I thought it might be helpful and interesting to see how other members mount the guitar neck in their cigar boxes. How much bracing do you use? Are you gluing or using screws to mount it? Are you letting the lid/soundboard touch the neck or are you keeping a gap between them? All of this might help new builders, and give the more experienced builders some fresh ideas.
I'll start with one of my simplest ways of mounting............2 cross braces and simply countersink a couple of wood screws. As you can see in the pic the lid sets right on the neck for good support in the bridge area. This box is deeper then the neck so there is nothing blocking the area on either side of the neck. This box measures 8"x 6.5"x 3" and is pretty loud acoustically with a very good bass tone. I used a simple cut piece from the end of the fretboard, drilled a hole half way through with a forstner bit and hot glued a piezo pickup in the hole. Then hot glue the piece to the lid or the side of the neck. Hooked up to the amp it sounds great and not a lot of handling noise or feedback. I have also simply mounted the piezo in a hole drilled with a forstner bit in the neck directly under the bridge.
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I put a through piece in mine that is 5/8" to 3/4" from the top so it doesn't interfere with top/soundboard vibration and put side and middle blocks between the through piece and back for stability. I terminate the strings on one end of the through piece and bolt or glue the neck on the other end. Then I can decide whether to make it acoustic or electric. If I decide to put pickups in it, I don't have to cut into the neck.
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Just realized that those pics were of my electric that is braced to the top instead of the back like my acoustic. So a couple pics for that.
Hey Rooster,
The more I think about this post... the more I almost think we need a side-by-side comparison of a CBG with the neck touching the lid of the box (or resonater board) and one that doesn't. If someone who thinks strongly one way wanted to upload a sound clip versus someone else who thinks the other way is best... there being no wrong way about it... that would at least give folks (like me) a chance to decide which way I think sounds better without having to build both type (even though most here would argue that is all the fun right there... figuring it out for yourself).
The other thing I hope folks respond with, is the best way to mount the neck to the bottom of a thick wooden box (where with most, the thinnest part is the bottom).
I just did an experiment of putting a 3/8" dowel between the neck and lid right under the bridge to see how it would affect the sound. It quite conclusively shows that the lid having contact with the neck seriously dampens the sound. At least in this one design of a CBG.
Here's a video of my experiment... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F31SJo9Xd70&feature=youtu.be
Well I don't have a before and after clip but my original design had the neck touching the lid of the box. A friend of mine suggested I remove some more of the neck so the lid could vibrate better. I removed about 1/8" with only about 1/4' left at each end so the neck would still hold the box in place. (I have yet to glue anything yet.)
That made a huge difference. Much more sound coming out if it now!
Thanks for the info Jim.............did you use any type of support under the bridge area or did you leave a gap in that area?
I had to add extra support to the neck because by the time I removed enough wood to clear the lid (3/16") then another 1/8" so the the neck would no longer touch the neck, then I decided to take another 1/8" away to install the "pickup" on the neck, there wasn't enough wood left to keep it from bending under the stress of the strings.
I added no support for the lid (sound board).
Let me start by saying that I haven't built any guitars with paper covered boxes. I am tempted though.
With the heavier wood boxes, I don't see any need to add any bracing across the front of the box. I will sometimes add a thin brace at the rear, because I end the neck at the inside on the rear of the box. I screw a string retainer through the rear of the box and into the end of the neck inside. This also makes it less complicated to build in some neck drop. I leave a good amount of space between the soundboard and the neck inside the box. There is a lot of discussion about this. For me, having the space works better. String tension on the bridge will cause the soundboard to bend slightly, so I just leave lots of space. Probably approaching 1/8" or more. You can add some bracing to the underside of the soundboard, but over bracing will kill sound. I generally play unamplified.. But, that's just me.
Remember that in a neck through design, there is not a lot of pressure between the neck and the box at the front end.
This CBG is simple, massive and can put out 104 db of sound without amp. I put a jewlers screwdriver under the neck for reference.
I think this is a great thread that covers many things different builders all do differently. My biggest issue is getting the cutout to look anything like yours (which is what I shoot for). How did you get the recess for the lid to look so clean and precise?
Like Brian, I use the table saw in cross cut mode to remove the stock and then clean things up with a very sharp chistle
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