I've been given a cheap acoustic guitar that somebody steel strung and the neck and body are parting company. Thought I could use the neck but - nut to bridge is 660mm, nut to 12th fret is 316mm but nut to guitar body is only 315mm and my longest cigar box is only 242mm! Can I make a viable instrument? Help please!!
EDIT: is this the right place to ask this?
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Hope you don't mind me posting a photo of your dulcimer (and apologies if you do) - I do prefer to add a link to the original photo but it was hidden in the general comments section here so I couldn't.
Also I thought it was too good a build not to add to the possible ideas available.
Regards,
David
Sherb said:
I was going to say " Build your own box" But some one beat me to it and even included a photo of my latest creation. In the UK we really do have problems with getting suitable boxes of a good size. So I think the answer must be scratch builds..As long as you position the bridge at the same distance from the nut as the original the thing has got to be in tune. Unless you are a much better builder than I am I would defiantly run the strings off the body and secure in the box end so that the box top is not under string pressure. That dulcimer has a solid heel in the base of the box that the strings are anchored to they are not supported only by the sound board.
By coincidence I went to the skip on Sunday afternoon to dump some crap and came away with a Honer 6 string that some chap was throwing out. Got it home tuned it and away it goes....don't think classical nylon strings are for me though .Good luck with it.
Love that dulcimer fretted thing Sherb...very, very sweet.
Sherb said:
I was going to say " Build your own box" But some one beat me to it and even included a photo of my latest creation. In the UK we really do have problems with getting suitable boxes of a good size. So I think the answer must be scratch builds..As long as you position the bridge at the same distance from the nut as the original the thing has got to be in tune. Unless you are a much better builder than I am I would defiantly run the strings off the body and secure in the box end so that the box top is not under string pressure. That dulcimer has a solid heel in the base of the box that the strings are anchored to they are not supported only by the sound board.
By coincidence I went to the skip on Sunday afternoon to dump some crap and came away with a Honer 6 string that some chap was throwing out. Got it home tuned it and away it goes....don't think classical nylon strings are for me though .Good luck with it.
I was going to say " Build your own box" But some one beat me to it and even included a photo of my latest creation. In the UK we really do have problems with getting suitable boxes of a good size. So I think the answer must be scratch builds..As long as you position the bridge at the same distance from the nut as the original the thing has got to be in tune. Unless you are a much better builder than I am I would defiantly run the strings off the body and secure in the box end so that the box top is not under string pressure. That dulcimer has a solid heel in the base of the box that the strings are anchored to they are not supported only by the sound board.
By coincidence I went to the skip on Sunday afternoon to dump some crap and came away with a Honer 6 string that some chap was throwing out. Got it home tuned it and away it goes....don't think classical nylon strings are for me though .Good luck with it.
All my CBGs so far have been based upon wooden 35mm slide boxes as the only cigar box I bought off ebay was poor quality and really small - sadly these photo boxes I think would be too small for what you need.
The following are my muddled thoughts on it (I had a similar idea about converting a classical guitar previously so have added some links I found on the www).
It depends on what you are hoping for at the end and how much time and effort you want to put in.
You can go for a repair so you end up with a classical guitar (good experience but not much fun - also you can pick up classical guitars really cheap off ebay if that is what you wanted)
Trying to find cigar boxes big enough will be really hard in the UK and if you get too big a box it feels like playing a suitcase. A design that might work is like the travel guitars (martin back packer or lindo travel guitar
Sherb (a member here) made a great looking one (Dulcimer)
If you are planning to add a piezo then you are not reliant on a big soundboard so could use a plank for a body and make your own "silent"guitar
If you decide to go for a different body Kevin makes a really good point about doing a diagram of what you have - especially measurements even photos of how the neck and bridge heights need to be in relation to the top of the soundboard/plank/box lid - it will save you the hassle later when you come to set up the string action.
Once you have decided on the body you then need to decide how many strings - 3, 4 ,6 or even 3 lots of 2 strings :O)
One other point is that if you have a camera post some photos as you go along otherwise you'll find you forget to take any and we are all nosey/interested.
Yes you can do it !
If you want to make a fretted guitar with the same scale length as the broken guitar then it is quite easy:
First off, get the dimansions of the old guitar copied onto a very large sheet of paper so that you have a life-size plan you can use as a template for getting the bridge position right.
