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Bamboo Guitar.......

Posted by Taffy Evans on August 5, 2019 at 8:27pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

Hi, over in Paul Craig's What's on Your Workbench thread, Paul mentioned building guitars out of bamboo, so I thought I would show this one I built some years ago.

Its actually a cigar box made of bamboo. It was too thick to build as an acoustic so it has no soundhole, it is pure hollow-body electric. One side, that was a drawer that held the cigars, is replaced by an access panel for getting inside if need be. The pickup is Gibson Les Paul. Its set up for slide.

Taff 

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Replies

  • Taffy Evans December 28, 2019 at 4:28am

    Hi Paul, that's what I thought it would look like, in my books its called a Cove.

    Here I used it on a guitar I built in 1992. It has solid Honduras mahogany body with Tasmanian Blackwood centre infill, ebony Fingerboard, and early 80's Gibson SG Custom pickups. I use it for slide now days.

    The inlay markers I cut from Abalone Shells 

    3790669026?profile=RESIZE_710x 3790669493?profile=RESIZE_710x

    Taff

    • Paul Craig > Taffy Evans December 28, 2019 at 1:57pm

      That looks great Taff.

  • Taffy Evans December 27, 2019 at 1:56am
    Hi Paul, you got your work cut out with wiring that model guitar, I'm sure you're up to it. Hollow body would save weight and give more depth to the body. Be good to see, I suggest you start tomorrow.
    Taff
    • Paul Craig > Taffy Evans December 27, 2019 at 2:04am

      I'd love to start tomorrow, but the wife finally decided to start moving into her parents house this weekend. Unfortunately I have to move with her. Hahahaha

      Anyway, all building and playing will be on hiatus for a few months. If I go the solid body build I'll probably do a little chamber routing and maybe a German Carve around the edge, been wanting to do that for some time.

      • Taffy Evans > Paul Craig December 27, 2019 at 5:08pm

        Hey Paul, what is a German Carve? I haven't come across that before.

        Taff

        • Paul Craig > Taffy Evans December 28, 2019 at 1:53am

          3790510594?profile=RESIZE_710x3790510942?profile=RESIZE_710xBasically using a Ogee bit in your router for the edge slope carve. Supro and Eastman guitars used it a lot and somehow became known as "The German Carve".

  • Paul Craig December 27, 2019 at 1:24am

    Hey Taffy, I bought some Bamboo cutting boards and I'm going to glue them together for a guitar body some time soon(hopefully). Just not sure if I want it as a solid body or a hollow body yet, but it will resemble a Harmony Stratotone with 2 Firebird pickups. That much I know for sure.

  • Taffy Evans August 15, 2019 at 8:13pm

    Hi, I just searched for this type of bamboo box and I found them. However there was a minimum purchase of 500 units........I don't think so. Ha ha.

    • Southpaw > Taffy Evans December 26, 2019 at 9:48am

      my kmart sells a bamboo box for cutlery/storage that would be good for this, just needs a plywood top

      • Paul Craig > Southpaw December 26, 2019 at 1:19pm

        Wow, I didn't know that there was anymore K-Mart stores open.

        I found them at Walmart too. They are adjustable so as to fit a kitchen drawer so you could make the body whatever size you wanted. If you get 2 boxes, you can invert one and glue them together making it all Bamboo.

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