First post... want to share a few photos

Hi all. Been lurking here for some time. Lots of good info here, good discussion and good people. So thanks!

I've been building for about 9 months no. Have about a dozen or so under my belt. I started with the license plate guitar on Make dot com and learned a lot from that first one... like raising the neck over the sound board (face of the guitar)... but she's a good guitar nonetheless. Just have to play it with a slide...

I made a lot of acoustic guitars with piezo pickups. Below is the one I made for my wife...

I've moved back to the electric ones again. I made my own pickup and installed it in the latest guitar...

I'm in the process of winding another handmade pickup and thinking of a good tool to help the winding process at the same time. I'm doing my own fret work, wiring, etc... I've even sold 2 acoustic guitars locally on craigslist. I enjoy building them and I need to do something with them now that I've reached 100% saturation in the house. I've given one to my dad, one to a neighbor who's let me use a few tools.

I've been using how-to CDs from Keni Lee Burgess. I can play 3 songs now... Yay!

Thanks for looking.

Eric

Cool headstock, yes? I really like how those came out.

The license plate guitar headstock is red and white veneer applied to represent the stripes on the flag. If I did it again, I'd do two stripes of each. Was going for the red/white/blue theme like the license plate. My neighbor makes custom pool ques and I got the red and white pieces from him.

The Flor de Antilles guitar headstock uses the label from inside the guitar box lid, which I got of in one piece. I used spray adhesive to apply it to the headstock after staining and before polyacrylic clear. I did another like this more recently and wrapped the label all the way around leaving a seam down the middle of the back of the headstock... instead of just applied to the front.

The Padilla (lion) is a little different process. I couldn't find a good image to use on the headstock so I printed one from the internet onto photo paper. The I used the same spray adhesive process to attach it to the headstock. Once applied, I trimmed it with a razor. The photo paper leaves a white edge (the thickness of the paper... but visible) so I used a permanent marker on this one to hide the edges... I used black stain on the one I'm working on now, which is another Padilla but the headstock image is a large lion head (looks great so far!).

I like the headstocks like this... I haven't seen any other like it so it's something I can do to set mine apart and make them even more unique.

Thanks for looking!

Replies

Gary Reichel March 16, 2014 at 9:42pm

All look great! Looks like cigar box label applied to the headstock. How did you affix it? Tell us about the headstock on the license plate guitar.
- Eric Kasten > Gary Reichel March 17, 2014 at 7:56am
  
  Cool headstock, yes? I really like how those came out.
  
  The license plate guitar headstock is red and white veneer applied to represent the stripes on the flag. If I did it again, I'd do two stripes of each. Was going for the red/white/blue theme like the license plate. My neighbor makes custom pool ques and I got the red and white pieces from him.
  
  The Flor de Antilles guitar headstock uses the label from inside the guitar box lid, which I got of in one piece. I used spray adhesive to apply it to the headstock after staining and before polyacrylic clear. I did another like this more recently and wrapped the label all the way around leaving a seam down the middle of the back of the headstock... instead of just applied to the front.
  
  The Padilla (lion) is a little different process. I couldn't find a good image to use on the headstock so I printed one from the internet onto photo paper. The I used the same spray adhesive process to attach it to the headstock. Once applied, I trimmed it with a razor. The photo paper leaves a white edge (the thickness of the paper... but visible) so I used a permanent marker on this one to hide the edges... I used black stain on the one I'm working on now, which is another Padilla but the headstock image is a large lion head (looks great so far!).
  
  I like the headstocks like this... I haven't seen any other like it so it's something I can do to set mine apart and make them even more unique.
  
  Thanks for looking!
  - Gary Reichel > Eric Kasten March 17, 2014 at 8:05am
    
    Thanks for the info. Those are clever ideas. Keep posting. And that is a nice looking cbg amp too!
    - Eric Kasten > Gary Reichel March 17, 2014 at 5:38pm
      
      Thank you sir. The amp is supposed to be 7watts (board came from china). Is definitely louder than the 1 watt amp I built. A secret... the box was too small so I had to angle the speaker and put the battery on the inside of the lid (which you cannot see behind the overlaid photo).
Dan Sleep March 15, 2014 at 9:55pm

Looking good. I suggest you keep building em.
- Eric Kasten > Dan Sleep March 16, 2014 at 10:15am
  
  Thank you and I will... I have another electric CBG being built in the garage right now. I'm very intrigued about the build process and the almost unlimited possibilities around the build process. I expect I'll be building for a long time. :)
Eric Kasten March 15, 2014 at 9:40pm

Thanks Ron.

I'm open to suggestions to make my builds better... if anyone has a suggestion.
- Richey Kay > Eric Kasten March 16, 2014 at 1:51am
  
  They seem to be evolving very well. Can't believe you've been making them 9 months and never shared them before.
  
  Also - it was a MAKE article that got me started as well, the 'Cake Pan Ukulele'.
  
  Good luck and welcome!
  - Eric Kasten > Richey Kay March 16, 2014 at 10:15am
    
    Didn't see the cake pan Uke one. Will go look for that.
Ron "Oily" Sprague March 15, 2014 at 3:33pm

Congrats, Eric! Keep up the good work.

This reply was deleted.