The what you'll need to do is to make a thru-neck 'stub' which goes right thru the cigar box from the tail and emerges at the neck side, sticking out far enough to provide plenty of wood to mount the old guitar neck on to.
You will probably need to cat part of the old guiatr neck heel shallower and flat to mount onto the 'stub' you create. Do whatever you can to make this joint really strong as it will have to take the tension of the strings.
Yeah, I'd go with John on this. You've already got a perfectly good "box" in the form of the body of the guitar, you just need to work out a way to make sure it's connected solidly to the neck. Can you post pics of what you've got? That might help people make more specific suggestions.
Hmm, you could learn how to take the neck out and re-set it? Always a useful skill to have...then turn it into a reso or something. Or just build a box body that it will fit the neck and scale length.
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/15112009440-1?context=album&...
This is my very 1st build.
I didnt worry about scale size at the time cause i took out the frets.
and i used a bolt as a floating bridge so i could move it till it sounded right .
At the time i didnt care about all the tech stuff just went ahead a built the thing,
and it sounds ace.
I`ll measure it for you if you like,which will give you a rough idea (so let me know)
But i guess what i would do now if i was building another i`d make sure i`d got a box long enough so i could make it a 25.5 scale.
Replies
Hope you don't mind me posting a photo of your dulcimer (and apologies if you do) - I do prefer to add a link to the original photo but it was hidden in the general comments section here so I couldn't.
Also I thought it was too good a build not to add to the possible ideas available.
Regards,
David
Sherb said:
Sherb said:
By coincidence I went to the skip on Sunday afternoon to dump some crap and came away with a Honer 6 string that some chap was throwing out. Got it home tuned it and away it goes....don't think classical nylon strings are for me though .Good luck with it.
Absolutely brilliant - much food for thought! - will post progress - altho', knowing me, it won't be quick!
All my CBGs so far have been based upon wooden 35mm slide boxes as the only cigar box I bought off ebay was poor quality and really small - sadly these photo boxes I think would be too small for what you need.
The following are my muddled thoughts on it (I had a similar idea about converting a classical guitar previously so have added some links I found on the www).
It depends on what you are hoping for at the end and how much time and effort you want to put in.
You can go for a repair so you end up with a classical guitar (good experience but not much fun - also you can pick up classical guitars really cheap off ebay if that is what you wanted)
You could try to convert to a resonator as suggested above - like these off the internet http://www.instructables.com/id/Resonator-guitar-converted-from-old...
http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DcEtPSIgw3d4
Trying to find cigar boxes big enough will be really hard in the UK and if you get too big a box it feels like playing a suitcase. A design that might work is like the travel guitars (martin back packer or lindo travel guitar
Sherb (a member here) made a great looking one (Dulcimer)
If you are planning to add a piezo then you are not reliant on a big soundboard so could use a plank for a body and make your own "silent"guitar
If you decide to go for a different body Kevin makes a really good point about doing a diagram of what you have - especially measurements even photos of how the neck and bridge heights need to be in relation to the top of the soundboard/plank/box lid - it will save you the hassle later when you come to set up the string action.
Once you have decided on the body you then need to decide how many strings - 3, 4 ,6 or even 3 lots of 2 strings :O)
One other point is that if you have a camera post some photos as you go along otherwise you'll find you forget to take any and we are all nosey/interested.
Good luck,
David
If you want to make a fretted guitar with the same scale length as the broken guitar then it is quite easy:
First off, get the dimansions of the old guitar copied onto a very large sheet of paper so that you have a life-size plan you can use as a template for getting the bridge position right.
The what you'll need to do is to make a thru-neck 'stub' which goes right thru the cigar box from the tail and emerges at the neck side, sticking out far enough to provide plenty of wood to mount the old guitar neck on to.
You will probably need to cat part of the old guiatr neck heel shallower and flat to mount onto the 'stub' you create. Do whatever you can to make this joint really strong as it will have to take the tension of the strings.
This is my very 1st build.
I didnt worry about scale size at the time cause i took out the frets.
and i used a bolt as a floating bridge so i could move it till it sounded right .
At the time i didnt care about all the tech stuff just went ahead a built the thing,
and it sounds ace.
I`ll measure it for you if you like,which will give you a rough idea (so let me know)
But i guess what i would do now if i was building another i`d make sure i`d got a box long enough so i could make it a 25.5 scale.