Hi, all. I'm thinking of a four-string, 23-inch scale length, acoustic that hopefully I can tune various ways for the versatility of a tenor guitar. I'd like to try having an oval box.
I will soon have access to some damaged "Shaker" bentwood boxes, round and oval. Seems to me they ought to work sorta like a cheese box but more rugged. They are probably made of ash.
Any ideas about whether such boxes would work, how they would work, and what sizes or characteristics I should keep an eye out for? I like a sort of depthy sound but have no idea how deep a box I could use before it just swallowed up all the volume.
If anyone has tried to use a shallow wooden hat box or pantry box this might be comparable. All experience, observations, speculations, and wild thoughts welcome.
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This photo shows the Jag box.Linings to reinforce the back to sides joint to
and the neck slotted to take the ends of the sides.The gap between the neck and linings was filled in with short pieces of the same.
Careful when notching box for the neck. Did a cheese box once and the box tore from the bottom of the notch around the sides. Easy enough to fix, but lost it's shape some.
I wonder if putting a deep groove in the neck so that the sides of the cut could fit into it would help keep them from springing outward and causing that kind of split.
There is only one way to find out, build one
Heh, well, I can't afford too much experimentation and destruction. I'm thinking maybe cutting into a rounded bentwood side would ruin the integrity of the box too much and it will just bust apart or something. I bet someone here has valuable thoughts and warnings for me.
The construction of my jaguar hub cap guitar is similar,that box is made from 1 /16 the ply