Thanks to illness, family matters, school work (I teach at my local community college), and life in general, I've been otherwise engaged for a couple of weeks. This afternoon, I managed to get a few hours work in, and took a few pics as I went along.   …

Me and Hollowbelly have been on the road again, this time to Germany. We'd been to the Van Thom Weekender in Bremen (more of that in another blog), and now were headed down south on another long drive to a tiny village called Pleutersbach on the river Neckar. It was a long and winding road about 40  minutes drive up river from the beautiful city of Heidelberg..and when we got there we astonished at how tiny and rural the place was...but the stage had been built in a barn just off the main…

We've got free plans, cool videos and more in this week's newsletter.…

Completed my first CBG, though it was technically the second one I started building. Learned a lot, especially what not to do. Mainly, don't rush - some frets (cotter-keys) are a smidge crooked. It sounds really good though to my untrained ear. My second (no pictures as of yet) was the first I started and eventually completed - is a neck through that I put polyurethane on. Has same scale and box, but it sounds like a banjo. I almost hate to send this one off...…

Check out this BBC radio for program Making History, WW1 and the Blues

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pgvjv

How would I go about aquiring one?

So today I went for broke and scarfed the neck.  First, I marked up all the locations, from the tailpiece to the end of the box, to both inside locations, the bridge location, the heel, the nut location, and the headstock length.  Using the suggestions from the forum (thanks to all!) I located the scarf area and made the cut using a flush cut saw from Harbor…

I've been toying with building a Civil War Era style banjo. After a dozen CBGs and other stuff, I think it's time.

I have the pot and neck wood in hand, but decided it might be smart to build this virtually first, just to make sure it all fits together. Plus, I can take measurements off the drawing and minimize screw-ups (which are more common that I'd like to admit.)

Anyway, here are my Sketchup drawings. Obviously, the neck will get tapered and thinned. Also have to engineer…

Design parameters

600mm scale length, 20 frets. cigar box is 270 x170x50 mm

threaded rod as nut and bridge

string through on 35 mm overhang

neck%20layout.pdf 

600mm%20scale%20length%20fret%20guide.txt

thanks Jhono for the tips on getting…

gotta love it when you spend a few hours making a finger joint jig, and just about the time that you think that its running good, the index pin snaps off...hopefully the glue joint repair will hold up...oh well, enough whining for now

Hi everyone, my name is tim.

I have been playing guitar on and off ( mostly off tune) since i was about 13 when my step father found a handmade guitar under someones house when he was installing telephones back in 1973.

 I have seen Cigar Box Guitars around over the years and always wanted to have a go with one. So i figure now is the time to start and after reading through the forums here and a intensive 3 week google self education binge it time!

I am going to start…