I've been building for a while now and like most of us, my instruments are built with a straight piece of 1.5" wide wood.
I've come to really like playing with a straight fingerboard with no taper. Now I'm starting to wonder why all mass produced st
Read more…I want to build my first lap steel guitar. Only problem is I have had almost no exposure to one before and I have nothing to model it against.
Is it a standard guitar scale?
Do I fret it?
How high should the action be?
Where is the best place to in s
Read more…I want to paint over a piece of wood (pine) and I don't want the grain to show through the finished coat. Like a factory guitar
What should I use to coat the wood before painting it?
Read more…I've been toying with the idea of building a dog dish resonator for a long time.
They look great but how do they really sound?
I've seen a lot of pictures but haven't seen a lot of videos featuring them, which leads me to believe they're all show an
Read more…When I found this site I thought I would build one or two guitars and move on to something else. But, I've seen some wildly creative instruments on this site that have provided me with a constant source of inspiration. Now I'm 30 instruments in and s
Read more…I'm building a bass using weed wacker strings. I'm using an acoustic pre amp. Initially I put the rod in the bridge but I got very little output.I got rid of the rod and wired two disks in parallel. Now the out put swings from low to loud. I checked
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I love building CBGs, so much so that I need to occasionally thin the herd.
Twice a year I pack up my instruments and sell them. The two places I go to sell is a "RocknRoll Flea Market" in the Spring and a "Ukulele Festival in the Fall".
My booth al
Read more…Now that it's legal to buy Cuban cigars in the US, I was wondering if there are any brands that come in boxes that are good for building CBGs?
I know I have a few favorite Nicaraguan boxes.
Are there any I should be looking out for?
Read more…I saw this great video from Stewart McDonald about how to fix buzzing frets.
Read more…One of my guitars rubbed up against something and got this running dent in it.
Any advice on how to fix it?
Do dog dish resonators really work or do they just look cool?
Do you put a cone under the dog dish?
I've been thinking of building one for a long time but I really wanted to know what to expect from the finished product.
Is it about style or sound or
Read more…I've never built anything with the intention of selling it, but I find once I accumulate about a dozen CBGs the herd needs to get thinned. So about once a year I find a craft fair or flea market to show my guitars and hopefully send some to a new hom
Read more…I have an Ibanez Mimx 30 amp. For a $100 amp it sounded awesome when it was new . Now it hums a lot . My teen age son used to use the amp a lot and I'm sure he beat on it quite a bit.
Is the probable cause of the hum a blown speaker or does the elect
Read more…I recorded a multi track song on a Tascam multi track recorder.
It saved the file ac a cda, now I can't do anything with the format.
How do I convert it to a wav or MP3?
Read more…I was just admiring some pictures posted by Scott aka Farmer Ted of two beautiful flame maple guitars that he just finished.
It got me wondering, where to go to buy nice wood like that.?
I've been relegated to Lowes and Home Depot. So, all I have acc
Read more…I've been building and playing for about 3 years now. I mostly play 4 string guitars because that is what Im most familure with and there are lots of places to find uke tabs.
At this stage on 3 stingers I've mastered the major, minor and 7th chords
Read more…I have a buddy who's just getting started on a three string. He asked me to tab Wild Honey for three string.
Here are the chords.
Wild Honey By U2
(0)In the days
(0)When we were swinging from the trees
(0)I was A (5)monkey
(5)Stealing honey from a
Read more…I was just thinking about what famous guitars players got their start by learning to play the ukulele before the guitar.
Here are the names that came to mind:
Jimi Hendrix,
Neil Young
Dick Dale
Johnny Winter
Let me know if you can think of others.
Read more…I just built my first case. I used poplar to frame it and 1/4 " birch plywood to sheath it. It has a small battery operated amp built in. I got a little crazy putting on steel corners and other hardware. It cost way more to build then the guitar that
Read more…I've seen all kinds of things used as resonator cones dog bowls, paint can lids, cookie tins, pot covers, hub caps... They all look really cool but do any of these items really work well as resonators?
What, other then a factory made cone works best
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