It depends if you are planning on playing plugged in on a regular basis, if that's the case, sell the Boxcar and buy the Bobtail instead. I guess you must be wanting to plug in regularly or you wouldn't have brought up installing a pickup.

The Bobtail comes with the Fishman Nashville pickup already installed. Though Gretsch (manufactured and distributed by Fender) doesn't use the Beard adjustable spider to hold the Nashville insert, their method seems to work with no problem.  The Nashville is the only internal piezo dobro pickup that's any good. Avoid the Fishman "Classic" pickup or what many of us refer to as the "donut" pickup that attaches to the tension screw under the cone inside the guitar. I fought with one of years - they're horrible.

I would find out what the shop charges to install the pickup. The Nashville alone as an aftermarket item goes these days for $230 U.S., not sure what it goes for Canadian. The Bobtail, the same guitar but with the pickup included is a pretty good deal, likely because  the long arm of Fender gets a good discount for buying the pickup insert in volume.

It is unlikely you will get your money back on resale.

Frank Harlow was a friend of mine. He hot rodded all my $500 guitars. They are MUCH improved. More valuable, likely not. They are really better.

Don’t care. They are part of my estate.

My kids problem.

What Mark said. Wise words.

One day you will buy a GOOD American made guitar. Better, yes. Worth 6 or 8X maybe. Got two of them.

From my point of view, I guess it depends on the quality of the “shell”, the hollowed out guitar, and its intended use.

I just did my first complete overhaul of a dobro, a Wechter/Scheerhorn Rob Ickes model that I bought from Rob almost 20 years ago. I stripped it down to the empty guitar and installed D’addario locking tuners, roller nut, Scheerhorn cone, #14 Fishman Nashville bridge pick-up, Hipshot Doubleshot bridge (G to D changing), and it all miraculously works great.

I have a Tim-built Scheerhorn and other high-end guitars, but I play quite often in local bars and rough-and-tumble scenarios, and I wanted a great sound and great playability in a guitar that might get abused. And often does.

You know the difference between a Scheerhorn, and a Frugalhorn?
You don’t spill beer on a Scheerhorn.

The guitar sounds really good acoustically and great thru the nashville pup —>fishman jerry douglas pedal—>Fishman Loudbox amp.

So if you think the basic shell of the guitar is sound, go for it if your looking for a good juke joint axe.

...I wouldn't. But I would spill beer on my Scheerhorn.

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Originally posted by MarkinSonoma

It depends if you are planning on playing plugged in on a regular basis, if that's the case, sell the Boxcar and buy the Bobtail instead. I guess you must be wanting to plug in regularly or you wouldn't have brought up installing a pickup.

The Bobtail comes with the Fishman Nashville pickup already installed. Though Gretsch (manufactured and distributed by Fender) doesn't use the Beard adjustable spider to hold the Nashville insert, their method seems to work with no problem.  The Nashville is the only internal piezo dobro pickup that's any good. Avoid the Fishman "Classic" pickup or what many of us refer to as the "donut" pickup that attaches to the tension screw under the cone inside the guitar. I fought with one of years - they're horrible.

I would find out what the shop charges to install the pickup. The Nashville alone as an aftermarket item goes these days for $230 U.S., not sure what it goes for Canadian. The Bobtail, the same guitar but with the pickup included is a pretty good deal, likely because  the long arm of Fender gets a good discount for buying the pickup insert in volume.

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Thank you so much for this information Mark! I appreciate it. I never even knew the bobtail came with a Nashville pickup.

I think a cone upgrade is worth trying out and easily reversible. If you sell the guitar just put the old cone back in.

I don't know if changing the coverplate would be much of an upgrade per se. I don't know anything about dobro pickups; I've never had one and much prefer the sound of an SM-57 when I've heard others play.

I second the cone upgrade as well as the SM-57, though I also have a small condenser that also works really well. The K & K pickup in the spider squareneck does not work very well, though the K & K in the biscuit roundneck does.

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Originally posted by gadobro

I think a cone upgrade is worth trying out and easily reversible. If you sell the guitar just put the old cone back in.

I don't know if changing the coverplate would be much of an upgrade per se. I don't know anything about dobro pickups; I've never had one and much prefer the sound of an SM-57 when I've heard others play.

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If all one ever does is play with an acoustic only group as in bluegrass in a fairly small setting, or maybe a duo with another player on an acoustic guitar, then most of us don't need a pickup - an SM-57 works fine. 

But everything changes when you get into a loud mixed acoustic/electric scenario. I tried for a number of years using a mic combined with the dreaded Fishman "donut" pickup in those situations and it was a losing battle. Once I got on the Fishman Nashville program combined with the Jerry Douglas Aura pedal everything got a whole lot easier. Once in awhile I've sat in with an acoustic/electric  group that has sort of the American vibe including drums and an electric guitar player, and plugging in made life a lot easier.

Even during special events as member of a church band where it was just myself on dobro  and another guy on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, we plugged in to the soundboard because we already had the setup dialed in. 

I was talking to Rob Ickes after a show with Trey Hensley a few years ago and when they began as a duo (which they are no longer since Trey is now fronting his own band) Rob told me  the reason he and Trey plugged in from the very beginning after he left Blue Highway around 2014 is that in his experience there are so many variables in the dozens of venues they played  that to get everything right  and not spend an inordinate amount of time on soundchecks it was easier to plug in. Plus they also like to jazz it up a bit with effects pedals which aren't so great with microphones.

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Originally posted by wlgiii

I second the cone upgrade as well as the SM-57, though I also have a small condenser that also works really well. The K & K pickup in the spider squareneck does not work very well, though the K & K in the biscuit roundneck does.

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Sadly I have to agree on the K & K Spider pickup. In my experience even with a preamp there is a constant battle against feedback.

Before I got the (import) biscuit I tried attaching the K & K to the t-bridge of my (import) tricone with adhesive, and that worked surprisingly well. From the experience of this one person, they seem to like metal bodies but not wood bodies.

quote:

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Originally posted by gadobro

I think a cone upgrade is worth trying out and easily reversible. If you sell the guitar just put the old cone back in.

I don't know if changing the coverplate would be much of an upgrade per se. I don't know anything about dobro pickups; I've never had one and much prefer the sound of an SM-57 when I've heard others play.

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I thought my SM57 did a good job creating a wavemap for my Collings D-1 through my Tonedexter. But then I picked up a Slate Digital ML-2 from MF. That little mic blew the Shure away!