New builder here!

Hello all, I'm new to building instruments but not new to playing them or wood working. I am the music minister at our church in Argyle, TX and work in the audio visual industry as well. My mainline instruments include a Gibson Songwriter deluxe, Ibanez hollow body and a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass that was given to me which is a great story in itself.

I haven't really gotten started building yet but have acquired most of the parts for the four 3 string CBGs I have in the pipeline. I will be using Sapele for the necks and zebra wood for the fretboards. I have a great local source here in the DFW area for hardwoods. The first will be a fretless CBG just to get the hang of building CBGs. The second will be a 24.75 scale with a headstock that mimics a stratocaster as a thank you for for a local welding company that employs my son-in-law. The 3rd will have a coffee theme fretted with a diatonic scale, and the 4th may very well be a resonator. I guess I should get busy building these things rather than talking about it! I'll try to post pictures as I go along.

Blessings on y'all!

Well, I finally finished my first build. I'm calling it Aslan. The neck is sapele and the fret board and nut is zebrawood. Two comments on the wood. Sapele is great to work with and is quite stiff. It makes a great neck. Zebrawood on the other hand is a pain in the backside. It is quite brittle and hard to sand. However, if one it persistent it makes a pretty cool looking fretboard. I took a chance and make the nut out of it as well. it seems to be holding up so far. After a mistake on the scarf joint I ended up with a 23 inch scale neck. A mis-cut on the box caused me to have to add CB Gitty's birch neck collars to cover the fixing of said mistake. The fortunate part is it allowed me to create a slight (but not enough) back angle on the neck. I'll do better with next time. I hot glued a piezo on the lid and added a pot for volume. I do have to note that a wiring diagram that I found here on the site is incomplete. I will submit my fix to the wiring group. I ended up going with a diatonic scale. I tried to keep the strings low enough to fret but high enough to use a slide. I'm not sure I accomplished that.

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Gary Ray November 1, 2015 at 7:10pm

Well, I finally finished my first build. I'm calling it Aslan. The neck is sapele and the fret board and nut is zebrawood. Two comments on the wood. Sapele is great to work with and is quite stiff. It makes a great neck. Zebrawood on the other hand is a pain in the backside. It is quite brittle and hard to sand. However, if one it persistent it makes a pretty cool looking fretboard. I took a chance and make the nut out of it as well. it seems to be holding up so far. After a mistake on the scarf joint I ended up with a 23 inch scale neck. A mis-cut on the box caused me to have to add CB Gitty's birch neck collars to cover the fixing of said mistake. The fortunate part is it allowed me to create a slight (but not enough) back angle on the neck. I'll do better with next time. I hot glued a piezo on the lid and added a pot for volume. I do have to note that a wiring diagram that I found here on the site is incomplete. I will submit my fix to the wiring group. I ended up going with a diatonic scale. I tried to keep the strings low enough to fret but high enough to use a slide. I'm not sure I accomplished that.
Blues Frog September 4, 2015 at 11:26pm

Sounds like you have all the tools neccessary to begin in the world of CBGs. Welcome to the group. there's a whole lotta people heree that are just itchin to see what you come up with. Post lots of pictures so we can see what you've done.
- Gary Ray > Blues Frog September 4, 2015 at 11:37pm
  
  Will do. I blame my niece for posting a video on Facebook of a guy playing a cigar box guitar for getting me into this. Then I started looking into it and thought it looked pretty easy so I jumped in. Also, there are a couple of songs that we are going to do at church that will benefit from the sound.
Steve Robbins September 3, 2015 at 5:44pm

Hi Gary:

Even though I am a newer member than you... I would like to welcome you to the forum. How far is Argyle from Tyler/Jacksonville?

Steve
- Gary Ray > Steve Robbins September 3, 2015 at 11:02pm
  
  Steve,
  Thanks for the welcome! It takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to go to Tyler from Argyle (where the church is or Aubrey where I live.

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