Hi all,I am currently looking for an entry level resonator guitar,I'm looking at a Harley Benton 100hbn as its about all I can afford,my main question is round or square neck?,is the square neck playable as a regular bottle neck style and vice versa,could I play the round neck on my lap,any advise or tips on the Harley Benton guitars,or any other options I should be looking at would be great, thanks,

  Welcome to the site. I hope you enjoy it here. Now some questions back to you. What is your budget and what type of music are you wanting to play? Then we will be able to help you. Never heard of the Harley Benton but found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwtrnBokXjg  doesn't look to promising. But that is the case with most asian imports and I am assuming this is one. You may be well advised if your budget is really tight to save some more money before delving into these instruments. There are more to these than a basic acoustic guitar. But let's see what your budget is first.

Welcome, dbucks77!  A square neck guitar is designed to be played in your lap with a steel bar, and cannot be fretted like a round neck guitar.  The strings are raised above the fretboard for lap style playing.  If you want to be able to play regular (sometimes called Spanish) style guitar and use a bottleneck for sliding, then a round neck guitar would be your best choice.

I have not played a Harley Benton 100HBN as they are not available in the USA.  Photos from the internet seem to indicate that they are a European version of the cheap metal body resonator guitars, probably made in China, and imported into the USA under various brand names.   They usually have poor quality resonators and need some upgrading to sound decent.  The Thomann Cyberstore offers them for GBP 208, approximately USD 326.  So they are roughly the same price as the Rogue metal body resonator guitar sold by Musician's Friend here in the USA.

I hope this helps.  Write again with more questions!

Thanks guys,the music which I would like to be playing (or should I say attempting ) would be from guys like Rory Gallagher,Skip James all the usual suspects I suppose,but other than Rory it's all still pretty new so feel free to mention any other artists I should check out, I know the budget is pretty small, in USD only about 360 but going on what ye both have said I think it may have to change,if I were to double the budget would I be any closer to buying a some way decent sounding guitar? How much would ye recommend I spend and what brands should look out for and more importantly which ones should I avoid? Also, timber body or metal body I have to say I would be leaning towards a metal body but would it help my budget if it were timber,thanks again guys

I've never heard of a wood body guitar referred to as a "timber" guitar before.  Nice one.

You want to play slide guitar, not lap steel or dobro guitar.  Here are some tabs and other artists to consider in that style.  I'm a big fan of Ry Cooder, who uses an acoustic wood body guitar for most of his acoustic slide playing.  You might like Johnny Winter or Son House more - experiment and listen to lots of players.

Metal body guitars start around $350 USD and go on up from there.  Gretsch just released a new Honeydipper that sells for around $530 USD and looks very nice.  It, too, has been manufactured in China, but Gretsch generally takes a bit more care with the finishing up of their instruments.  Other good brands to check out are Regal and Republic.  In the UK you might find guitars sold under the name Vintage or Supro - they are essentially the same instruments and similar to the US brands I mentioned.

Michael Messer has a forum on his website that might be helpful,  as it is more geared toward UK players.  He sells his own line of Busker resonator guitars that get very good reviews.  They may be just what you need.  These guitars are also made in China but finished in the UK from what I can tell.

Edited by - Brad Bechtel on 07/17/2012 12:45:06

Thanks Brad! Some great info there and love the tab link,I've been looking at the busker guitars and my budget has been doubled for sure! Looking mainly at the "Busker Deco Tricone" or the "Micheal Messer blues", but I seem to have opened a can of worms, one question on resonators leads to ten more! but I'll leave it to just two ;) The first being what's the difference between 12 and 14 frets ,as far as I know Rory gallaghers National guitar was 12 , is this the more traditional set up or is it a matter of preference?Also Tricone or single cone, is one more distinctive than the other? Thanks for all the help Brad, I know I could find this out by trawling through countless threads (which I've been doing ) but there's not enough hours in the day!!
Thanks again mate

You are going down the path I follow, a round-neck resophonic guitar for blues and other styles, probably played with a "bottleneck" slide at least part of the time. 

Go to the National Resophonic website and click some of the Youtube links. The Bob Brozman ones are especially good. You'll learn a bunch about the different types of resonator guitars. And you'll hear some great playing!

You may find this interesting http://www.littlebrotherblues.com/Gear/ResoHunt/index.html  There are even some sound bytes.