I decided I was going to build one of these after seeing a video on youtube(www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qFxXhg6zwA) of a electric one, but you can also build an acoustic one too.
What is a Tres Cubano you may ask?
It's a short scale(23" to 24") 6 string guitar that has the strings paired into 3 groups of 2. They use small gauge strings and pair the D string with high E, then 2 B strings and then a G string with high E and tune it gG-cC-dD(lower case is octave higher)like half of a 12 string guitar.
They are often used in Salsa music.
I got a couple short scale Strat type guitars for kids, but they were trashed. So I decided it would be better to build one out of a Cuban Cigar Box since my cousin gave me 4 Cohiba boxes.
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I managed to finish this build and it turned out very nice.
I have the pickups and preamp wired to the same jack and turning the preamp on with the pickups, give the low output Lipsticks a boost. I like the lipstick pickups, but they definitely need a powerful amp or a preamp to boost their signal. Modern Lipstick pickups have more output for volume, but these vintage low output have better tone and need to be close to the strings for good volume.
Final pic....
Got my aluminum shielding in place and once again there's no 60 cycle hum from the single coil pickups.
Got the Gitty piezo bridge and preamp installed, all is working well. Made a stop tail piece out of a Stratocaster tremolo spring claw that was in my parts bin and provided a string ground.
Next is cutting small string guide grooves in the brass bridge to keep the stings planted and tune it up.
I finally got the neck finished and ready to attach to the box.
Now I get to shop for a tail piece or make one, then attach this neck.
I did the black and natural in a check pattern to match the black and white check pattern on the box.
That's really nice Mchael.
I've been paused on this build, I need a 12 degree radius block to use on my arbor press to get these frets completely seated and of course that block is nowhere to be found at the moment.
I have been working on 3 other guitars I have going at this time as well so there's that.
Until I saw this I didn't know I'd built a Tres Cubano back in 2011 this was inspired by lute tuning, just thought it was a good idea at the time. Thank you !
Got my headstock laid out. Ready to cut the trussrod channel and headstock design.
So the Gitty Lipstick Pickups come with the wrong pickup mounting screws. The base is made to mount to a box top or pickguard like a Strat. The holes in the base are threaded with a fine thread, which I found out to be 3mm x .50 and got the 20mm long for this application. The mounting screws supplied are too small for the base, coarse thread and too long( very much like the PBass pickup screws.
Anyway, I got the pickups mounted.
Plugged the pin hole in the neck/headstock.
Is that a Rail runner bridge?
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