For years I've had a pipe dream of building my own resonator guitar and learning to play bottleneck on it. I know National Resophonic makes 'em and Dobro did and will again apparently, but who has $1400 to spend on one? I built a metal bodied resonator mandolin using a pie plate for the resonator a few years ago, just to convince myself I really could do the guitar, which turned out pretty fair for a first attempt. A resonator cone from National Resophonic only costs in the neighborhood of $40. So I was getting psyched up to build one soon as I get done remodeling my house. Then I get the latest Lark in The Morning Catalog and I see they're selling some kind of wood bodied resonator guitars for about $350. So who knows, maybe I'll save myself a few months of project time.

PS yes, Elwooddelta, I did get the mandolin plated at a bumper shop. Seemed pretty amusing to them and was by far the highest cost of the whole project.