Jeri,

"
I'm seriously wondering if I could take one of my cheap fiddles and stick a resonator in/on it. I'm not the sort of person who tries to play loudly all the time and overwhelm everyone, but there are times when I'd like to be able to at least match the volume of people with fiddles from hell."

Well, I took a 15" viola body, modified the peg box, pegs, nut, bridge, and tailpiece and put mandocello bronze strings (.022, .032, .044, .074) on it. Tuned GDAE, down an octave from the violin, and played with a viola bow and bass rosin. NOT a subtle instrument...