past year or so. When resonator guitars first appeared, Dobro and National were copeting manufactuers, the former specializing in wood-body guitars with metal resonators and the latter making metal-body instrument. Later, the two companies merged under the Dobro name, so while "dobro" may once have clearly meant one type of reso guitar, the distinction is no longer as obvious.

There's a fairly new brand name for National-type metal resonators that some members have recommended. If I get a chance to search out the pertinent old threads and copy a link or two, I'll be back with the info.