Posted by Eric Townsend on November 15, 2010 at 6:01pm
Bottom view_I drilled out the sides all the way (stopped 1/2" short of going through completely__for weight relief and tone chambers. Very stiff and super light Poplar --- the thing now RINGS like a music Wood Block. very musical tap tones. And drilled out the bottom block a bit for tone chambering
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Warmoth will do some kinds of custom stuff, but i think it'd be pricey for them to write a CNC program for your chambering...couldn't hurt to ask them.
this box...actually sounds great fired up -- I wouldn't change a thing...but it's really purely an electric...a cool acousticy sounding electric...but no way to know how much the box side chambers and stuff really make a difference when plugged in...the top is so stiffly braced with oak strips and the heel under the bridge is so solid all the way top to back there's no movement to the top -- so the whole thing is a rock -- it does have insane sustain and sounds great clean through an amp...honestly like a piano...you give it a firm open strum and can walk away for five minutes and the strings are still going...so it's got a good solid resonate neck and core..... I've fallen in love with it...great warm cleans with mid-character and when I put it through my TS-9 it's so organic crunchy an bluesy like sick Stones and Zeppelin tones -- then if I stack that through a huge gain distortion I can do Sabbath and sludge metal slide tones that peel paint.
the box BACK panel is basically free floating and when strummed acoustically and pulled away from your body, rings crystal clear pure tone pingy harmonics in tune with C and G for some reason...well I did notice before I glued the top and back on that the box tap tones were sympathetic to G by accident...but when I pull the box away from my body when plugged in I don't hear a great diff (like I do with my piezo-disk first CBG, which radically changes tone whether pressed against my stomach or tipped away so the back floats free: that's actually cool. it goes from sounding like a guitar to a banjo in a second)
very psyched on the ergonomics on this new build...the blatantly radiused fretboard lets me dig in and isolate strings without clicking the neck with the slide! Wish it wasn't such a chore to shape the neck like this...
Yeah, I saw those Warmoth bods a couple months ago. Made me think it would be waaay kewl to get some Chladni patterns from a dreadnought acoustic printed up, overlay them on a slab of solid ash or poplar, rout the tone chambers and ribs based on the Chladni pattern, then finish it off with a quilted maple cap. I wonder if Warmoth would do the routing? Hmm.
Anyway, I like that box you did. How does it sound powered up?
Danka to all...Oily: I was at first gonna drill the front and back walls, but was not sure about where I was gonna mount the strap peg(s) or the input jack etc...so kindof just went safe...I know the walls look three feet thick, but i'd selected the wood so carefully, it's nice and stiff poplar but light as heck. Not so sure it matters a ton since this one ended up being a magnetic pickup build rather than a acoustic one...but I've loved the idea of playing around with mega chambering and various sizes of holes like you mentioned....
I have a fantasy about taking a full-sized slab guitar body and just going to town drilling random-sized holes all over right next to each other ...then putting a thin ply layer on the top and back -- have you seen the killer 'hollow' strat bodies offered by Warmoth? insanely cool routing chambers of all different sizes...really neat. I want one!
I've debated doing the exact same thing, except it involves drilling sideways out the through-neck beam. Somewhere here I've seen abuild that did this, using variable size holes for different frequency transmission. Silly Q: how come you didn't also partially tone chamber the short sides? I'm guessing to resist tensional forces transmitted through the neck?
Yeah, I second Rand: his HMRB 101 v2 gets up to some interesting discussions. Come join us!
Hope you post some audio / video when you finish this one. Whatcha gonna call 'em? Cheesebox Instruments, with internal Swiss components? >:-E
Hey Rand, Thanks for the note___ Still in progress...final shaping and making the steel hardware tail piece and bridge and even though the neck is glued-in set neck (into the sharpest TIGHTEST custom neck pocket) I'm gonna do a 2-bolt on plate on the heel to make it yank/tweak-proof and take pressure off the glue ... the neck and headstock is seemingly badass sculpted , but no way to know really until it gets strung up ... was hoping to get it done before Christmas...but it may have to be finished in the new year... I pray it doesn't turn out to be a beautiful turd.
As for the 'sound-box' --- man this thing just RINGS when you tap it...PONG! BONG! and if you put your ear to the tip of the headstock and just BARELY even scratch the body end where the tail piece is going it sounds like you're scratching the inside of your brain...insane sound-wave transfer up the neck... FIngers crossed
How has this project been going. Would like to know how well it turned out. We have a new CBN group called
'Home Made Resonator Boxes 101' where we talk about home made sound boxes and yours seems quite sophisticated. Maybe you could tell us more about your design, the thinking behind it, and whether the instrument performs in the way you were planning, etc. Yours does look very solidly constructed. Have you built other sound boxes? If so, how do your different building methods compare? Lots we could talk about.
Comments
Warmoth will do some kinds of custom stuff, but i think it'd be pricey for them to write a CNC program for your chambering...couldn't hurt to ask them.
this box...actually sounds great fired up -- I wouldn't change a thing...but it's really purely an electric...a cool acousticy sounding electric...but no way to know how much the box side chambers and stuff really make a difference when plugged in...the top is so stiffly braced with oak strips and the heel under the bridge is so solid all the way top to back there's no movement to the top -- so the whole thing is a rock -- it does have insane sustain and sounds great clean through an amp...honestly like a piano...you give it a firm open strum and can walk away for five minutes and the strings are still going...so it's got a good solid resonate neck and core..... I've fallen in love with it...great warm cleans with mid-character and when I put it through my TS-9 it's so organic crunchy an bluesy like sick Stones and Zeppelin tones -- then if I stack that through a huge gain distortion I can do Sabbath and sludge metal slide tones that peel paint.
the box BACK panel is basically free floating and when strummed acoustically and pulled away from your body, rings crystal clear pure tone pingy harmonics in tune with C and G for some reason...well I did notice before I glued the top and back on that the box tap tones were sympathetic to G by accident...but when I pull the box away from my body when plugged in I don't hear a great diff (like I do with my piezo-disk first CBG, which radically changes tone whether pressed against my stomach or tipped away so the back floats free: that's actually cool. it goes from sounding like a guitar to a banjo in a second)
very psyched on the ergonomics on this new build...the blatantly radiused fretboard lets me dig in and isolate strings without clicking the neck with the slide! Wish it wasn't such a chore to shape the neck like this...
Eric,
Yeah, I saw those Warmoth bods a couple months ago. Made me think it would be waaay kewl to get some Chladni patterns from a dreadnought acoustic printed up, overlay them on a slab of solid ash or poplar, rout the tone chambers and ribs based on the Chladni pattern, then finish it off with a quilted maple cap. I wonder if Warmoth would do the routing? Hmm.
Anyway, I like that box you did. How does it sound powered up?
Danka to all...Oily: I was at first gonna drill the front and back walls, but was not sure about where I was gonna mount the strap peg(s) or the input jack etc...so kindof just went safe...I know the walls look three feet thick, but i'd selected the wood so carefully, it's nice and stiff poplar but light as heck. Not so sure it matters a ton since this one ended up being a magnetic pickup build rather than a acoustic one...but I've loved the idea of playing around with mega chambering and various sizes of holes like you mentioned....
I have a fantasy about taking a full-sized slab guitar body and just going to town drilling random-sized holes all over right next to each other ...then putting a thin ply layer on the top and back -- have you seen the killer 'hollow' strat bodies offered by Warmoth? insanely cool routing chambers of all different sizes...really neat. I want one!
I've debated doing the exact same thing, except it involves drilling sideways out the through-neck beam. Somewhere here I've seen abuild that did this, using variable size holes for different frequency transmission. Silly Q: how come you didn't also partially tone chamber the short sides? I'm guessing to resist tensional forces transmitted through the neck?
Yeah, I second Rand: his HMRB 101 v2 gets up to some interesting discussions. Come join us!
Hope you post some audio / video when you finish this one. Whatcha gonna call 'em? Cheesebox Instruments, with internal Swiss components? >:-E
As for the 'sound-box' --- man this thing just RINGS when you tap it...PONG! BONG! and if you put your ear to the tip of the headstock and just BARELY even scratch the body end where the tail piece is going it sounds like you're scratching the inside of your brain...insane sound-wave transfer up the neck... FIngers crossed
'Home Made Resonator Boxes 101' where we talk about home made sound boxes and yours seems quite sophisticated. Maybe you could tell us more about your design, the thinking behind it, and whether the instrument performs in the way you were planning, etc. Yours does look very solidly constructed. Have you built other sound boxes? If so, how do your different building methods compare? Lots we could talk about.
-Rand.
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